by Bart Schultz
The move to Newnham, it should be explained, was in some ways an
antidote to Sidgwick’s later depression, though it did involve a severe
pruning of the Sidgwick library:
The trial, in the first year of her Principalship, must have been severe, the more
for its agitating effect on her husband. In April, sorrow came on him, – John
Addington Symonds died in Rome: a calamity “long expected but irreparable.”
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Henry had forthwith to bring his best gifts to help the biographers: as he had done
in his living services to that sick friend. He was barely well at the time, dogged by sleeplessness, feeling the consequent drain on his daytime energy. Here and there
in his letters, and the last pages of the journal written for “Johnnie’s” eye, there
comes to the surface a deep conviction that the time allotted him, to complete his
own task, would not be long.
However, the move into Newnham, and the utterly insoluble problem of re-
ducing his over-grown library to fit their destined rooms, on the first floor of the
new buildings, were a useful diversion. Mrs. Sidgwick’s own description of their
establishment there in New Year bears marks of relief at planting him in fresh
and pretty surroundings and what was then modern comfort. . . . Students’ rooms were on the floor above them; and from the windows they had a wide view of cheerful red and white buildings, trees and grass, with groups of girls moving about;
a space where Mr. Sidgwick could walk and air his thoughts, “absently stroking
his beard on the under side and holding it up against his mouth – a gesture very
habitual to him while meditating.” They had their own dining-room, for purposes
of entertainment. As for the books, they soon over-flowed again the shelves in the
long passage and his study, “somewhat small” as at Hillside. . . . Now and again a crisis would occur, and there was nothing for it but a drastic tidying up. “After
an hour or two of this had resulted in the destruction of much rubbish, and the
reduction of the rest of the accumulated masses to comparative order, he would
triumphantly invite a sympathetic inspection of the transformation effected.”
At any rate, even prior to the move, this work also provided forceful
reasons to remain at Cambridge. However dejected he was over the re-
actionary backlash, the accomplishments of his students were an intense
source of pride. Philippa Fawcett, the daughter of his old friends Henry
and Millicent Fawcett, surpassed all expectations when she headed the
list in the Mathematical Tripos of .
Indeed, the increasing success of his students and of his collaboration
with Eleanor convinced him that the setbacks the women’s movement
suffered were purely the result of the obtuse opposition of men – often
religiously conservative ones. Especially illuminating, however, was a con-
flict with Alfred Marshall in the s. Marshall, an early supporter of the
cause, turned against the Sidgwicks in the s, when he was also hostile
to Sidgwick as a “tyrant” of the Moral Sciences Board. and delivered his
infamous invidious comparison of Sidgwick to Green. He was a case in
point of the type of reaction Sidgwick feared would result from pushing the
case for full admission. This was revealed in another contretemps, in ,
that according to McWilliams Tullberg came from Marshall’s bigotry on
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such subjects as mixed lectures and including women in informal at-home
instruction. As Marshall confessed:
As regards the informal instruction and advice given ‘at home’, I do not admit
women to my ordinary ‘at home’ . . . but make occasional special appointments for them. I adopt this course partly because of the difficulty of getting men and women
to open their minds freely in one another’s presence, and partly because I find the
questions asked by women generally relate to lectures or book work and/or else
to practical problems such as poor relief. Whilst men who have attended fewer
lectures and read fewer books and are perhaps likely to obtain less [sic] marks in
examinations, are more apt to ask questions showing mental initiative and giving
promise of original work in the future.
Marshall apparently did not entertain the possibility that these differ-
ences were the result of societal sexism in shaping gender roles that called
for opposition rather than endorsement. Clearly, he had a low opinion of
women’s potential, and at about this time he produced a pamphlet claim-
ing that young women had special responsibilities to their families and
that it would be immoral (even unhealthy) for them to meet the residence
requirements of men, since at least half their time should be devoted to
the domestic sphere. This was of course a vital issue, given that contin-
uous residence at Cambridge – studying with one’s peers or in a “room
of one’s own” – was regarded as a crucial part of the educational experi-
ence, especially for women who needed to escape the crushing demands
of domesticity, But Marshall even quashed the academic career of his
wife, Mary Paley.
Such challenges emanating from a former ally led Eleanor Sidgwick,
now principal of Newnham, to issue one of her most forceful statements:
I may perhaps remind Professor Marshall that the whole course of the movement
for the academic education of women is strewn with the wrecks of hasty generali-
sations as to the limits of women’s intellectual powers. When the work here began,
many smiled at the notion that women, except one or two here and there, could be
capable of taking University honours at all. When they had achieved distinction in
some of the newer Triposes, it was still confidently affirmed that the highest places in the time-honoured Mathematical and Classical examinations were beyond their
reach. When at length a woman obtained the position of Senior Wrangler, it was
prophesied that, at any rate, the second part of the Mathematical Tripos would
reveal the inexorable limitations of the feminine intellect. Then, when this last
prophecy has shared the fate of its predecessors, it is discovered that the domestic
qualities of women specially fit them for Tripos examinations of all kinds, but not
for vigorous mental work afterwards. With this experience, while admiring the
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pertinacity and versatility of our opponents, we may be pardoned for distrusting
their insight and foresight; and in any case we
hope that the University will not
hesitate to allow women who satisfy its intellectual tests unrestricted opportuni-
ties for cultivating whatever faculties they possess for receiving, transmitting, and advancing knowledge.
This was a powerful Millian counter, one not hedged about with wor-
ries that the case for women was still in the experimental stage. Eleanor
simply flattened the father of modern economics, on count after count.
As McWilliams Tullberg summarizes the full scope of her counter:
Eleanor Sidgwick made an able reply to Marshall’s pamphlet, providing him with
hard facts about unmarried women, the health of students who try to combine
home commitments and study, and stressing the professional disadvantages of
having a qualification, a Tripos Certificate, the value of which was not universally
understood. She accepted that facilities for non-residential degrees were needed
by men and women alike and reminded Marshall of what was already available.
But college residence was a most valuable part of Cambridge education, mentally,
morally and physically, and those women who could take advantage of it should
not be denied it. As far as intellectual potential was concerned, Eleanor Sidgwick
challenged Marshall’s claim that women were not capable of constructive work.
What opportunities had women had for higher work? There were no fellowships,
prizes or academic posts available to them.
Eleanor may have referred to herself as “Mrs. Henry Sidgwick,” but
she was not exactly the champion of a “feminine feminist” ethic. As Janet
Oppenheim has argued, if
she thought that most women would find their greatest joy in marriage, she
denounced the notion that marriage was the only career worth having and warmly
sympathized with the need felt by many women for ‘the kind of happiness which
can only come from work’ and from ‘the habit of reasonable self-dependence
in thought and study’. . . . The most rewarding life for a woman, she believed, necessarily combined ‘intellectual autonomy with emotional bonds to friends and
family.’
As Eleanor herself put it,
There will always be gaps in domestic life which can best be filled by unmarried
girls and women of the family; help wanted in the care of old people and children
and invalids, or in making the work of other members of the family go smoothly,
to which a woman may well devote herself at some sacrifice of her own future – a
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sacrifice she will not regret. This kind of work can best be done by women, not
only because they are generally better adapted to it, but because the sacrifice is
not so clear nor so great in their case as it would generally be in that of a man.
Only let the cost be counted and compared with the gain, and do not let us ask
women to give up their chance of filling a more useful place in the world for the
sake of employing them in trivial social duties from which they might be spared
with little loss to anyone.
Thus, if Eleanor “never discounted the legitimacy of family claims on
a woman’s time, she always balanced her gospel of self-renunciation for
others with a paean to the joys of nurturing one’s own mental garden.” In
truth, Eleanor plainly had no doubt that women could enter into the true
spirit of the university, “the love of knowledge for its own sake and apart
from its examination and professional value.” Among such women
will be found a few who will add to our literary stores, and a few who will help
in advancing knowledge by reflection, observation, experiment, or research, or –
more humbly – by rendering accessible the work of others. Those who advance
knowledge will not probably be many – there are not many among men – but the
others if they have been really interested will not have wasted their time; and will
have received a training which will directly or indirectly help them in any work
they may undertake, and they will form part of the audience – the cultivated,
interested and intelligent public – without which scientific progress and literary
production is well nigh impossible.
The true university was, for both the Sidgwicks, in this way a model
of Millian friendship, affording “the sense of membership of a worthy
community, with a high and noble function in which every member can take
part,” along with “the habit of reasonable self-dependence in thought and
study.” Eleanor went on record often and emphatically with her hope that
the institutions of higher education “will never cease to aim at producing
that intellectual grasp and width of view which Mill regarded as their chief
object,” even if this must increasingly be done by teaching individuals “in
connection with their prospective careers.”
Clearly, Eleanor, like her husband, wanted it all – wanted the university
to open itself wider and extend itself further, to provide career training
for a more diverse and mixed student body but without relinquishing
the liberal, Millian ideal of imparting the culture that could form the
basis for a high-minded, sympathetic life and high-minded, sympathetic
friendships, including marital ones. Women, too, might achieve greatness.
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Although she denied that a university education would “disincline a
woman for marriage” and was prepared to agree that “for most women
marriage, provided it is marriage to the right man, offers the best prospect
of carrying out our ideal in the most satisfactory manner,” she nonetheless
insisted that “a cultivated mind and developed intelligence is likely to make
her a better companion for a man similarly endowed, and a better guide
and helper for her children.” Indeed, “any development of her faculties is
likely to give a woman a higher standard and therefore to some extent to
make her less likely to find the man she can care for among the men she
happens to be thrown with. But this of course is one of the ways in which
the chance of ill-assorted marriages is diminished.”
Thus, the Millian universities to be – Mill had of course despised the
actually existing ones, though he grew more hopeful when the academic
liberals came along – were to play a powerful part in reforming the family
along Millian lines. Again, Newnham had no religious trappings and was
educationally innovative – was, as Sidgwick allowed, a piece of practical
Millian and Mauricean reformism. And there is no evidence to suggest
that Henry was anything but supportive of the more radical points that
Eleanor advanced.
In truth, Eleanor, despite her class background, had a real feel for the
&n
bsp; Millian ideal. A Cecil and a Balfour, she had been raised so that her inde-
pendence, both financial and intellectual, was guaranteed. As Oppenheim
urges:
When we hear [Eleanor] Sidgwick telling Helen Gladstone to consider her own
opportunities to perform meaningful work before sacrificing herself to the care
of elderly parents; when we read about her confidently arguing with Bertrand
Russell over college finances; when we see her, as a married lady, spending hours
away from home and husband for the sheer delight of working in the Cavendish
laboratory – then we begin to feel confident that Lady Blanche did not destroy
Eleanor’s sense of self or capacity for self-assertion. It seems clear that Eleanor
learned as much from her mother about exercising authority as submitting to it.
Eleanor had, as noted, a love of, and gift for, mathematics and sci-
entific research, and she is listed as a coauthor, with her brother-in-law
Rayleigh, of a number of papers published in the Royal Society’s Philo-
sophical Transactions. Henry was only too happy to recognize and sup-
port his wife’s intellectual interests, freely admitting that, as in psychical
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research, she had much the better scientific mind. This judgment would
appear to be vindicated in their work for the SPR.
However, once again, it must be allowed that Sidgwick’s attitude toward
women had undergone a good deal of evolution. In his youthful debates
with the “Initial Society,” he had actually come out as far less advanced in
his views than Dakyns on the matter of women’s political equality:
Granting for the moment, a radical difference between masculine and feminine
minds, it surely does not follow that this difference should be increased rather than diminished by bringing it into prominence as early as possible. Just as it is thought best for boys, of the most different natures and destined for the most different
pursuits, to receive up to a certain age an exactly similar education: so it might
improve both boys and girls if the point, at which their respective trainings branch
off from one another, were deferred as long as possible. Miss Martineau has well
