Note 459 — Chapter VI · GIRTON AND NEWNHAM

The committee of 1862 had had (as we see) for its avowed object the “obtaining the admission of women to university examinations”: the subsequent committee (of December 1867) was formed “for the establishment of a college holding to girls’ schools and home teaching a position analogous to that occupied by the universities towards the public schools for boys.” The following was the reply given by the first named committee when approached in March 1868 with a view to a joint memorial asking for “advanced examinations for women”:—“That this committee, believing that the distinctive advantage of the Cambridge University Local Examinations consists in their offering a common standard to boys and girls, and that the institution of independent schemes of examination for women exclusively tends to keep down the level of female education, cannot take part in the proposed memorial to the university of Cambridge for advanced examinations for women above the age of eighteen.”