The First Generation at the University

The female students began to change old practices. Traditionally, it was thought that young people would study for three years at upper secondary school and then take the matriculation examination and begin their university studies.

The most direct route—from upper secondary school to university—does not represent the path of the first generation of female students. However, most female students—approximately seventy percent—took the matriculation examination between eighteen and twenty years of age, with about three percent taking the exam at the age of seventeen. Only one female student began her studies at the age of sixteen. About three percent of the first generation of female students took their matriculation examination at the age of twenty-five or older. The oldest of the female students had already turned thirty-four when she matriculated at Helsinki. At ninteen, Alma Soderhjelm was a typical age when she began her university studies in 1889, but Sanny, her elder sister, was twenty-three when she took the matriculation examination in the autumn of 1889, six months later than Alma. Before that, between 1886 and 1888, Sanny was the first woman in Finland to take the highest degree of mathematics at the University of Helsinki and studied mathematics at the Stockholm College,9 participating in Sonia Kovalevsky’s and Professor Gostä Mittag-Leffer’s lectures (Soderhjelm 1929, 349–370).

Like Alma and Sanny Soderhjelm, most of the first generation of female students were the daughters of fathers with an academic background. These men were professionals; they were professors, senators, the presidents and justices of the Court of Appeal, governors, and chief judges.

Table 10.1 Social background of the female students in terms of their fathers’ occupation

Shopkeepers’ daughters made up one of the largest groups among female students, especially in the late 1890s. The background of female students in the 1890s was predominantly urban, Swedish-speaking, and middle class. In the middle of the 1890s, only twenty-five percent of female students came from Finnish-speaking schools. This picture changed when several new Finnish-speaking co-educational schools were established. The proportion of female students from Finnish-speaking schools was thirty-eight percent in 1901, rising to fifty-two percent in 1902 (Wilkama 1938; see also Kaarninen and Kaarninen 2002, 94–97).

The road to academic studies in Finland was open for others as well, not just for the upper and middle classes. More than ten percent of female students came from the working class. The number of working-class girls increased during the late 1890s among the younger age group. The fathers of these girls were skilled workers with permanent jobs. Even though the number of working-class girls was low, it reveals that working-class families were willing to educate girls, and the route to academia was indeed open to working-class youth. The number of girls from the urban working class was higher compared to girls from peasant families, at about eight percent. The situation was different from that at Uppsala University, where there were no female students from working-class families, but the proportion of girls from peasant families was about six percent (Stromholm 1992, 243–267).

In the UK, young women from aristocratic or wealthy families did not attend universities in large numbers. Carol Dyhouse has studied the social composition of female students at British universities. According to her analysis, female students had the same social background as the majority of male students—broadly speaking, they were from the middle and lower middle classes—but there were regional variations, and there was a larger representation of working-class students at universities where the costs were lower. Female students at Oxford came overwhelmingly from the commercial, professional, and industrial middle class. Judie Gibert has examined the differences between students of the civic universities and the older institutions, such as the female colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. Gibert notes, ‘the civic universities were less likely than Oxbridge or London to draw students from the upper or professional classes, and correspondingly more likely to attract women whose backgrounds were in less prosperous and prestigious groups’ (Dyhouse 1995, 20–25; Gibert 1994, 408).

The proportion of female students from an urban background was sixty-one percent.

Table 10.2 The domicile of female students, 1885–1900

Turku and Vyborg both had long traditions in the history of education.

At the university, women were scorned, and they felt they were treated as the inferiors because of their sex. The university environment was designed and built with only men in mind, and all the professors and other staff were male. The women thought that they were being stared at in the auditoriums, and they were readily mocked. The female students were optimistic that the world would be open to them, but they noticed how gender restricted their prospects at the university. One of these women analysed her experiences about fifty years later: ‘When we did gymnastics and sports, our dresses prevented our free movements and our schools directed us towards adulthood without any plans to continue our studies. The university and academic posts were only for post-graduate boys’(Hällstrom 1956, 321–325).

Pioneering women had the same kind of experience at European universities. Mabel Tylecote has written about the status and norms of female students in Manchester:

They did not enter the main building by the principal door, but by a smaller one. Professors ushered them out of lecture theatres and might even escort them across the quadrangle. They sat together in their own particular (usually front) rows of seats in classrooms and their male colleagues upbraided them for their confusion when one of their seats was accidentally occupied by a man, or for their failure to ask openly for the notes of a certain lecture at which no women were present instead of adopting circumlocutory methods of approach to a male student who could supply them … It would have been the height of impropriety to enter the library and demand a book in the hardened manner now usual. No we had to ‘fill up a voucher’, and a dear little-maid of all-work, age about 13 went to the library with it. If we were not quite sure of the volume required, she might have to make the journey ten times, but it was never suggested that she should be chaperoned.

(Tylecote 1941, 33)

On the other hand, later research has found that women suffered few restrictions at civic universities. Although women at the older universities formed communities largely separated from the male students, women at civic universities became active participants in and an integral element of the general university community (Gibert 1994, 405). In the residential colleges in Oxford, Cambridge, and London, female students could enjoy the privileges of specific spaces set aside for them alone, and the larger halls were well supplied with domestic staff (Dyhouse 1995, 121).

Since the seventeenth century in Finland and Sweden, the students were organised into ‘nations’, which were regional students’ organisations. Women were not allowed to participate in these student activities as members of nations, and they studied under the supervision of the rector. The female students did not realise what this meant in practice (Engman 1996, 40–42; Hällstrom 1956, 323). The moral code at university—as in the rest of society—was strict. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, seminars were not part of the university’s teaching culture. It was only during lectures that male and female students could become acquainted with each other. On the other hand, making new acquaintances was complicated because an introduction by a third party was required before female and male students could begin a discussion (Soderhjelm 1930, 205).

The women who began their university studies in 1885–1890 were true pioneers and exceptionally active. They established their own society, ‘De Kvinnliga’ (the Women’s League), which in many ways acted like a student nation (Engman 1996, 40–42). They came together in members’ homes at first, but they rented a flat for their meetings after a couple of years (Soderhjelm 1930, 137). Behaviour and dignity were important characteristics to the female students. When their number increased every year, the women’s association decided to compile their own rulebook establishing norms of good conduct and penalties for reproachable behaviour. De Kvinnliga did so because the rector and other university authorities had not provided the female students with their own rulebook (Hällstrom 1956, 323). The first paragraph of the rulebook mandated that it was the duty of every female student at the Imperial Alexander University to keep watch over other female students to ensure they behaved well and honourably. If some indiscretions were noticed, women had to elect a committee to maintain order with the assistance of the university’s rector (Hällstrom 1956, 321–325).

The members of De Kvinnliga regularly produced a handwritten paper, Lyran (“The Lyre”). In Lyran and the De Kvinnliga meetings, female students commented on university studies, society outside the university, and all kinds of other phenomena. Articles in Lyran show that female students were critical towards their own gender and the habits of female students: ‘Many women ran into lectures and disturbed professors during their registers, and did not plan their studies’. Lyran concluded that behaviour of this kind did not improve the reputation of female students. The articles discussed the goals of studying because so many women had broken off their studies after a couple of years. During De Kvinnliga meetings, members discussed whether female students formed a special group that had a common responsibility and goal. They concluded that as long as the status of female students was exceptional at the university and they had to ask for dispensation because of their gender to receive permission to study, they must have a strong sense of solidarity (Hällstrom 1956, 321–351; Soderhjelm 1930, 139–170; see also Hakosalo 2016, 222.)

In the spring of 1889, the female students made an application to the chancellor to receive the right to join the students’ nations as full members and to receive the same status as male students. This caused much debate, and only three of the six students’ nations were ready to welcome female members. The university consistory discussed the women’s application and rejected it without sending forward to the chancellor. For many female students, it was a great disappointment to again be left outside student activities. However, the women had a public supporter; the decision of the university consistory and the attitudes of other students’ nations towards female students were criticised in the Album of Nyländingar, a publication by the Uusimaa student nation. The article described the positive impacts women could bring to student life. Nevertheless, the female students felt humiliated by the attitude of some of the students’ nations towards their application (Schauman 1891, 313–334; Hällstrom 1956, 327). Young women with the desire to learn had ideals, great aims, and dreams, but they were obliged to fight against prejudice (Hällstrom 1956, 322).10

In the beginning of the 1890s, there was a turning point. The number of female students had increased, and the student associations (nations) were obliged in one way or another to pay attention to the female students. When such a high number of women studied at the university, it was unnatural to keep them totally outside official student activities. First, the Häme student association (Hämäläis-osakunta, hereafter Häme Nation) developed new practices and invited a few women to participate in their meetings as guests, as did the Uusimaa student association (Nyländingar; Uusimaa Nation).11 Actually, these invitations only meant that male students were ready to accept female participation in meetings, not necessarily grant women full membership. Women had the right to take part in discussions but not to vote, and they could not access all the benefits that full members had, such as access to a loan from the nation’s loan society. Nevertheless, the women brought new customs and ideas to the meetings. They began a tea service, and the next steps were family soirees for convivial socialising (The Minutes of the Student Nation Häme, 28 October 1891; Kuusisto 1978, 149–151).

In the early 1890s, women’s rights were discussed at several of Häme Nation’s meetings. Fanny Maria (Maija) Pajula spoke on behalf of women. She was in many ways an exceptional student. She had taken the matriculation examination at the age of thirty-four, but before that, she had qualified from Sortavala Teacher Seminar as an elementary school teacher. The degree from the Seminar had inspired her to continue her studies at university. In addition, she was a widow and had a ten-year-old son. Pajula gave lectures at the monthly meeting of Häme Nation on women’s rights to permanent employment, salary parity with men, and the removal of the husband’s guardianship. She was also a moral reformer and campaigned against double standards. In addition, she spoke about women’s suffrage. Pajula argued that there was no feature of womanhood that should preclude women from the right to vote. The young men of the student nation could not understand Mrs Pajula’s opinions. They considered her opinions anarchic: women’s suffrage was an incomprehensible ideology in the male students’ world-view. They saw themselves as future civil servants and heads of the family, and in this context an independent woman was a strange phenomenon. It was concluded that women should first vote in municipal elections, while participation in national elections should be taken into consideration at a later date (The Minutes of the Student Nation Häme, 30 September 1891, 28 October 1892, 9 November 1892, 16 November 1892, 23 November 1892.)

In 1897, women received full membership in the student nations. Gender was no longer an obstacle, and women received official administrative positions in the student associations; they were no longer invited only as guests or tea makers. Maria Haggren (Maria Jotuni) from Kuopio belonged to the youngest cohort of female students. She matriculated in the autumn of 1900. Participating in the nation’s activities came as second nature. She was at once elected to her nation’s newspaper board, and she participated in excursions to collect folklore. In the spring of 1905, her first work was published, a book of short stories called Suhteita (“Relations”) (Niemi 2001, 43–60). Women changed student life, and their presence in the nations naturally gave female and male students opportunities to meet each other. The presence of female students had a positive impact on the festivities of male students, especially in terms of excessive drinking.