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—as you may know—they are virtually admitted to them already through the kind offices of friendly Examiners. It was a distinct step in advance when what is now Girton College was opened in 1869, at Hitchin. This was an uncompromising attempt to create for women a College, not like Queen's or Bedford, but of the same type as the Cambridge Colleges. And the attempt has prospered. This College has made gradual assured progress, and is still lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes. In the same year an association was formed to organise Lectures for women at Cambridge; and as a place of residence for the students who were drawn to the town for the sake of attending these Lectures, a boarding-house was opened, which has developed into Newnham Hall and Norwich House and many lodgings under the same supervision. Oxford, as it has done throughout this movement, is following in the wake of Cambridge. A similar association has been formed there, and two Halls are about to be opened, one of them bearing the honoured name of Mrs. Somerville, for the reception of students. In London, University College some years ago gave encouragement and hospitality to a Ladies' Association, which made arrangements for the voluntary instruction of classes by Professors of that College, and it has now gone on to open most of its Lecture-rooms, I believe, to women and men indiscriminately. More recently, King's College, not to be behind its rival, planted an offshoot for women in Kensington, which sprang at once into flourishing prosperity. And lastly, to change the metaphor, the edifice was crowned, when the University of London, which had already opened its Matriculation Examination to young women, was induced in 1878 to know no distinction of sex in examining for, and admitting to, any of its degrees. It was to the determined attempt to open the medical profession to women that this last success was due. And I might well include, amongst the most important achievements for the promotion of female education, the establishment of the London School of Medicine for women, which is now training female medical students on exactly the same level as that of the Hospital Schools for men.
Well, in this concession of the University of London women have received all that they can ask from a University.
