“As to the professions: women were for a long time barred from them, but now the barriers to all of them have been removed, and there is not a profession in which women are not distinguished. They have graduated in the sciences from most universities with the highest honours, and have stood the same tests as the men. The law was about the last to admit them within its precincts, and there they are meeting with an unexpected measure of success. Not only in this, but in other countries, there are successful women practitioners. And in France, where the preparatory course is most arduous, and the term of study longest, a woman recently took the highest rank over 500 men in her graduating examinations, and during the whole six years of class study she only lost one day from her work—an example that is commended to you students. Undoubtedly, the weight of the argument is in favour of women studying law.”—(Women’s Journal, Boston, U.S., 6th February, 1892.)
Id.... Even the vaunted politeness and gallantry of the Frenchman is not proof against the far more deeply-bedded masculine jealousy. M. de Blowitz, the erudite correspondent at Paris of the Times, reports that—
“The law students yesterday hooted down Mdlle. Jeanne Chauvin, 28 years of age, who was to have argued a thesis for a legal degree. She had chosen as her theme, ‘The Professions accessible to Women and the Historical Evolution of the Economic Position of Woman in Society.’ The uproar was such that the examiner postponed the ceremony sine die. Mdlle. Chauvin is the first Frenchwoman who has sought a legal degree, but two years ago a Roumanian lady went through the ordeal without obstruction.”—(The Times, July 4, 1892.)
To revert to the “loaves and fishes” argument, an incident now to be given will show that medicine and the law are not the only professions in which the objections to the equal status of the sexes are largely prompted by a “jalousie de métier” of a selfish and mercenary character:—
“The following letters have been received at Auckland from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in relation to the memorial lately sent from New Zealand in favour of the opening of degrees to women:—
“‘Dear Professor Aldis,
“‘Your very interesting memorial reached me yesterday. I still await the explanatory letter and analysis. After receiving I will write again.
“‘Yours etc.,
John Peile,
Vice-Chancellor.