Page:Thirty years' progress in female education.djvu/18

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College has not moved so high above the earth as to disdain examinations. The College was established and incorporated, "for the general education of ladies, and for granting certificates of knowledge." We have given, and continue to give, certificates to those who are proved by examination to be entitled to them. The general work of the pupils during the year is tested at the end of the Easter Term by Cambridge Examiners. But we have resolved to place in future the Matriculation Examination of the University of London as the goal of our old Four Years' course. The subjects required by that examination will be expressly taught in the second senior or fourth year, although the teaching of the College will include other subjects as well. As a sequel to this Four Years' course, we are establishing a distinct Higher Course of two years; and the teaching to be given in these years will keep in view the next succeeding Examinations of the University, the first and the second for the B.A. degree. As before, we shall not limit the Lectures of this more advanced course to the subjects of the Examinations; we propose to continue such courses of Lectures as we have had this year on Church history, political economy, botany, physiology, and other subjects, but we shall make it our object to aid as effectually as we can any students who may aim at the degree. I will not weary you by reciting now the respective subjects of these three Examinations; they may be found in the London University Calendar, or in the Queen's College Calendar which we are about to issue for the first time this year. Our programme of Lectures and Lecturers will also be announced as soon as it can be definitely arranged. The working of our scheme may not improbably show deficiencies and want of complete organisation at first; but our ambition is to draw to Queen's College earnest students of the same age and class as those who are now pursuing their studies at Cambridge, and we are prepared not only to welcome them with sympathy but also to make any special effort that may seem desirable to assist them in their aims. I need hardly say that those who may succeed in obtaining the B.A. degree of the University of London will secure evidence, both for their own satisfaction and for that of others, of their having received a very sound and superior education.

Some of those who have already passed the Matriculation