Oxford, are beginning to tread in the same steps as Girton and Newnham, and, being conducted on similar principles, will doubtless attain no less brilliant success. The list of tutors and lecturers at Cambridge includes the names of many eminent University men, as well as of women who have appeared in the honour list; the students being also allowed to attend lectures in the Cavendish laboratory, as well as some others, elsewhere, on education.

What a girl's college life is like is as yet, of course, a matter of which little is known outside the circle of friends and acquaintances. It is a mystery into which even Mrs. Edwards, in her amusing novel, A Girton Girl,' has scarcely done more than peep; though she does say that, however deep the foundations of Newnham and Girton may be, the 'foundations of the Gog-Magog Hills are deeper! Girl 'wranglers may come, girl optimists may go, the heart of 'woman remains unchanged.' Yet a glimpse of it has been offered to us by A Girton Girl,'* and shall be sketched for our readers, as far as possible, in her own words.

To

The first thing in the routine of the women's colleges, which an Oxford or Cambridge man would notice, is that the arrangements as to meals, &c., involve much more of common life than is the case in the University. quote the phrase of an undergraduate, 'The men live on staircases, the women in corridors.' Yet, though this is the case, each fair student, once within her own rooms, has almost absolute freedom as to the disposal of her time; the only restriction, perhaps, being one of the students' own voluntary enactments-viz. that music and noise generally' should be confined to certain hours. She has two rooms, provided by the college with all necessary furniture, which may be increased at will by the student, with, in most cases, a charming result-flowers, pictures, bright draperies, cosy armchairs, and often a piano-thus making the study homelike and attractive.

6

There is no fixed hour for rising; but in the summer term early breakfast-parties are much in vogue, as many students get up to work before the college breakfast hour, and as a rule are not inclined to burn the midnight oil. The real day begins at 8 A.M., when prayers are read in the college library, at which, though the attendance appears to be optional, the majority of the students are present. Then comes breakfast in hall, which, however, does not seem to

* A Girl's College Life,' by a Student at Girton.

be a very social meal, each girl helping herself, we are told, and reading newspapers and letters, before she hurries off to work in her own room. Some-natural science students -drive into Cambridge for practical work in the laboratories; while others, after an interval of chat, settle down for four or five hours of downright steady work elsewhere, before lunch-an informal meal, again, to be had in hall at any hour between twelve and three. That over, next comes the pleasant time for exercise-a good ramble over the fields for flowers and berries; a game at tennis or racquets; pianos are to be heard in the building, or the rarer sound of a violin. Thus refreshed, the young students are ready for the afternoon lectures, delivered by male professors who come out from Cambridge for the purpose; and so the day wears on apace. About 4 P.M. the cup of afternoon tea finds its welcome way into most rooms, giving a zest to the solution of some final problem, before the formal dinner in hall at six, when, however, evening dress is not worn save by the 'donnas' at the high table. The meal itself is brief, the 'head' rising at about 6.30, when the whole bevy disperse for a gossip with friends, a chapter of a new novel, a solitary stroll in the grounds for the sentimental, or another hour's work for the studious. Later on follow meetings of such societies as rejoice in debate, choral singing, poetical readings, and above all, that specially delightful feature in Girton life-tea-parties for special 'guests, old college chums,' noctes cænæque dearum, when 'the sweets of the night come in.' As to the hour of repose, each girl follows her own dainty will, though in some colleges the students are forbidden to be in each other's rooms after eleven, without special leave.

Thus fly on in even course the golden periods of a girl's academic life, varied perhaps by visits to or from special friends in Cambridge (excluding the junior members of the University), or by some special event in the routine of college work-a Greek play, an intercollegiate tennis match, an alarm fire-brigade practice, or a prize day—until the welcome Sunday comes to wind up and crown the week. On that morning most of the students attend some place ' of worship;' later on in the day many are off to the University sermon and the service at King's Chapel. But a good deal of writing goes on among the students themselves, or between Girton, Newnham, and other colleges, and many letters are written. At Girton, evening prayers are read, with a sermon by one of the lecturers from

Cambridge, the musical part of the service being rendered by a choir of students, when nearly everybody attends.'

No sketch of Girton, however, is complete without a special note as to the expense of the whole course. The fees, which include all non-personal expenses, are 351. a term, making a total outlay for the three years' course of 315., which covers all the University and college charges of every kind. It may, therefore, be taken roughly that candidates for Girton must possess in esse or posse at least 3501.; a fact which must tend considerably to limit their number to a comparatively small class. It is true that scholarships and exhibitions are attached to most of the colleges, but the gaining of these demands in most cases special training and special cramming, and private tutors are costly and beyond the reach of all but the wealthy. It must be added that the period of residence extends over only half the year, so that the expenses of the other half, as well as the cost of dress, travelling, &c., remain to be provided for, and the actual cost of a Girton student is not much below that of a young gentleman at college.

Such, mainly, in her own words, is a brief sketch of 'A 'Girl's Life at Girton,' to which she appends a final remark or two on the question as a whole. The movement has now gone on so far and so widely that there are already at Girton as many varieties among the students, as in the wider world of the University. They are not now, even if so at first, all reading men,' or, rather, reading women, preparing for professional life, or filled with special enthusiasm for study, and a sacred thirst for knowledge pure and simple; but, as among men, some inclined for the earthly joys of idleness, and some for diviner things, some who 'sap,' and some, as Mr. Foker' once put it, who 'sup.' There are sets, too, among the ninety girl undergraduates, as among their male rivals; but the general spirit of the place is clearly for work. Social distinctions (so thinks our guide) count, perhaps, for more than among men at college, but far less than among women in the outer world. As to the broad tone and spirit of the college, though not strongly Conservative, it would yet be unfair to suppose that any general spirit of revolt from the old ways of thinking obtains, and still more so to imagine that the moral atmosphere is against religion. In this respect the little world of Girton would seem to be much like the greater world of Babylon; while, in proportion, the more earnest spirits of the microcosm have greater power and influence.

So far, then, we have the fair picture of Girton from a friend and a disciple, writing of the things which she has practically known and still loves. It is well, therefore, to hear also the words of a woman who is neither a friend nor a disciple of Girton or of the movement which gave rise to it, but whose caustic pen has already made its mark in the world of women in the well-known Girl of the Period.' We mean Mrs. Lynn Linton.

For well-paid intellectual work,' she says, a good education is naturally the first necessity. But, for all that, many girls go to Girton and to Newnham who do not mean to live professionally by their education; girls who want to escape from the narrow limit of home, and yearn after the quasi-independence of college life, to whom the unknown is emphatically the magnificent, and who desire novelty above all things, leaving but a remnant of the purely studiousthose who love learning for its own sake only, independent of gain, kudos, freedom, or novelty. And these, she adds, are women who would have studied as ardently and with 'less strain at their own homes, with a longer time spent ' over their education, and their health not injured by doing in three years the work of six, become Somervilles, Herschels, and Burneys.'

But surely, if the deduction intended to be drawn from this assertion is that no women can ever hope to become Somervilles or Herschels but those unable to obtain University training, it is one which needs no refutation; while, if it be meant to apply to women only, it is of far too narrow and partial a construction to be true. If, again, the students at Girton are said to be actuated by sordid, base, and silly motives in seeking for higher education, it is only reasonable to ask for some proof that such is the case. If any are thus actuated, the real question is, How many? And on what evidence does the charge rest? The author adduces no evidence to prove that any students are thus actuated.

If the accusation be true, and thus fatal to Girton's success, no less fatal must it be to the value of all university training whatever-for young men at Oxford or Cambridge, or elsewhere. It either proves this, or it proves nothing; sordid and silly motives being an infirmity to which both sexes are equally liable. In her eagerness to slay the enemy, Mrs. Lynn Linton has caught up a weapon with a double edge, and damaged her own cause. Nor is she more logical or more lucky in the further assertion that it is mere folly to send to Girton girls who may marry, and so render the

'whole outlay of no profit or avail.' If we look into the lives of famous literary men, the husbands of literary women, whether ancient or modern, facts point the other way. Surely marriage is not to be confined to the propagation of ignorance. A woman can hardly be doomed to perpetual virginity simply because she is able to initiate a daughter into the mysteries of a quadratic equation, or help a son to cross the perilous 'pons asinorum.' Her husband will not love her a whit the less simply because she can appreciate the point of his favourite quotation from Horace. Her knowledge of mathematics will not prevent her love for her children; and if able to read Greek, she will still be able to distinguish between packthread and silk. An acquaintance with Greek iambics is hardly fatal to the making of a rice pudding, or with the cæsura any bar to the darning of a stocking. The sage of Bolt Court, indeed, once solemnly warned Boswell that a man in general is better pleased when ' he has a good dinner on the table than with a wife who can 'talk Greek.' But why should he not enjoy both these sources of pleasure? Every girl at a high school nowadays takes lessons in cookery, and may learn how to roast a leg of mutton before she touches an irregular verb. The veriest polyglot of a linguist may know how to cook a calf's head -tongue and brains included-as skilfully as she can handle a Greek root.

Yet we are told that marriage knocks the whole thing 'to pieces,' as if no woman were fit or worthy to enter the temple of Hymen unless badly educated or half-witted. If, indeed, it be true that the great mass of women think 'that they know better than they can be taught,' let them be sent to Girton, where in six months any such idle conceit will be swept clean out of their heads, and scire se nescire become their highest wisdom. While if, again, they 'refuse the testimony of facts, and for them the logic of history has no lesson,' no surer cure for such perversity can be devised than a course of Darwin, Seeley, or Sidgwick.

There are yet, however, two final clauses in the indictment which must be noticed before passing on to another section of our subject. Goethe's mother,' we are told, 'could not have written "Faust," but she produced the man who did ' write it,' meaning us to infer that, being as a woman deaf to the evidence of fact, and incapable of understanding the logic of history, she could but accomplish the smaller achievement of bearing a son. Yet,' says Carlyle, no mean authority, it must have been from his mother that Goethe