The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-29
SHE BEAT ALL THE WEN.
The Newnham Girl Who Won the
Cambridge Mathematical TripOs.
[From the Westminster Budget.I


as roses, and a mass of dark hair al
most too heavy for the shapeIy head
that is Miss. Ada Maria Jane Eliza
beth Johnson, the heroine of the day,
the young lady who stands alone in the
first division of the first class in the
second part of the Cambridge math-
ematical tripos Truly she is a sweet
girl graduate" (without the degree).
this youthful mathematician who has
beaten all the men, as she sits high
up in her little room in Old Hall,
aglow from an exciting game of her
favorite pastime, tennis. From the
tree tops, deep below in the lovely
grounds of NEWMAN comes the MARBLE
OF blackbird; the air is sweet with
the scent of many roses on the small
table in the center of the room at
which Miss. Johnson sits, lingering her
cOngratulatory letters and kilograms.
a bow of magnificent oriental peoples
bloom in the corner, a striking con-
trast TO their airy, fairy cousins-a
delicate, of deep orange and pale lemon
tints and of silvery white. Perhaps
all these decorations are tributes, too,
to the successful girl student, as are
the letters and the kilograms.
She bears the burden of her splendid
success cheerfully, and as she sits
there blushing and blushing again,
there is absolutely nothing about Miss.
Johnson that suggests the grave and
ponderous and formidable scholar,
vision Of whom may appear to the
inward eye of the outsider" reading
about the studious NEWMAN girl
who has beaten all the men, and dem
onstrated once again the fact, which
needs a good deal of demonstrating
in certain quarters. that woman. too.
may stand and work" as we'll as a
man, and yet remain untainted by the
particular faint of the "shrieking SIS
terhood"
Just now she is dressed in dark blue
serge and creamy fannel-the very cos
tune to bring out to perfection the dewy
freshness of her young face. On the
little bed in the corner lies the white
straw hat, and the racquet is in its
place near the door. There are books
ON the shelves, but not too many. and
they all have a well-fingeTed look. 1T
is packing-up day." this latter-day
mathematician says. somewhat shyly,
and glances roguishly round the room
Everybody goes down tomorrow, and
we are all getting ready to go. You
mustn't look round It's so untidy."
She is eager enough to talk about her
hall, her college, and about the gener-
Gus way in which her fellow-students
have shared with her the joy at her
success. Indeed, they had a dance on
the Tuesday evening in honor of the
girl who beat all the men," But when
it comes to talking about herself, then
Miss Johnson has only smilingly, and
with the prettieSt, because unconscious,
baShfulneSs, to confess that there is
nothing at all to say
But there is, after all: and what there
is to say is we'll worth knowing. were it
only for the sake of encouraging other
struggling girls who have no special
educational advantage to go on I'M
daunted For this fair wrangler has
had none of the special advantages
by means Of which ambitious parents
have sometimes succeeded in bringing
about certain amount of success to
their sons and daughters. There has
been no examining, no private coach
ing, mo nothing" except a good sound
elementary education. There are no
board schools at Cambridge, but their
equivalents, the SO-calIed higher grade
schools, are there, and at one of these.
in Park street, Cambridge. Miss John
son laid the foundation of her present
success. Even as a child she was fond
of mathematics, and after she left
school she continued her favorite
some desultory teaching For the last
two years she has been at Newman.
and last year she took the first part of
the mathematical tripos. standing in
rank between the fifth and sixth
wranglers
Thus mathematics have never had
any terror for Miss JOhnson-in fact.
she has handled her problems" with
much the same ease as that with which.
a a m har- Of t1,o y n
Club. she handles her racquet But
this year slight doubt disturbed her
serenity with regard to the result OF
the examinations For when the ereat
day arrived it happened that Miss john
son, though there is absolutely moth
ing of the pale and haggard student
about her, was not in her usual good
health, but run down." and therefore
not quite at her best. Hence. she
awaited the list with nothing but the
most modest expectations. And then,
.on the Tuesday, it came out, to the 10y
OF all Newman, and in the evening the
girls danced-the fair mathematician
and all the rest-danced for joy that
one of them, and one of the most girl
ish ones, to boot, had fought so success
fully. Now playtime has come; today
all the big boxes and trunks thai
lined the long corridors of the halls yes
terday afternoon have gone off in all
directions; Newman is holidaying,
and Miss Johnson among the rest, is
thinking of pleasures only, for the
present. Tennis and walking are the
forms of play in which she delights. and
now she has actually come to think Of
cycling. Such is the latter-day lady
wrangler, reveling in games, young.
spirited, glowing with strong health,
and not afraid of problems. be they con-
nected with Euclid or with what the
French call cyclisme.
AS you sit and chat with this youth
full record-breaker, and she loses her
pretty blushing shyness, after a while
p roushish look comes into her face.
She can't be interviewed, she says she
has nothing to be interviewed about;
she worked, and work was pleasure
and she succeeded. Not much credit In
that, she thinks, since work was by no
means disagreeable; and then she con-
fesses, her eyes dancing with the fun OF
it, that you are not half as bad as the
interviewer who came this morning and
asked me to give advice to young
girlsr'
Thrice noble interviewer, what an in
SEPARATION! To ask this rosy girl, this
unsophistcated child, for advice to
girlsi You might as well asked the
flaming Oriental peoples on her book
shelves to give you advice for growing
cheeks as red as their petals.
With the graceful courtesy which the
University women have caught so
we'll from their male colleagues, and
which has a subtle charm of its own by
which you recognize college people all
their lives and all the world over, Miss
Johnson leads you back through the
labyrinthine corridors of Old Hall, and
flies back to her room, her roses and
letters.
GOOD ENOUGH TO HANG.