ABSTRACT
The debate about women's higher education continued throughout most of the second half of the century and much of it occurred in the periodical press. In the 1927 Times obituary for women's higher education activist Emily Davies, the reporter concludes that “[t]here is no subject of vital human concern about which public opinion has changed so much in the last seventy years as it has about the education of women” (“Emily Davies and Girton” 10). In the 1840s and ’50s, “the current ideas about the duties and position of women were those which are so admirably set forth in the novels of Charlotte Yonge, and which were much more crudely expressed in some of the periodical literature of the day” (10). Yet towards the end of the century, discussions about education also appear in the girls’ periodical press. The middle-class girls’ magazine Atalanta is one such magazine. It emphatically supported improved education for girls, but often betrayed its uneasiness about the impact of this learning. Unlike the Monthly Packet, which until its last years reflected Charlotte Yonge's objections to girls’ education outside the home, L.T. Meade's Atalanta adopted a more progressive stance, a notably different focus from other girls’ magazines of the period. The Girl's Own Paper, for example, rarely addressed the need for girls to be adequately educated, although numerous inquiries from correspondents suggest its readers actively sought out practical information about educational opportunities. In contrast, when Atalanta first appeared in 1887, it targeted middle-class girls who were interested in study. From its earliest days, it included a regular monthly section entitled the “Atalanta Scholarship and Reading Union,” highlighting the scholarly nature of its intended readership. The magazine also contained a number of articles on higher education, including specific descriptions of Girton and Newnham Colleges, two of the first colleges established for women.
