WOMEN AND EDUCATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 394, 26 March 1908, Page 3

WOMEN AND EDUCATION.

In speaking of the work of the University of New Zealand, at the Diocesan High School prizegiving, at Auckland, on Monday, Sir Robert Stout said that our university was the first British chartered university to bestow degrees, upon women. The fiist lady to attain a B.A. degree was Mrs Evans, a native of Auckland, and the first M. A ; degree to be won by a lady was secured by Miss Helen Connor, afterwards Mrs Macmillan Brown, of Christchurch. The old English universities, he said, had lagged behind, inasmuch as they had failed to afford this opportunity to the women; they had failed to recognise the equality of women as far as the education question was concerned. He well remembered the battle in New Zealand for equal educational opportunities for women. The fight was taken up by Miss Dalrymple, and she was assisted in the undertaking by Sir John R. C. Richardson and others. They advocated the establishment of high schools for girls, and ultimately the first institution of the kind was opened at Dunedin. Miss Dalrymple fought determinedly, and her dictionary did not include the words disappointment or despair. In reality) however, the battle had been won years before; it was when it was affirmed that girls might learn the alphabet. In New Zealand there was need lor the higher education of women, for here we had a true democracy; women were admitted to the same political privileges, and it required an educated people to keep up that true democracy. Without education it would fail. Our social problems were such that they could only he solved by an educated people. The watchword of our democracy must ever be Education, education, and still further, education, 1 ’