[Walt Whitman had a similar thought, and it is interesting to compare her and his expression of it, remembering the difference between prose and poetry, and the obstruction to expression caused by a foreign tongue which never became easy to her. In “Leaves of Grass,” he says:
This day before dawn I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my Spirit, When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be filled and satisfied then?
And my Spirit said, No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.]
In March, 1856, the great event took place. On Commencement Day, forty-two students, four of whom were women, received the degree of “M.D.” The hall in which the exercises took place was crowded, not only with friends of the graduates but with a goodly number of the curious of the city who had come to get a look at the women doctors. A deep silence prevailed after the president had alluded to the female portion of the students, and the dropping of a pin might have been heard when one after the other, according to alphabetical arrangement, they stepped up to the platform, each to receive her roll of parchment. No sign for or against them was made and all went home in a dull, somber mood.
The doors of the college had closed behind us, and the words of advice to “go out and do honor to your chosen profession” with which the whole event had concluded, rang in my ears, though I had not the slightest idea how to realize them.
Shortly after Commencement, the dean of the college (Dr. Delamater) called upon me. A call from this venerable gentleman was a thing so unusual that numberless conjectures as to what this visit might mean flitted through my brain on my way to the parlor. He received me, as usual, paternally, wished me a thousand blessings, and handed back to me the note for one hundred and twenty dollars, payable in two years, which I had given for the lecture fees. He told me that in the meeting of the faculty after graduation day, it was proposed by one of the professors to return the note to me as a gift. To this, those present cheerfully gave a unanimous vote, adding their wishes for my success and appointing Dr. Delamater as their delegate to inform me of the proceedings.
This was a glorious beginning, for which I am more than thankful, and for which I was especially so at that time when I had barely money enough to return to New York, with very small prospects of getting means wherewith to commence practice. The mention of this fact might be thought indiscreet by the faculty in Cleveland were they still so organized as to admit women, which I am sorry to say is no longer the case, though they give as their reason that women at present have their own medical colleges and, consequently, no longer have need of theirs.
Before I quit the subject of the Cleveland College, I must mention a fact which may serve as an argument against the belief that the sexes cannot study together without exerting an injurious effect upon each other. During the last winter of my study, there was such emulation in respect to the graduating honors among the candidates for graduation, comprising thirty-eight male and four female students, that all studied more closely than they had ever done before—the men not wishing to be excelled by the women, nor the women by the men. One of the professors afterwards told me that whereas it was usually a difficult thing to decide upon the best three theses to be read publicly at the Commencement, since all were more or less indifferently written, this year the theses were all so good that it was necessary, to avoid doing absolute injustice, to select thirteen from which parts should be read.
Does not this prove that the stimulus of the one sex upon the other would act favorably rather than otherwise upon the profession? And would not the very best tonic that could be given to the individual be to pique his amour propre by the danger of being excelled by one of the opposite sex? Is not this natural, and would not this be the best and the surest reformation of humanity and its social condition, if left free to work out its own development?
On the day following the visit of Dr. Delamater, I received a letter from my brother-in-law in which he told me that his business compelled him to go to Europe for half a year, and that he had, therefore, made arrangements for me to procure money, in case that I should need it to commence my practice. He said that he intended to assist me afterwards, but that as he thought it best for my sister (his wife) to live out of New York during his absence, he was willing to lend me as much money as I required until his return. I accepted his offer with infinite pleasure, for it was another instance of real friendship. He was by no means a rich man but was simply in the employ of a large importing house.
By giving lessons in German, I had earned a little money that served to cover my most necessary expenses. For the last months that I spent in Cleveland, I carried in my purse one solitary cent as a sort of talisman, firmly believing that some day it would turn into gold; but this did not happen, and on the day that I was expecting the receipt of the last eighteen dollars for my lessons, which were designed to bear my expenses to New York, I gave it to a poor woman in the street who begged me for a cent, and it doubtless ere long found its way into a ginshop.