THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. 25 



ing imiversitj degrees to women. It was simply proposed that the 

 students of ISTewnham and Girton, who should successfully com- 

 pete with male students in an honor course, should have an equal 

 right with the latter to receive the usual degrees from their alma 

 mater. After industrious inquiry among those who were foremost 

 in supporting and opposing this movement the writer has unearthed 

 no objection of weight against the change. " If the women were 

 granted degrees they would have votes in the senate," and " It never 

 has been done " — these are the two reasons most persistently urged 

 in defense of the conservative view; while justice and utility alike 

 appear to be for once, at any rate, unequivocally on the side of the 

 women. Prejudice defeated progress, and students celebrated the 

 auspicious occasion with bonfires. The step forward was taken 

 when the universities and their colleges decided to throw open their 

 gates to the graduates of other universities in England, America, 

 and elsewhere for the purpose of advanced study. But here, as in 

 other things, Cambridge leads the way, and Oxford follows fal- 

 teringly. The advanced students at Cambridge are treated like 

 Cambridge men, they have the status of Bachelors of Arts, and 

 possess in most respects the advantages, such as they are, of the 

 latter; while at Oxford the advanced students are a restricted class, 

 with restricted advantages, and their relation to the university is 

 not that of the other students. In Cambridge the movement which 

 has resulted in the present admirable condition of affairs was 

 largely brought about by the zeal and enterprise of Dr. Donald 

 MacAlister, of St. John's College, the University Lecturer in 

 Therapeutics, a man of wide sympathies and ability, and whose 

 name is closely associated with this university's metamorphosis into 

 a more modern institution. 



THE WONDERFUL CENTURY.* 



A REVIEW BY W. K. BROOKS, 



PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY IX THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 



EVERY naturalist has in his heart a warm affection for the 

 author of the Malay Archipelago, and is glad to acknowledge 

 with gratitude his debt to this great explorer and thinker and 

 teacher who gave us the law of natural selection independently of 

 Darwin. When the history of our century is written, the fore- 

 most place among those who have guided the thought of their gen- 

 eration and opened new fields for discovery will assuredly be gi^'en 

 to Wallace and Darwin. 



* Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1899. 



VOL. LVI. 3 



