The life of Sir J. J. Thomson, O. M. : sometime master of Trinity College Cambridge / by Lord Rayleigh.

  • Rayleigh, John William Strutt, Baron, 1842-1919
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life of Sir J. J. Thomson, O. M. : sometime master of Trinity College Cambridge / by Lord Rayleigh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a word and my theory is that she is attending my lectures on the sup¬ position that they are on Divinity and she has not yet found out her mistake. J.J. seems to imply in this letter that it is not likely that a woman would be able to take advantage of advanced instruction. That opinion was probably fairly general at the time, but only four years later Miss Fawcett was Senior Wrangler, and the posi¬ tion became rather difficult to maintain. To R. Threlfall: Trinity College. Aug. 7th, 1887. There is a great agitation going on to admit women to all the Univer¬ sity privileges that men have and it seems a most ill-advised thing as it would involve their sitting on boards, etc. and it has divided the friends of the women* nearly as much as Home Rule has divided the Liberals. Sedgwick f in his usual vigorous way, declares that unless they drop the agitation he will turn all the women out of his laboratory, and not allow them to attend his lectures. Is yours a mixed univer¬ sity? . . . Dec. 11th, 1887. Trinity College. We are just at the commencement of a great attack which is being made by the supporters of women to secure for them full admission to all the privileges of the university, such as that of voting in the Senate House and serving on Boards, etc. Most of the Residents are most strongly opposed to it, but the non-residents seem largely to take the other view. I do not think myself that it would do the university very much harm, but it seems to me that it would be bad for the women to be tied hand and foot to our system, for from what I see of them at the labora¬ tory I am sure they require rather a different course from the men: for example they always do very well in the first [part] of the tripos, but make a most awful hash of the second, in fact I think in nineteen cases out of twenty they had much better not attempt [it]. I have been trying lately to measure resistances by determining the logarithmic decrement of a disc oscillating between the poles of a powerful electromagnet. I find I can make the method work all right and I am going to determine the temperature co-efficient of a lot of mercury tin amalgams with it. * Of whom J.J. was one. \ Adam Sedgwick, the younger, Reader in Animal Morphology and after¬ wards Professor of Zoology.