ABSTRACT
A Popular movement can never be fully judged on all its merits until we can look back at it. Perhaps in the whole of the Victorian Era no question provoked stronger or more adverse criticism than that which related to the higher education of girls. Husbands, fathers, brothers, predicted the most appalling results from such a course of unnatural training. Woman was to leave home – who was to take her place? Were all womanly graces to die? Nervous imaginations evolved grotesque caricatures of a creature – neither man nor woman – who was destined to take the place of the sweet and modest English girl. The girl who learnt Greek with her brothers, and who dared to think for herself, was considered a fit subject for ridicule. In short, there was no niche for her in the world.
