Elizabeth’s Reviews > Reluctant Pioneer: A Life of Elizabeth Wordsworth > Status Update

Elizabeth’s association with Oxford when her younger brother John was a student reminds me of Ethel May’s time in Oxford in The Daisy Chain when her brother Norman is there.

“Books were to Elizabeth Wordsworth the obvious sources of knowledge and inspiration: ‘When once you have taught a boy or girl to read, you have put the key of knowledge into their hands, and they can follow their own peculiar bent’” (259).

There is a lot of consistency in the education of great female figures of the past. Often their fathers were educated and taught them (or brothers). They learned both dead and living languages, they read fairy tales and myths and ancient classics, they read poetry epics and Shakespeare. They read freely and widely and were not restricted.

That was the end of the official biography and I found her last decade of life very moving. It reminded me of the retirements I attended for some of my own beloved college professors. Their and EW’s long service through education is an incalculable good.

Some fun details about EW’s old age:
-She hosted a Bible study for “old grannies like herself” and would then give them tea, cake, and a readaloud of Cranford!
-She gave her friends long hugs because she was so excited to see them.
-“The vital feature of university education was personal contact, the impact of mind upon mind” (211). I certainly had this in my own education!

“No one could object to the presence of academic women if the academic woman resembled Elizabeth Wordsworth. Of all Oxford women she was the best known and the best loved, and she earned her right to a triumph [of her honorary degree]” (199).

She technically could not have earned a degree because she had not passed any examinations.

“As she entered [to receive an honors M.A.]…all the members of Convocation rose spontaneously to their feet, a welcome never before extended to anyone, however distinguished. To the disappointment of many…the Public Orator made an unusually short Latin speech, having been warned that he must not keep an old lady standing too long” (198).

She was over 80 & one of the 1st women to receive an honorary degree