To this end, it was proposed to inform the community at large of the situation (the subject being really as vital to the laity as to the profession, since doctors can practice only through patients), and to collect a large sum of money which might serve to endow a number of scholarships for women in some of the leading medical colleges of the country.
As early as 1865, a fund of fifty thousand dollars had been collected for this purpose, but all the colleges refused to accept women as students, even under such auspices. As the situation was particularly pressing in New York, the Drs. Blackwell were then so urged to take the next best step (the best having proved to be beyond their power) that they consented to add a college to their Hospital. And thus, in 1868, was opened the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary.
This college set a standard which was never surpassed by any of the colleges for men. But one small college insisting on a high standard could not compete numerically with rivals offering apparently equally desirable advantages and with standards easier of attainment. So the campaign continued!
In 1877, Dr. Zakrzewska being invited to address a body of leading nonmedical women (the New England Women’s Club), brought this problem to them for conference. She said in part:
At first the study of medicine appealed only to earnest women who felt a decided calling in that direction and who really thought to benefit their sex by acquiring information which would serve others through their advice. Very few, if any, of these first women combined with this idea that of vindicating their rights as Women.
It was no easy matter at that time to become a doctor of medicine. The great obstacle, want of schools, sifted out the weaker elements; and those who succeeded in obtaining teachers and in being admitted into the colleges then open to women were, as you will conceive, possessed of unusual perseverance and firmness of purpose.
But soon there appeared among the candidates for medical honors another purpose, the desire to gain these honors through simple study during a prescribed course without any laborious work.
The first suggestion of this came through some men physicians who, becoming alarmed at the movement and perhaps conscious of their own mediocrity, felt instinctively that there was danger of their being overshadowed by women, who are by nature sympathetic and more caretaking in sickness.
These raised the cry of “competition.” Many women believed the cry was caused by alarm at a real danger, that of the women making money of which the men desired to retain a monopoly, and they imagined that a new field especially adapted to their sex was opened—one in which, with a short course of technical study, they could more easily and rapidly than in other vocations open to them acquire a name and abundant means of support, if not a fortune.
The laity then awoke to this movement, and that portion of them whose head and heart were interested in the “rights” of women began to establish schools and colleges for the purpose of educating women physicians. And in a short time such institutions sprang up in several cities.
After years of struggle and gradual improvement, the Philadelphia medical school for women (Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania) has acquired deserved value when judged by the standard of men’s schools.
And the Drs. Blackwell were later compelled to open a medical school in connection with the Infirmary (Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary), in order to stem the flood of inferior physicians which was pouring forth, especially in New York, from schools which were far below mediocrity.
Thus to-day, of all the institutions open to women for medical study, only these two and the University of Michigan even try to reach the standard of medical education necessary to compare favorably with that of the men.
I say, try to reach that standard. By this, I do not wish to imply that the teachers and professors in these schools are always less capable than those in the male schools. No, the fault is in the students themselves, and so it will be for some time to come. Here, allow me to state why this is so and has been so for many years.
As I have said before, in the beginning of this movement women who persisted in the study needed uncommon perseverance and firmness of purpose. For the acquisition of these qualities, a certain amount of educational training and concentration of thought and will were requisite.
At present, such uncommon perseverance and determination are not so indispensable. It is now very easy to become a physician. If the higher and better medical schools will not admit women, the lower and the less strict are willing to do so. Socially, the woman doctor is respected and in some circles even lionized and ranked far above the teacher; therefore, two great obstacles are removed.
All that a young woman needs is the permission of her parents and the means of support while studying. Both of these are now more easily attained, since her social position is likely to improve rather than to decline as it formerly did.
Also, the number of schools and colleges has increased and they require a certain number of students in order to exist. Hence arises a rivalry among these institutions, and instead of elevating their standard to make good women physicians some lower it in order to fill their classes.
The effect of this sort of education is that the country is rapidly being swarmed with women physicians of very doubtful ability as regards either preparatory or medical education.
At the same time, the need for well-educated women physicians becomes the more pressing, as is manifested by the ready employment they all find, though there is no chance for discrimination between the real and the sham article denoted by the sign “Doctor.”
Hence, in many places the movement is beginning to be again viewed with distrust by communities which have again and again been disappointed when hoping to find scientific education and practical talent among the women practitioners who were offering their services to the public.
In a word, the so hopefully sown good seeds are in danger of being suffocated by the still more thickly sown weeds.
It is against this danger that I feel I must warn you. And I wish to call upon every educated woman within my reach to aid in destroying this evil.
Every individual can assist in this great reform; first, by trying to get clear ideas on the subject in order to discriminate and to judge; and then, to assist in every possible way those who are striving to elevate the educational and moral standards in medicine.
Some highly educated physicians have said to me, “We see no reason why a woman should not study medicine. If she can become wiser and her practice better, then we must have her, for our aim is the better; if she cannot do this or cannot even do as well as men, she will work her own destruction in her endeavors.”
Women should be willing to accept this or any other just test, but in order that the experiment shall be a fair one, they must have preparation and education and subsequent opportunity, equal to those given to the men.
The continued refusal of the larger medical colleges to admit women, under endowed scholarships or in any other way, led to the development of a more ambitious plan, this being the idea of purchasing direct partnership rights for women in one of these colleges.
But this required the raising of a much larger amount of money. In this direction there was made in 1880, a tentative proposition which involved the formation of a central organization with State branches, for the purpose of collecting such large fund and then arranging for its wise use.
The statement was made:
All sectional jealousy must be laid aside. Neither Boston, nor New York, nor Philadelphia must insist upon being the seat of the medical school. If Harvard would accept our conditions, it might possibly present certain guaranties which would give it a first claim in spite of the greater clinical advantages of the larger cities. But the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, and the University of Pennsylvania and the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, must also be considered.
In making the large united effort which seems desirable in order to take an advance step in the education of American medical women, we must secure that great impersonal enthusiasm for a cause which shall be far above purely sectional pride.
When this proposition was submitted to Dr. Zakrzewska for consideration, she replied as follows: