Jan. 14th.
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
I have not been able to obtain quite as accurate information about London University as I should like, but there is no use in my delaying any longer to answer your letter. As regards Cambridge, I do not think that the most sanguine reformer would advise you to look for any relaxation of barriers that would be of service to you, for some years. I am among the most sanguine, and I do not think that we shall be giving degrees to women until after ten years at least. We do not as yet examine men unless resident in colleges. The University of London, which is an open examining board, ought to be much more hopeful. Unfortunately this university (by an arrangement which ought not to have been borrowed from its older sisters) is governed in the last resort by Convocation, an assembly got together by agitation among all graduates of a certain standard, and in which the influence of the London doctors is practically preponderant. This assembly rejected last year a proposal by which women would have been admitted to medical degrees.
The proposal will, I believe, be renewed, but I cannot say what reason there is to anticipate a different result. My information is only at second hand, and you may easily get more accurate in London. As soon as I hear more precisely what is going to be done, I will let you know. I cannot, from what I have heard advise you to expect a very speedy change.
At the same time there is a general movement, of which it is hard to estimate the force, against the exclusion of women from the higher education. You say that you do not wish your plans to be talked of. I am rather sorry, for if you would suffer yourself to be made a grievance, it might help ‘the cause’ in London.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
Henry Sidgwick.”
“Trin. Coll. Cambridge.
Feb. 4th.