Page:The Influence of University Degrees on the Education of Women.djvu/1



considering the education of women in connexion with recent proposals for its improvement by means of examinations for University Degrees, it may be well to inquire at the outset, what is a Degree? In what does its value consist?

A University degree is neither more nor less than a certificate. At Oxford and Cambridge it certifies that the graduate has lived during a certain number of terms in a college or hall, has been devoting his time chiefly to study, and has passed divers [sic] examinations, which were meant to test his ability and knowledge. The degrees of the University of London also certified in the beginning, that graduates in Arts and Laws had been students during two years, at one or other of the affiliated institutions, which were to the University of London what the colleges are to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Few will deny the advantages of residence for two or three years in a college; and it may be easily seen how such residence, and the intercourse between students which it implies, may be made very greatly to lessen the dangers and disadvantages from which mere examination, taken alone, can scarcely be wholly free. It is possible that a young man, preparing at home for his degree, may be sufficiently crammed to pass, and may even find his name somewhere in a list of honours; and yet mistake knowledge for wisdom, and a retentive memory for genius. But in a college, such a man would be pretty sure to find his real level. He would find among his companions some, who with far less than his own powers of memory or application, would still unquestionably be his superiors. He would be made to feel quite easily, and almost without knowing how useful a lesson he was learning, that processes are almost as valuable as results; that what a man is, is of far more importance than what at any given time he can do, and that there are a thousand excellences that can find no room for display in any University examination whatever. Moreover, residence for two or three years in a college, implies comparatively easy circumstances, and ought, therefore, to imply all that society expects from gentlemen: and though many of the colleges connected with the University of London required no extravagant expenditure, and were, perhaps, not half so costly as those of Oxford and Cambridge, yet the term of residence was generally longer, being in many of them as long as five years.

The University of London, however, was intended to promote the education, not only of gentlemen, and of persons who could afford to live for several years at a college, but of all classes of her Majesty's subjects, without any distinction whatever; and accordingly in the new