notice that the Dean of the Medical Faculty had been interdicted by
the Faculty from giving to ladies any papers for the Preliminary
Examination in Arts, which was to take place _on the following day_,
October 17! Three ladies had come up to Edinburgh from different parts
of the country with the express object of passing these examinations,
and, if prevented from doing so, they would be retarded in their
studies to the extent of one year. The excessive shortness of the
notice given made it impossible even to appeal to the Senatus, and
the only course open to me was to submit the facts for the opinion
of counsel. This was done, and we were informed that the course
taken by the Medical Faculty was quite illegal,[99] while an express
invitation to lady students formed part of the official calendar of the
University. This opinion was forwarded to the Dean, whose kindness
to us had been invariable; and, I am sure that he was glad by it to
be released from the painful necessity of obeying the Medical Faculty
in this matter. The ladies were accordingly examined in the ordinary
course.
But the excitements of the month were not yet at an end. On applying
for matriculation tickets the ladies were informed by the Clerk that
the Principal, Sir Alexander Grant, had written him word that, in
consequence of representations made to him by Professor Christison, he
desired that no ladies should at present be allowed to matriculate. On
this point, and that regarding the Professional Examination, we, of
course, appealed at once to the Senatus. At the meeting at which our
appeal was considered, “the Committee for securing complete Medical
Education for Women in Edinburgh” also presented the opinion obtained
by them from counsel, together with a letter urging that complete
provision should be made for our instruction. At their meeting on
October 21, the Senatus at once decided both points of appeal in our
favour. The Principal’s prohibition, which had never had any legal
weight, was overruled, and the permission to women to matriculate
and pass the Arts Examinations was renewed, and declared to be in
force so long as the present regulations stood in the calendar. The
Medical Faculty also were instructed at once to admit the ladies who
were prepared for it to the Professional Examination on the following
day; and I am happy to say that, in spite of the incessant worry to
which they had been subjected for the past ten days, they all passed
successfully. I am sure that all those who have had to prepare for
severe University examinations will appreciate the difficulties under
which they did so.[100]
A few days later came a meeting of the University Council, when Dr
Alexander Wood made a gallant attempt to get a vote passed to the
effect that “the University is bound, in honour and justice, to
render it possible for those women who have already commenced their
studies, to complete them.”[101] The _Lancet_ remarked, respecting
this motion:--“This is precisely the ground we have always taken
up about the matter; and we hope that the General Council of the
University will, by the adoption of Dr Alexander Wood’s motion, put
an end to the controversy which had redounded so little to the credit
of that school.”[102] A memorial in favour of the resolution was
also presented, signed by more than nine thousand women, residing
in all parts of the country, and representing almost every rank in
society.[103] Very vigorous opposition to it was, however, made by
Professors Turner, Thomson, and Christison, all of whom were members
of the Medical Faculty, and ultimately an amendment, which proposed to
leave the question to be settled by the Senatus and University Court,
was carried by 107 votes to 97.[104]
At a meeting of the Senatus held on Oct. 30th, the question of making
further provision for the instruction of women was brought forward,
and a letter was received from the Committee of our friends stating
that, “in the event of special lecturers being appointed by the
University to give qualifying instruction to women, the Committee are
willing to guarantee the payment to them of any sum that may be fixed
by the Senatus for their remuneration, in case the fees of the ladies
are insufficient for that purpose; and that, if necessary, they are
willing further to undertake to provide such rooms and accommodation
as may be required for the delivery of the said lectures, if it should
be found absolutely impossible for the University to provide space
for that purpose.” After a long debate the Senatus decided, by a
majority, that they would not take any steps to enable us to complete
our education. At a meeting a few days later the Senatus further
decided, by fourteen votes to thirteen, to recommend to the University
Court that the existing regulations in favour of female students be
rescinded, without prejudice, however, to the rights of those already
studying. This resolution was, as I said, passed by fourteen votes to
thirteen, and it may be worth while to mention that two of the fourteen
votes were those of Dr Christison and Sir Alexander Grant, who were
themselves members of the University Court to which the recommendation
was to be made. That the proposed measure was not the wish of a real
majority of the Professors was soon made abundantly clear, for a
protest against it was sent up to the Court, signed by eighteen out
of the thirty-five Professors of the University, while two out of the
remaining seventeen were persistently neutral, never indeed having
voted on the question from first to last. In the teeth of this protest
it was, of course, almost impossible that the Regulations could be
rescinded, and so they were once more confirmed by the University Court
on January 3, 1872.
The next event of importance was the annual re-election of Infirmary
managers, six of whom were to be chosen at the contributors’ meeting at
the beginning of January 1872. As on a former occasion, the election
evidently turned wholly on our admission to, or exclusion from, the
Infirmary wards. The medical party moved the re-election of the former
managers, and they were sure of the support of everybody who did not
consider our admission a vital question. Our friends, on the contrary,
brought forward a list of gentlemen, all of whom were known to be
friendly to our cause. After a very warm debate the list of our friends
proved to be successful, being supported by 177 votes, while 168 were
recorded on the other side. Professor Masson then moved that a Statute
be enacted by the Court of Contributors, giving the same educational
advantages in the Infirmary to female as well as to male students.
The hostile party, finding themselves in a minority, endeavoured to
prevent this being put to the vote on technical grounds which were
subsequently found to be of no legal importance. Failing in this, they
then adopted the remarkably dignified course of decamping in a body,
accompanied, I must confess, by some ironical cheers from those left
behind. In the lull that succeeded Professor Masson brought forward his
motion, which was seconded by the Rev. Dr Guthrie, and passed without a
dissentient voice. This Statute is, therefore, now actually law in the
Infirmary, and considering that managers friendly to us had also been
elected, it might have been thought that our difficulties there were
at end. But now comes the most extraordinary part of the whole story.
On a scrutiny of the votes it was found that with the majority had
voted twenty-eight firms, thirty-one ladies, and seven doctors. On the
other side were fourteen firms, two ladies, thirty-seven doctors, and
three druggists. These figures may seem, indeed, to have a tolerable
moral significance, but it is not with that that I am at this moment
concerned. It occurred to the defeated party that here might be found a
straw for them, drowning, to catch at,--that possibly a legal objection
might be sustained against the votes of firms which were so largely in
our favour, and that, if so, the victory might yet be secured![105]
The result was, that, when the Contributors assembled at the adjourned
meeting,[106] for the purpose of hearing the result of the scrutiny
and the final declaration of the election, the Lord Provost found
himself served with an Interdict forbidding him to declare the new
managers duly elected, on the ground that the votes of firms were
incompetent, and that by means of these the majority had been obtained!
Instances have occurred before now where personal feelings have
triumphed over public interests, but I do not think that I ever heard
of quite so reckless a course as this, by which the medical clique has
plunged the great Edinburgh Hospital into litigation, and that with
some of its own most generous supporters, rather than allow a dozen
women to obtain in its wards the instruction that the Contributors had
decreed they should receive![107]
The litigation thus begun is still pending, and the incomplete Board
of Managers have for all these months carried on the business of
the Infirmary without any representatives at all from the Court of
Contributors; and it is probable that they make the very fact of their
deficient numbers the excuse for having up to this moment given no
effect whatever to the Statute unanimously passed in our favour last
January by the Court of Contributors. We applied immediately after
the meeting for tickets of admission, but were told that the managers
must first be consulted, and from that day to this no tickets have
been issued to us, though the statute referred to legally secured that
“henceforth all registered students of medicine shall be admitted to
the educational advantages of the Infirmary, without distinction of
sex.” The matter, however, can now be only one of time; and, since
the law of the Infirmary is at length on our side, our opponents may,
I think, rest assured that our patience in awaiting the end will be
at least equal to theirs. In all such struggles a present triumph
may be snatched by those in brief authority, but the future belongs
inalienably to the cause of justice and liberality.
In the meantime, I had, on behalf of my fellow-students and myself,
appealed to the University Court to provide us with the means of
completing our education, and our friends of the Committee also
forwarded to the Court a further legal Opinion from the Lord Advocate
and Sheriff Fraser, to the effect,--that the University authorities
had full powers to permit the matriculation of women in 1869; that the
Resolutions then passed amounted to a permission to women to “_study
medicine_” in the University, and that therefore the women concerned
were entitled to demand the means of doing so; and finally, that if
such means were persistently refused, the legal mode of redress lay in
an Action of Declarator.[108]
On January 8th, 1872, the University Court declared that they could not
make any arrangements to enable us to pursue our studies with a view
to a degree, but that, _if we would altogether give up the question of
graduation_,[109] and be content with Certificates of Proficiency, they
would try to meet our views!
In reply, I represented to the Court that no “Certificates” were
recognised by the Medical Act, and that any such documents would
therefore be perfectly useless to us. I further urged that as
matriculation fees had been exacted from us, in addition to the fees
for tuition, and as we had been required to pass the Preliminary
Examination “_for the medical degree_,” and as some of our own number
had moreover passed the first Professional Examination, I could not but
believe that we were entitled to demand the means of completing the
ordinary University education, with a view to obtaining the ordinary
degree; such belief being moreover confirmed by the emphatic opinion of
very distinguished counsel. On these grounds I entreated the Court to
reconsider their decision, and made the following suggestion:--
“That, as the main difficulty before your honourable Court seems to be
that regarding graduation, with which we are not immediately concerned
at this moment, we are quite willing to rest our claims to ultimate
graduation on the facts as they stand up to the present date; and, in
case your honourable Court will now make arrangements whereby we can
continue our education, we will undertake not to draw any arguments in
favour of our right to graduation from such future arrangements, so
that they may at least be made without prejudice to the present legal
position of the University.”
I appeal to every intelligent man and woman to say whether these
words, taken in connection with my previous argument, were in the
slightest degree ambiguous, or whether any doubt could really exist
that in them I was pleading for facilities for such an education as
would ultimately enable us to become legal practitioners of medicine,
although I was willing that the actual question of graduation should
remain in abeyance for a few months, till decided by legal authority,
or otherwise. The public evidently so understood my letter, which was
published in the papers, for it was considered that I had substantially
gained my end, when the following reply from the secretary of the Court
was also published:--
“I am desired to inform you that you appear to ask no more than was
offered by the Court in their resolution of the 8th ultimo, in which
it was stated that, while the Court were restrained by legal doubts
as to the power of the University to grant degrees to women from
considering ‘the expediency of taking steps to obtain, in favour of
female students, an alteration of an ordinance which might be held not
to apply to women,’ they were ‘at the same time desirous to remove,
so far as possible, any present obstacle in the way of a complete
medical education being given to women; provided always that medical
instruction to women be imparted in strictly separate classes.’ On the
assumption, therefore, that while you at present decline the offer
made by the Court with reference to certificates of proficiency, you
now ask merely that arrangements should be made for completing the
medical education of yourself and the other ladies on behalf of whom
you write, I am to state that the Court are quite ready to meet your
views. If, therefore, the names of extra-academical teachers of the
required medical subjects be submitted by yourself, or by the Senatus,
the Court will be prepared to consider the respective fitness of the
persons so named to be authorised to hold medical classes for women
who have, in this or former sessions, been matriculated students
of the University, and also the conditions and regulations under
which such classes should be held. It is, however, to be distinctly
understood that such arrangements are not to be founded on as implying
any right in women to obtain medical degrees, or as conferring any
such right upon the students referred to.”
My friends, as I say, congratulated me on this apparently important
concession; but to make assurance doubly sure, I resolved to have
absolute official confirmation of the apparent meaning of the
Resolution, and therefore addressed another letter to the Court, in
which, after thanking them for their apparent good intentions, I
enquired whether I was correct in understanding--
“1. That, though you at present give us no pledge respecting our
ultimate graduation, it is your intention to consider the proposed
extra-mural courses as ‘qualifying’ for graduation, and that you will
take such measures as may be necessary to secure that they will be so
accepted, if it is subsequently determined that the University has the
power of granting degrees to women.
“2. That we shall be admitted in due course to the ordinary
Professional Examinations, on presentation of the proper certificates
of attendance on the said extra-mural classes.”
In reply, I was calmly informed that the Court meant nothing of the
kind; that they would not agree to count any classes we might take
as qualifying, and that in fact they would not stir a finger in any
way whatever to enable us to become legally qualified doctors, though
they might, if we spent a good many years of labour and a quite
unlimited sum of money in obtaining our education, give us at the end
these wonderful Certificates of Proficiency, which would be worth
exactly--Nothing!
What had been the meaning of the previous letter of apparent concession
I confess myself quite at a loss to conceive. What advantage could
accrue to us from submitting the names of extramural teachers to
the Court, in which Professor Christison was the only medical man,
I have never been able to guess, since the Court did not intend to
take any means to make their teaching qualify for graduation, and we
hardly needed its sanction in order to make private arrangements for
non-qualifying instruction! One is inclined to wonder whether the
idea was that the University Court possessed some supernatural power,
analogous to that supposed by certain churches to reside in episcopal
laying on of hands, which would in a miraculous way benefit those
lecturers whom they might “authorise” to teach us, though such teaching
was to be given in place and manner wholly unconnected with that
University with which I had supposed their functions to be exclusively
connected. However, I am content to leave this among the unexplained
mysteries, with very hearty thankfulness that, at least, by timely
enquiries, we saved ourselves from a still more hopeless waste of time
and money, which indeed we were on the point of incurring, in reliance
on the good faith of the Court, and the apparent meaning of its
mysterious Resolution.[110]
Having, however, at length arrived at a certainty that the Medical
Faculty would rest with nothing short of our expulsion, if by any
possibility they could attain that end; that the Senatus, though far
more friendly, had not a sufficient majority of liberal votes to
secure the permanent concession of our claims, however just, in the
teeth of the strong medical opposition; and that the University Court
would offer only such concessions as were quite valueless for our
end, it became clear that it was useless to prolong the series of
supplications which had, for nearly a year, been addressed in vain to
one after another of the the ruling powers of the University.
On the other hand, we had no less authority than that of the Lord
Advocate of Scotland for believing that we were absolutely entitled
to what we had so humbly solicited, and that a Court of law would
quietly award to us what seemed unattainable by any other means;
we had the very widely spread and daily increasing sympathy of the
community at large, and received constant offers of help from friends
of every kind, who were none the less inclined to befriend us because
our opponents stood in high places, and were utterly relentless in
their aims and reckless in their means. Under these circumstances, we
have done the one thing that remained for us to do, we have brought an
action of Declarator against the Senatus of the University;--praying
to have it declared that the Senatus is bound, in some way or other,
to enable us to complete our education, and to proceed to the medical
degree which will entitle us to take place on the Medical Register
among the legally qualified practitioners of medicine. By this
action it will be decided,--once more to quote our great champion,
the _Scotsman_,--whether, indeed, “a University can, with formal
solemnity, and with the concurrence of all its component parts, decree
the admission of women to study for the profession of medicine, and
then deny them access to those means by which alone they can enter that
profession; whether, indeed, a University is absolved from all duties
towards such of its matriculated students as may have the misfortune
to be women. It will have to be decided whether any corporate body can
make a contract of which all the obligations are on one side, and can
exact fees and demand obedience to regulations, without in its turn
incurring any responsibility; and can at pleasure finally send empty
away those whose presence is inconvenient, without any regard to the
money and time and labour which they have expended in simple reliance
upon its good faith.”[111]
It is a very great satisfaction to me to find that some of the most
illustrious members of the Senatus have expressed their own opinion on
these points in the most emphatic way, for they have refused utterly
to be parties to the defence of this action, and have entered on the
Record a Minute from which I extract the following passage:--
“We dissent from and protest against the Resolution of the Senatus
of March 27, 1872, to undertake the defence of the action. This we
do for the following reasons:--(1.) Because we see no just cause for
opposing the admission of women to the study and practice of medicine,
but on the contrary, consider that women who have honourably marked out
such a course of life for themselves, ought to be forwarded and aided
in their laudable endeavour as much as possible, by all who have the
means, and especially by those having authority in any University or
other Institution for Education; (2.) Because in particular, we feel
such aid and encouragement, rather than opposition and discouragement,
to be due from us to those women who have enrolled themselves in the
University of Edinburgh, and we entirely concur with respect to them,
in the desire expressed by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, the Rector
of the University, that they should obtain what they ask--namely,
a complete medical education, crowned by a degree; (3.) Because we
have seen no sufficient reason to doubt the legal and constitutional
powers of our University, to make arrangements that would be perfectly
adequate for the purpose, and we consider the public questioning of
such powers, in present circumstances, by the University itself, or
any of its component bodies, unnecessary, impolitic, and capable of
being construed as a surrender of permanent rights and privileges of
the University, in order to evade a temporary difficulty; (4.) Because,
without pronouncing an opinion on the question now raised as to the
legal rights which the pursuers have acquired by matriculation in the
University, admission already to certain examinations, or otherwise, to
demand from the University continued medical instruction and the degree
on due qualification, we yet believe that they have thereby, and by
the general tenor of the proceedings, both of the Senatus and of the
University Court in their case, hitherto acquired a moral right, and
created a public expectation, which the University is bound to meet by
the full exercise of its powers in their behalf, even should it be with
some trouble; (5.) Because, with these convictions, and notwithstanding
our utmost respect for those of our colleagues from whom we may have
the misfortune to differ on the subject, we should individually feel
ashamed of appearing as defenders in such an action, and should account
any such public appearance by us in the character of opponents to women
desiring to enter an honoured and useful profession, a matter to our
discredit.”[112]
The following are the names of the six Professors who have taken this
memorable stand:--John Hughes Bennett, M.D., Professor of Institutes
of Medicine; David Masson, M.A., Professor of Rhetoric and English
Literature; Henry Calderwood, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy;
James Lorimer, M.A., Professor of Public Law; Archibald H. Charteris,
D.D., Professor of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities; and
William Ballantine Hodgson, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy.[113]
And so I have brought down as clearly and as briefly as I have been
able the history of this great struggle to the present moment, for that
it is a great struggle, and one that will astound most of those who may
read these lines some thirty years hence I think no thoughtful person
will deny.
I should like in conclusion to say a very few words on two only of the
general questions which are bound up with the final solution of the
problem of the Medical Education of Women.