[Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll').] Rare printed pamphlet titled 'Resident Women-Students'.

3pp., 8vo. The second page mispaginated '(3)'. Bifolium. One punch hole to top inner corner of each leaf (for the attaching of the item to others), affecting two words of text, pencil shelfmarks and the number '16.' in red ink at head of first page. Lightly creased on aged paper, with three horizontal fold lines. Williams and Madan 282B ('The Lewis Carroll Handbook', pp.198-199). Williams and Madan's second 'form' (B) of the 'paper', in which the word 'Consequently' on pp.1 and 2 is 'shifted on both pages 1 1/4 inches to the left - which appears to be an improvement of form.' This item is part of what The Times (4 March 1896) described as 'the paper warfare' surrounding the Oxford University vote, on 3 and 10 March 1896, on the admission of women to the B.A. degree, a controversy which left the Oxford air, according to the Spectator (7 March 1896), 'thick with fly-leaves'. In the event the five resolutions were defeated on 3 and 10 March 1896, and Dodgson made one of his few speeches in Congregation against the proposed changes. He sets out his position in this document, which begins: 'IN the bewildering multiplicity of petty side-issues, with which the question, of granting University Degrees to Women, has been overlaid, there is some danger that Members of Congregation may lose sight of the really important issues involved.' | The following four propositions should, I think, be kept steadily in view by all who wish to form an independent opinion as to the matter in dispute.' Four numbered propositions follow: first, that 'One of the chief functions, if not the chief function, of our University, is to prepare young Men [...] for the business of Life'; second, that the 'Scheme' may exercise a 'harmful influence on our own Students'; third, that 'Any Scheme for recognition of Women-Students [...] will most certainly end in making residence compulsory on all'; and lastly, that 'Any such Scheme is certain to produce an enormous influx of resident Women-Students'. The last proposition is a prospect which Dodgson views with particular distaste. 'Considering that we have over 3000 young Men-Students, and that the number of young Women, who are devoting themselves by study, is increasing "by leaps and bounds," it may be confidently predicted that any such Scheme will bring to Oxford at least 3000 more young Women-Students. Such an immigration will of course produce a rapid increase in the size of Oxford, and will necessitate a large increase in our teaching-staff and in the number of our lecture-rooms.' Summing up, Dodgson states that the 'main question before us is "Will the mutual influence, of two such sets of Students, residing in such close proximity, be for good or for evil?' In making his argument Dodgson invokes H. P. Liddon, Canon of St Paul's: 'The late Dr. Liddon was strongly of opinion that such an influence would be for evil, at any rate for the young Women. I have myself heard him - no doubt many others have done the same - express, most warmly and earnestly, his fears as to the effect that the new movement, for flooding Oxford with young Women-Strudents, would have on the young Women themselves. And I have no doubt that, were he yet among us, his silvery tones would have been heard in Congregation last Tuesday, deprecating the introduction, into our ancient University, of that social monster, the "He-Woman." He endorses J. L. Strachan-Davidson's pamphlet 'University Degrees for Women', and its call for 'a petition to the Crown to grant a Charter for a Women's University'. 'At first, perhaps, they might need to borrow some teachers from the older Universities; but they would soon be able to supply all, that would be needed, from among themselves; and Women-Lecturers and Women-Professors would arise, fully as good as any that the older Universities have ever produced.' The final paragraph is deliberately provocative: 'This proposal has been met by the plea that it is not what the Women themselves "desire." Surely no weaker plea was ever urged in any controversy. Even men very often fail to "desire" what is, after all, the best thing for them to have. And those ancients, on whom the onerous task was laid, of weighing and, if reasonably possible, satisfying the claims of the horse-leech and her two daughters, had other things to consider than the mere shrillness of their outcries.' Dodgson's fourth proposition is dismissed in another pamphlet titled 'The Value of a Genuine Diploma', by 'A Member of the Council of the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford' and three others (Oxford, 1896). This is one of the rarer items in Dodgson's oeuvre, with no copy in the British Library, and only six copies traced on COPAC and OCLC WorldCat: at Oxford, Harvard, New York Public Library, New York University, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto), and the Harry Ransom Centre (Texas).