The day will come when women will sit cheek by jowl with men through a six months’ course of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, etc., etc., right cheerfully, and neither jeering nor sneering there—nor winks nor any other impertinences—singularly misplaced and out of time—if certain important personages could only see matters rightly. Yes, and walk the Hospitals—surgical and medical—and the lying-in Hospital also, the Eye Infirmary, the Cancer one and the Consumptive one, and the Lock into the bargain. And then all these important obstructives will be dead, buried, rotten—forgotten—and their writings selling at three halfpence per lb.”
The above is quoted from the letter of a complete stranger,—the so-called “man in the street” apparently, and is a sample of many that came pouring in upon S. J.-B. during those troublous years. “Has the University any right to act like this?” friends kept asking constantly; and we know that more than one of the Professors had advised an appeal to a Court of Law.
Towards the close of 1871, S. J.-B. seems to have consulted her brother on the subject, drawing from him the following letters:
“The College,
Cheltenham.
Nov. 18. 1871.
My dear Sophy,
I do not think you can gain anything by sueing the Professors or by going to Law with the University in any other shape.
It may be too late now to persuade, but it would be at all times hopeless to compel, a great University to open its doors to ladies.
I return the Queries and Opinions: and should distrust legal opinions that advised further law-suits.