There was a question of referring the matter to the University Court, but one is glad to think that wiser counsels prevailed. Miss Pechey had gone to her home in the country, and was listening to the nightingales.
“Thank you for Masson’s letter,” she writes to S. J.-B. “He is a grand fellow. Wilson has sent me the minutes of the Senatus meeting about the scholarship. I suppose I ought to write to him. I wish you were here to tell me what to do.
You understand that I leave you to do as is thought best about the scholarship,—only remember that my own judgment—apart from personal feeling—is against appealing, and that I do not wish to do so unless our friends are very decisively of opinion that we ought to.”
Well might Miss Pechey say, “He is a grand fellow.” Professor Masson had taken up the cause of the woman as wholeheartedly as if it had been a matter of vital import to himself. At the next meeting of the General Council of the University, he moved (seconded by Professor Balfour) that, instead of having separate instruction, women should be admitted to the ordinary classes of the University. The original draft of the motion was as follows:
“That, as the present arrangements for the medical instruction of women in the University impose great and unnecessary inconveniences on the women who are students, and also on Professors, and may, if continued, even nullify the resolution of the University admitting women to the study of medicine [and as it will not be to the credit of the University that it should pretend to do a thing and not do it],[[60]] the General Council recommend to the University Court that women desiring to study medicine be admitted to the medical classes as other students are, and on the same terms, except in cases where the Court may see special reasons why the instruction should be separate.”
“The motion is longish,” he says, “but I thought it well to have something which, when printed, would explain itself and attract attention of members of Council.... I am the more convinced that we do right in moving the General Council as above, even if we should lose, because I distinctly perceive a relapse on the part of those who had merely acquiesced, and a kind of exulting feeling on the part of others that the experience of the session may be pleaded in proof that the University perpetrated a troublous blunder when it admitted Eve’s sex at all. This state of feeling will be but temporary; but it is time that the opposed forces should meet in full conflict on the mixed-classes question.”
“Full conflict,” indeed, it proved. The opponents brought forward arguments that called forth an indignant interruption from the Professor of Moral Philosophy (Dr. Calderwood); and the Times, while disapproving of mixed classes, stated in a leading article:
“We cannot sufficiently express the indignation with which we read such language, and we must say that it is the strongest argument against the admission of young ladies to the Edinburgh medical classes, that they would attend the lectures of Professors capable of talking in this strain.”[[61]]
The motion was lost by 47 votes to 58.
“No speaking on our side could have changed the vote,” wrote Professor Masson, “those present were all predetermined. Crum Brown did well, and administered a proper reproof to L. Struthers was present and voted with us; so did Nicolson (who was quite in earnest when the time came), and Dr. Craufurd, who avows himself a convert. On the other hand, Wilson, Bennett, Charteris and Tait, of our side, were absent, reducing our number somewhat. People today are consoling me—for I was really downcast—by saying the result was a success in its kind, and an omen of final success when the thing comes up again, as it must. All very well; but how shall I console you? What are you to do this year? The only thing I disliked in Crum Brown’s speech was his opening statement that he thought the motion perhaps premature, the time not having elapsed for the experiment of the other method. Premature! This in face of his own refusal to continue, and in face of his subsequent declaration that the existing method is impracticable! Still he said and did well. What shall I say but that my heart is sore for your immediate discomfiture? Time—a year or two—will rectify the thing generally, here and elsewhere; but how you are to get on with us is the question. Christison, who draws Turner, Lister, and Sanders (L. is nothing) with him, seems determined to get rid of you, and trusts to effecting this by mere continuance of the present arrangement. Whether you can wriggle on with us by any ingenuity in the hope of beating him is for your consideration. Would it might be so!