Chapter II - PRELIMINARY WORK FOR THE COLLEGE

Summary

First outlines of the scheme. Formation of Committee. Rival principles. The College organized and established at Hitchin

It is difficult nowadays to realize the immense obstacles which confronted the would-be founders of a College for women in 1866. To collect money and to organize a College is a difficult task at any time; in those days it was made almost impossible for women by the solid antagonism of public opinion. The alliance between Miss Davies and Madame Bodichon proved remarkably suitable for the attack on this powerful fortress; their qualities were just such as to supplement each other. Miss Davies, as we have seen, had had little in the way of educational opportunities. She was neither a scholar nor a student, and her limitations in this respect made themselves felt after the College had come into being. But she had a genius for organization, and her very advanced views about women being combined with a staunch and even narrow conservatism in other matters formed a combination excellently well suited to the task she had in hand, in her dealings with those whom she was wont to call “the enemy”, as well as with those who were merely indifferent or timid. It seemed as though no harm could come, even of such novel ideas, when they were propounded with such skill and propriety by one so orthodox, Madame Bodichon, on the other hand, could never be mistaken for anything but a revolutionary. But she seemed like a being of another order.