exact percentage; it was either a hundred or a little
over.

I don't know just what happened at Oxford but presumably something of
the sort took place. In any case the women are now all over the
place. They attend the college lectures, they row in a boat, and
they perambulate the High Street. They are even offering a serious
competition against the men. Last year they carried off the ping-pong
championship and took the chancellor's prize for needlework, while in
music, cooking and millinery the men are said to be nowhere.

There is no doubt that unless Oxford puts the women out while there is
yet time, they will overrun the whole university. What this means to the
progress of learning few can tell and those who know are afraid to say.

Cambridge University, I am glad to see, still sets its face sternly
against this innovation. I am reluctant to count any superiority in the
University of Cambridge. Having twice visited Oxford, having made the
place a subject of profound study for many hours at a time, having twice
addressed its undergraduates, and having stayed at the Mitre Hotel,
I consider myself an Oxford man. But I must admit that Cambridge has
chosen the wiser part.

Last autumn, while I was in London on my voyage of discovery, a vote
was taken at Cambridge to see if the women who have already a private
college nearby, should be admitted to the university. They were
triumphantly shut out; and as a fit and proper sign of enthusiasm the
undergraduates went over in a body and knocked down the gates of the
women's college. I know that it is a terrible thing to say that any
one approved of this. All the London papers came out with headings
that read,--ARE OUR UNDERGRADUATES TURNING INTO BABOONS? and so on.
The Manchester Guardian draped its pages in black and even the London
Morning Post was afraid to take bold ground in the matter. But I do know
also that there was a great deal of secret chuckling and jubilation in
the London clubs. Nothing was expressed openly. The men of England have
been too terrorised by the women for that.

But in safe corners of the club, out of earshot of the waiters and away
from casual strangers, little groups of elderly men chuckled quietly
together. "Knocked down their gates, eh?" said the wicked old men to one
another, and then whispered guiltily behind an uplifted hand, "Serve 'em
right." Nobody dared to say anything outside. If they had some one would
have got up and asked a question