THE CAMBRIDGE AND THE LONDON SYSTEM FOR WOMEN.
AN able correspondent in another column answers very completely a rather foolish and ignorant article in the Saturday Review of a fortnight ago on the London University's scheme for the examination of women. That article was, to all appearance, written by some perhaps clever, but certainly also silly man, whose daughter, sister, or other relative, felt aggrieved that the examination proposed by the University of London did not happen to be limited to studies in which she could have herself passed ; and the writer, taking up his relative's cause, foolishly pronounces the University which has proposed the examination to be guilty of "boundless perverseness" and "grotesque absurdity," and (more silly still) indulges in very unmeaning and rather vulgar abuse of some officer of the University, who appears to have informed the young lady,—as it was, of course, his dutyto do,—that what the University had said, it meant, the reviewer, thereupon, calling him "an official prig." Since this curious outburst of unintelligent wrath in the Saturday Review, the University of Cambridge has put forth its revised conditions for the examination of women ; and if we understand the Saturday reviewer's drift aright, (and his drift is sensible enough, though his violence in assailing the drift of a quite different conception is silly), its scheme meets his view much better than that of the London University. His idea is this :—" A few matters of absolute necessity being taken for granted, a girl should be allowed to 'win honour by showing real proficiency on the -subject of her own choice. She should show that she knows thoroughly, and not merely superficially, the main ordinary subjects of female education, and she should show besides that she has gained a really respectable knowledge of some special subject or Pubjeets of her own choosing. We assume that the girl should be made to show a competent Imowledge'of her own tongue, of French, and of some other language, ancient or modern ; that she should know that Alfred lived after Julius Cinsar, and not before ; that the earth goes round the sun, and not the sun round the earth,—but having shown this kind of necessary knowledge, let her have the widest possible range of special subjects to choose from." The Saturday reviewer here seems to be aiming at something not quite identical with either the London or the Cambridge examination, but nearer to the latter. It is, indeed, evident from the Cambridge conditions that a girl might pass and obtain a certificate of honour, even though she did firmly believe that the sun goes round the earth ; and though, as some English history is a sine quel non, she might be plucked for believing that Julius Cawar was a worthy of later date than Alfred, it is certain she might pass and get high honours, in spite of a fixed belief that a fair pair of scales could have unequal arms, or that a barometer might be just as efficient if the tube above the mercury had a hole in it as it was before. We suppose from what the Saturday reviewer tells us that he would disapprove of thus much laxity, but the general idea of the Cambridge examination clearly is to require, in its preliminary examination, only enough to mark a girl as not positively illiterate, as that word would be understood of women of our own generation ; and plainly the Cambridge Syndicate thinks that a woman need not be illiterate for never having heard of a lever, for not having the slightest idea that in using her scissors she is using a double lever, or for being completely ignorant of the pressure of the atmosphere and the causes of day and night. All that the Cambridge Syndicate demand as preliminary essentials, is (1) arithmetic ; (2) English history, and any geography needful to illustrate it ; (3) English language and literature ; (4) the power to write a short English composition. That is what is essential. Beyond this, in order to get a certificate, a girl may get up (for the current year) the first six books of Virgil and Cicero de Officiis, and show a fair grammatical knowledge of Latin ; or she may get up the Prometheus of 2Eschylus, the Alcestis of Euripides, the Apologia of Plato, and the Memorabilia of Xenophon, and show a competent grammatical knowledge of Greek ; or she may get up the Horace of Corneille, Les Pre'cieuses Ridicules of Moliere. the Atala of Chateaubriand, and the "Verre d'Eau of Scribe, and show a competent knowledge of French ; or she may get up Goethe's _Hermann and Dorothea, and Iphigenie my' Tauris, and the Thirty Years' War of Schiller, and show a competent knowledge of German ; or she may do a variety of other things, e.g., show some proficiency in mathematics, i.e., in the first six books of Euclid, a little solid geometry, algebra up to the binomial theorem, and the theory of logarithms ; or she may study thoroughly either Mr. Mill's Logic or his Political Economy, &c., &c. The candidate will get her certificate if she be, in the view of the examiners, not illiterate, i.e., tolerably familiar with English historical and literary traditions, and general geography, equal to casting up common accounts, and to writing decent English with the power to parse it, and if she have further so far applied herself to any one of a considerable list of subjects, of which we have only mentioned a few, as to acquire a proficiency of the kind indicated. The Cambridge examination is, in a word, well adapted to show whether a girl has been well taught what she has been taught, but as to what she ought to have been taught it barely offers an opinion. As far as this examination goes, the basis of a girl's education is what will pass her in society, while merit consists in having chosen and steadily pursued one or two subjects beyond what will pass her in society. The Cambridge Syndicate suggest no opinion whatever as to what a girl ought to learn at school, except that she should know as much as girls are usually expected to know ; that her mind should not be a blank about Shakespeare and Milton and Pope ; that she should have some notion of the dates of the Conquest, and the Reformation, and the Revolution, and what they all meant ; that she should know something of the atlas, be equal to household duties, to writing notes, and to speaking good grammar. They only hold that beyond this minimum amount of general knowledge, a girl should know something or other pretty thoroughly, it don't much matter what.
The London University have set out with a totally different idea, and, as we think, a much higher one ; but whether higher or not, it might at least, one would have supposed, have
occurred to the Saturday reviewer that there is no call for one university to do exactly what another is already doing, if a different function of great importance, contemplated at present by no University except the University of London, remains to be discharged. Now, there is such a function,— namely, the reflex influence to be exerted on the course of study of the higher girls' schools and the so-called ladies' colleges. What the London University evidently feels very strongly is, that a girl is not decently educated who is, in the present acceptation of the term as regards girls, only not illiterate. She may, as we have said, be not illiterate in the Cambridge use of the term, and yet be entirely ignorant of such matters as the weight of the atmosphere, or the laws of motion, or the very meaning of a "law of nature," or of the force of gravity and the centre of gravity, or of the process of combustion, or that bodies expand with heat and contract with cold, i.e., the principle of the thermometer, or of the velocity, refraction, and reflection of light, or of the velocity of sound. Now, the University of London thinks,—quite rightly, in our estimation,— that ignorance of the simplest elements of science ought to be illiterateness in precisely the same sense in which bad grammar and interpolated h's are illiterate, though it does not as yet entail a social disgrace, as the latter kind of ignorance does. The University of London wants to compel, so far as it can, girls' schools to teach the first elements of knowledge in all the leading departments,—not only the principles of arithmetic, or of two or three languages, but also the principles of geometry and physics, and at least one natural science. And to talk of this being in any sense difficult, much less impossible, or as shooting over the capacities of ordinary girls, is simple ignorance. When boys of sixteen,—in hundreds,— pass the London University's examination easily and well, an examination in which both elementary chemistry and natural philosophy are obligatory, it is absurd to say that girls of seventeen, or as much older as they choose, cannot pass an examination decidedly easier on the whole. Of course they can, if once the schools to which they go begin to aim at teaching them these things. And the only question to be asked is,—is it desirable that the managers of girls' schools should begin to think that it is incumbent on them to teach not only some two modern languages, but the root of a large proportion of all the languages of modern Europe, without which any real knowledge of their structure is really impossible, Latin,—and the elements of mathematics and physics, with some one natural science as well. The notion that thus much must involve cram is purely ludicrous. It is just as true, or false, as the notion that teaching a very young child how to speak, and how to skip or climb, and how to ride, and how to distinguish its letters, and how to count, and how to write, all at once, requires cram. Cram is not, as our correspondent "0." very justly observes, in the least to be confounded with the variety and breadth of elementary knowledge. Cram is not knowledge, but unintelligible statements learned by rote,—as different as possible from true knowledge of the mere elements of a subject. We doubt whether in any period of life so wide a range of learning is covered as in the earliest years of childhood, when all departments, of practical learning at least, are necessarily begun at once, simply because the child absorbs at all points from those among whom it lives. School life, when it is well conducted, is necessarily an intermediate stage between the vague, wide, loose learning of the nursery, and the special proficiency to which adepts attain in special branches. Anything unthoroughly learnt is cram, but nothing need be unthoroughly learnt only because it is learnt only in its elements.
No doubt the Cambridge idea in demanding a rather high knowledge of one or two subjects, to be selected at the discretion of the student or her teachers, is to ensure not simply that a girl shall have learnt something, but shall have really learnt how to learn, even though only on one subject. A school that teaches its pupils what the difference is between knowing, and thinking you know,—what the difference is between prosecuting a study to a stage at which you feel the new power it gives you, and simply learning enough of it not to feel foolish when any one else talks about it, has done a good deal. But we maintain that a good school can do and should do this and much more than this. It should familiarize with the characteristic types and methods of each of the great branches of human investigation, and not be content with language and literature alone. This is done in all really good schools,—whether for boys or girls,—without leaving the other undone. Every girl may be familiarized with the methods of the studies of language and literature, of number, of figure, of force, and of some one natural science, without preventing her from making very considerable progress in some one of these subjects. This is what the University of London wishes to see girls' schools, no less than boys' schools, attempting. It ventures to say more than Cambridge says,—namely,—' let every girl learn something beyond what the conventions of society require her to know, and let her learn that something well ;'—it says that the conventions of society do not at present require a girl to know half as much as it is very easy for her to know, very useful for her to know, and very delightful for her to know. She ought to have the methods of the principal branches of knowledge well implanted, and then she will have an intelligent command of the course of her own further education ; whereas a girl's taste for this or that, at present, only means in nine cases out of ten, that she has picked up some rumour of what this or that study really means, while she has not picked up any rumour of what various other studies, which might suit her better, really mean. The command of a certain elementary ground-plan of the methods of investigation and acquisition, are at least as important as an object and result of school education, as the mastery of any one method up to a point at which the full sense of new power is attained. Indeed, for the mere beginning of intellectual life we are not sure that it is not more important. The prosecution of particular lines of study is common enough in mature life, but the familiarization of the mind with the elementary ideas is rarely acquired after the first stage. We are satisfied that even if the University of Cambridge is pursuing the best course for its purpose,— namely, encouraging and certificating special acquirements beyond those of average girls, the University of London is pursuing the best course for its purpose,—namely, that of remoulding the teaching of girls' schools, and doing for them what it has already done in a great measure for the same class of schools for boys.
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