About the same time another “honourable woman” was writing:
“Sir,
I venture to trouble you with a post office Order for £2,—payable from me to yourself,—as my small contribution to the Fund needed by the General Committee for securing a Complete Medical Education for Women in Edinburgh.
The question is so important, and the Lady-students have manifested so fine a spirit and temper under the harassing trials, that a large proportion of their countrymen will, I trust, feel the obligation of sustaining them during their conflict with jealousies and prejudices which will scarcely be credited by a future generation.
Permit me to offer you my thanks for the service you render to a good cause by managing the financial concerns of the movement, and believe me, Sir, with much respect.
Yours,
Harriet Martineau.
W. L. Reid, Esq.”
At the Senatus meeting on Oct. 21st., the question of admitting women to the First Professional Examination was discussed, and the Medical Faculty was instructed to examine them. It is interesting to know that all the candidates passed.
But S. J.-B. was not one of them. All her strength was being spent in carving out the way.