We have moved step by step from the cautious recommendation of the university that the names of the young girls examined for the Local Examination should not appear, and that no class lists should be published (1865) and the informal examination for the triposes, when for nine years (until 1881) the examiners in the classical tripos "objected to state" what class had been attained, to the present state of things when all the "publicity and intrusion" dreaded forty years back in the case of little girls being examined somewhere privately in the same town as little boys, is annually given to hundreds of women in the highest examination in the country in the midst of the university. There had been prophets who opined that under these circumstances Cambridge would be deserted by the other sex. Visions of the halls of Trinity and John's empty and forsaken, while Girton and Newnham poured forth a ceaseless flow of undergraduates disturbed the sleep of these prophets and seemed worth putting on record in their waking moments. No sooner were the Local Examinations opened to girls in 1865 than the number of boys entered rose from 629 to 1217;[488] and the largest entry of undergraduates on record was that of this present year 1906-7. What has happened? Has a robuster generation of undergraduates arisen, or were the undergraduates of the "seventies" and "eighties" simply maligned?
[Sidenote: The status of women students at Cambridge and Oxford.]
As between the two ancient universities Cambridge remains the pioneer in the education of women. The examinations are open to women at Oxford, but the same restrictions as to preliminaries and residence are not imposed.[489] It is, however, by the restrictions imposed that Cambridge has established the position of its women students. It has thus bound itself to compare the work of all tripos students irrespective of sex. While at Oxford there is no university recognition of the status of the candidate or of her hall, and no university certificate of the place obtained, Girton and Newnham are recognised colleges at Cambridge; the name of the successful candidate followed by that of the college is read aloud in the Senate House and published on the Senate House door; and only students presented by these colleges are admitted to the university examinations, as is the case with men. Girton and Newnham each owe something to the other. Newnham to Girton in the collegiate status now enjoyed by both, Girton to Newnham because the considerable advantages accruing to women students through proximity to Cambridge have been reflected on the sister college. Each displayed a boldness distinctively its own which has been the main source of the success of the movement: Newnham planted her house of students in the university town, Girton asked to follow the same curriculum as men; and these two things have had a mutually favourable reaction ever since.