MISSION WORK DESIRED.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20255, 26 July 1937, Page 12

MISSION WORK DESIRED.

BLIND STUDENT'S AMBITION. J ! AN ACCOMPLISHED LINGUIST. (Times Air Mail Service.) LONDON, June 26. Miss Ruth Mary Hitchcock, a -2 0-year-old blind student of Newnham College, Cambridge, is in the theoI logical tripos examination results, placed alone among the women in the first, class of part one. says the Sunday Express. Miss Hitchcock, who lives in St. John's Road. Ipswich, and has been blind since she was eleven months old, was educated at Chorley Wood College for the Blind. When she was fourteen she was successful in the school piano examination of the Associated Board and the Royal Academy of Music, and two years later she gained her school certificate with honours. In November, 1934, she took the open - scholarship examination for Glrton and Newnham, and was offered a place in both colleges. She selected Newnham and the difficult theology course, which is not often studied by women, and later she was awarded the first theological scholarship ever given to a woman at Cambridge. “ I took theology because I was always interested in religious matters.” Mis 3 Hitchcock said to a Sunday Express representative yesterday. Ambition. “When 1 finish at Cambridge i hope to do coaching in theological subjects or missionary work. “ I know that there has been a movement to secure admission for women to the Church, but I do not ... lie e th il v om< n pi u e Is in the Church. “ I have no wish to take Orders.” Though she Is a fluent linguist—she has learned French, German, Latin, Hebrew and Greek—Miss

Hitchcock does not want to ge abroad, for it would mean leaving her mother. “ She can set the table and prepare meals as well as 1 can now,” Mrs Hitchcock said.