One university after another has
granted degrees to women or degree certificates in place of the degrees
which were refused; women are resident students at some universities and
at others present themselves on equal terms with men for examination.
The way has been opened to them in some professions and in many spheres
of activity from which they had been formerly excluded.
One advantage of the English mode of proceeding in these great questions
is that the situation can be reconsidered from time to time without the
discordant contentions which surround any proclamation of non-success in
State concerns. We feel our way and try this and that, and readjust
ourselves, and a great deal of experimental knowledge has been gained
before any great interests or the prestige of the State have been
involved. These questions which affect a whole people directly or
indirectly require, for us at least, a great deal of experimenting
before we know what suits us. We are not very amenable to systems, or
theories, or ready-made schemes. And the phenomenon of tides is very
marked in all that we undertake. There is a period of advance and then a
pause and a period of decline, and after another pause the tide rises
again. It may perhaps be accounted for in part by the very fact that we
do so much for ourselves in England, and look askance at anything which
curtails the freedom of our movements, when we are in earnest about a
question; but this independence is rapidly diminishing under the more
elaborate administration of recent years, and the increase of State
control in education.
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