Education

Doctoring the Ladies

Although not allowed to study at university, women in 18th-century England still found ways to join – and challenge – the scholarly world.

The Medieval University Monopoly

New universities sprang up across medieval Europe at a rapid rate, yet at the start of the 19th century, England had only two: Oxford and Cambridge. For centuries, England’s two oldest institutions enjoyed a strict duopoly on higher learning, enforced by law. Why were they allowed to?

The History of Dyslexia

‘Word blindness’ was a recognised condition more than a century ago. But it was not until the 1970s that it began to be accepted by the medical establishment.

Somerville College and the Great War

The First World War transformed women-only Somerville College. It became a hospital for convalescing soldiers, housed poets and writers and changed forever the fortunes of female students, writes Frank Prochaska.