A fair proportion of women’s names appear in the Degree Lists and in the Prize Lists. Several women are members of Convocation, and there will soon be more. Many of them are Associates of their College. Besides full Degrees, there are Certificates of Proficiency granted by this University to women. All University prizes are open to women, and the majority of College Prizes.
Edinburgh University was founded in 1582 on the site of the lonely Kirk of Field, where Darnley met his death. The present building, however, now called the Old University, was only begun in 1739. It is to this College alone that women are as yet admitted. The University New Buildings, commenced in 1878, were partly opened for teaching purposes in 1880, and completed in 1888. This has been handed over to the great “School of Medicine,” of Edinburgh University. The McEwan Hall for public Academic Ceremonials and for the conferring of Degrees was completed the year before last, and some women graced its first public function.
Edinburgh retains the honour of having been the earliest place in the British Islands where women were admitted to the advantages of a University education. Mrs. Crudelius in 1866 conceived the idea, and with an ever-increasing army of sympathisers, she formed in 1867 the “Edinburgh Association for the Higher Education of Women,” afterwards entitled the “Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women.” This did good work. In the session 1867-8 a class was opened in a separate hall, in which Professor Masson delivered his University Lectures on English Literature, 265 women enrolling themselves as students. Encouraged by their success, in November, 1868, a second winter session, the Association arranged for three classes in three departments, “the Literary,” represented by Professor Masson’s on English Literature, in which 129 women appeared; “the Scientific,” represented by Professor Tait’s class of Experimental Physics, in which 141 women entered; and “the Philosophical,” represented by Professor Fraser’s Lectures on Logic and Psychology, the first time such a course had been offered to women, and 65 women took advantage of it. The quality of the work done both in Examinations and Essays, showed that Intellect was of no Sex. The Association worked on patiently through the years, more and more gaining the sympathy and co-operation of the University, which soon granted Certificates for proficiency in any three subjects, proved in examinations of the M.A. Standard, the first of which was gained in 1873. Separate Honours Examinations were also instituted.
Later, a higher Certificate, called a Diploma, was offered to those who had passed in seven subjects of M.A. Standard, one at least in Honours. The first was gained in 1875, before any other Scottish University had considered the needs of women, and before London or Dublin had opened their doors. The disturbances made against the attempts by women to gain admission to the medical school, had made it more difficult for the Association to gain what it desired, the opening of the Art Classes and Degrees to women. But it lived to make warm friends among members of the University Senate who were at first its foes. The Scottish Universities Bill coming into force the year before last, empowered the several Scotch Universities to open their doors to women in their own time and in their own way. Women students were to matriculate under the same conditions as men.
Ordinance 18. IX.
“1. It shall be in the power of the University Court of each University to admit women to graduation in such Faculty or Faculties as the said court may think fit.
“2. It shall be competent to the University Court of each University to make provision within the University for the instruction of women in any of the subjects taught by the University either by admitting them to the ordinary classes, or by instituting separate classes for their instruction. Such classes shall be conducted by the Professors in the several subjects, or by Lecturers specially appointed for the purpose by the University Court, provided always that the Court shall not institute classes where men and women shall be taught together, except after consultation with the Senatus, and provided also that no Professor whose commission is dated before the approval of this ordinance by Her Majesty in council shall be required, without his consent, to conduct classes to which women are admitted.
“3. The conditions for graduation within any Faculty in which women are admitted to graduation shall be the same for women as for men, with the exceptions,” that there are advantages offered at present to women which may be classified under the name of Retrospective Recognition. “So long as provision is not made for the education of women in any University, qualifications gained at other recognised centres will be accepted as preparing for examinations and degrees.”
“4. So long as provision is not made for the education of women in Medicine, the University is empowered to admit to graduation women trained at other home or foreign Universities. So soon as, within any of the said Faculties in any University, provision is made for the instruction of women in all subjects qualifying for graduation, ... the conditions for the graduation of women within such Faculty shall be the same as the conditions for the graduation of men.