JUL 16 1897 
NATURAL SCIENCE 
A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress 
No, 65—Vor. XI—JULY 1897 
NOTES AND COMMENTS 
THE CAMBRIDGE GRACES 
On few recent educational questions have we felt such difficulty in 
forming an opinion as on the proposal that the women students at 
Cambridge should be granted the degrees for which they may have 
passed the examinations. Anxious that the opportunities for women’s 
education should be extended in every way, our natural sympathies 
were in favour of the proposals, There can be no doubt that those 
Girtonians and Newnhamites who enter the educational profession 
would find it a great advantage to have a Cambridge degree. To 
refuse it to women who have resided at Cambridge for the necessary 
number of terms, and have passed all the prescribed examinations, 
seems to us unfair and almost churlish, Women who have done 
the same work and stood the same tests as men, should surely be 
allowed the same certificate of efficiency. It seems to us hopeless 
to expect that popular opinion will ever estimate a Girton certificate 
as of equal value to a Cambridge degree, while the university 
refuses the latter. The present position of women students at 
Cambridge seems to us anomalous, illogical, and very unfair. But 
we doubt if the proposed changes would have improved matters. 
No one denies that had the graces been passed, there would have 
been a great increase in the number of women students at Cambridge. 
It is affirmed by some Cambridge authorities, whose opinions are 
usually entitled to respect, that the admission of women would have 
been followed by a considerable decrease in the number of male 
undergraduates. Suppose that in ten or twenty years’ time, there 
are half as many women students as men. It would then be 
intolerable that the tutors and lecturers at the women’s colleges and 
halls should have no voice in arranging the courses of study. If 
women be allowed the examinations and degrees, and form a third 
of the registered students, it would be quite unfair that they should 
not be eligible for all prizes and scholarships, and that their 
interests should not be protected by direct representation on the 
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