Why not ask?
In April, 1867, the following correspondence was published in The Boston Daily Advertiser:
“March 11th. 1867.
Gentlemen,
Finding it impossible to obtain elsewhere in New England a thoroughly competent medical education, we hereby request permission to enter the Harvard Medical School on the same terms and under the same conditions as other students, there being, as we understand, no university statute to the contrary.
On applying for tickets for the course, we were informed by the Dean of the Medical Faculty that he and his coadjutors were unable to grant them to us in consequence of some previous action taken by the corporation, to whom now therefore we make request to remove any such existing disability. In full faith in the words recently spoken with reference to the University of Harvard,—‘American colleges are not cloisters for the education of a few persons, but seats of learning whose hospitable doors should be always open to every seeker after knowledge’—we place our petition in your hands and subscribe ourselves,
Your obedient servants,
Sophia Jex-Blake.
Susan Dimock.[[44]]
To the President and Fellows of the University of Harvard.”