This obstacle, too had been passed.
3. The University Court, composed of the Rector, the Principal, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh,—with five others appointed respectively by the Chancellor, the Rector, the Senatus, the Town Council of Edinburgh, and the General Council of the University.
4. The General Council, comprising all those graduates who register their names as members.
Mr. Sidgwick’s remarks about Convocation naturally occur to one at this stage; but what mainly strikes one on facing these particulars is the extraordinary constitution of No. 3 as a body authorized to reconsider the decisions of No. 2. The Rector was some distinguished man who might never have been in Edinburgh in his life; the Lord Provost may be fairly supposed to have his hands pretty full without taking upon him the consideration of highly technical questions that lay outside his sphere. As for some of the other members,—one can only say that the manner of their election calls up possibilities concerning them too varied for the human mind to grasp.
No doubt there were occasions on which this “lay control” had its advantages; but, when one considers how much must depend on the point of view from which the case was laid before the Court, one cannot but feel that it lay in the power of so singularly-constituted a body to defeat the very end for which it was created.
From S. J.-B.’s point of view then, as we have seen, two hurdles had been successfully passed; but the dangers of the third may be estimated from the fact—the importance of which she as an outsider could not possibly gauge—that her avowed and implacable opponent, “our Nestor,” Dr. Robert Christison, was the only Professor and the only medical man who had a seat on the University Court. He had in fact the unique distinction of belonging to every body by which the interests of the women had to be decided, viz. the Medical Faculty, the Senatus, the University Court, the University Council, and the Infirmary Board.
Add to all this that he was a respected and representative citizen, one who made a strong appeal to the religious and church-going public. “No man,” said Professor Masson about this time, “walks the streets of Edinburgh whom I more respect; ... but this is not the first time, and I suppose it will not be the last, when grave and wise men will be found defending a dying tyranny.”
Professor Masson’s feeling for the great man was destined to be sorely tried.
It will surprise no one, then, to learn that on April 19th, the following resolution was passed at a meeting of the University Court held, as was the custom, in strict privacy:
“That the Court, considering the difficulties at present standing in the way of carrying out the resolution of the Senatus, as a temporary arrangement in the interest of one lady, and not being prepared to adjudicate finally on the question whether women should be educated in the medical classes of the University, sustains the appeals and recalls the resolution of the Senatus.”