The best of these secondary institutions existed in Boston, and it was thither that I was going with the hopefulness which befits the missionary spirit.
[As has been elsewhere stated, most of the preceding chapters were written by Dr. Zakrzewska in a letter to her friend, Miss Mary L. Booth, in New York. And she closes this letter with the paragraphs which follow.]
... I could not refrain from writing fully of this part of my life which has been the object of all my undertakings, and for which I have borne trials and overcome difficulties which would have crushed nine out of ten in my position. I do not expect that this will be the end of my usefulness; but I do expect that I shall not have to write to you any more of my doings. It was simply in order that you, my friend, should understand me fully, and because you have so often expressed a wish to know my life before we met, that I finished this letter. Now you have me externally and internally, past and present. And, although there have been many influences besides which have made their impressions on my peculiar development, yet they are not of a nature to be spoken of as facts, as, for instance, your friendship for me.
On looking back upon my past life, I may say that I am like a fine ship that, launched upon high seas, is tossed about by the winds and waves and steered against contrary currents until finally stranded upon the shore. There, from the materials a small boat is built, just strong enough to reach the port into which the ship had expected to enter with proudly swelling sails. But this ambition is entirely gone and I care now very little whether or not people recognize what is in me, so long as the object for which I have lived becomes a reality.
And now, my good friend, I must add one wish before I send these last few pages to you, namely, that I may be enabled some day to go with you to Berlin to show you the scenes in which my childhood and youth were passed, and to teach you on the spot the difference between Europe and America. All other inducements to return have vanished. Nearly all the men who aided in promoting my wishes have passed away, and the only stimulus that now remains to make me want to revisit the home of my youth, is the wish to wander about there with you and perhaps with two or three other of my American friends. Until this can be accomplished, I hope to continue my present work in the New England Female Medical College which, though by no means yet what we wish it to be, is deserving of every effort to raise it to the position that it ought to take among the medical institutions of America.
CHAPTER XXIII
Details of the College building—Dr. Zakrzewska meets many men and women leaders in advanced thought in Boston—Differences between Boston and New York with regard to the question of “woman’s sphere”—History of the New England Female Medical College—She finds the educational standards of the College low, and she meets opposition in her attempts to elevate them—She establishes the hospital (Clinical Department) along lines similar to those she had developed in the New York Infirmary—Several leading men in the profession acknowledge her qualifications but refuse to act as consultants for the hospital, or to countenance the College—Letters from Dr. John Ware—Hardships of the Out-Practice. (Thirty years of age: 1859-1860.)
The New England Female Medical College had its home in Springfield Street, in the building erected for the Boston Lying-In Hospital and later occupied by the Home for Aged Men. Here the lectures were held, the officers had their rooms and the directors, their meetings; and yet, not half of the building was occupied. So I had there my office and bedroom, furnished by the lady managers of the college.
I assigned the basement rooms to the dispensary, while the rest of the lower rooms served for domestic purposes inclusive of servants’ rooms. The middle story was taken for the indoor clinical department, or hospital; while the upper floor, or attic, was arranged for students’ chambers, and for these we received rent and pay for board from those actively serving in the hospital department.
This whole affair, however, had to be organized and superintended, and as I felt unequal to added medical responsibilities I devoted myself during the whole summer (1859) to arranging this department and getting it in working order, taking every now and then a whole week’s vacation at the seashore or in the country.
New friends in the form of a board of lady managers were added to the college because increased funds were needed to carry on the new department, the most noted name on this board being that of Harriet Beecher Stowe. And the ladies and gentlemen who favored my plans when I came, three years earlier, pleading for the New York Infirmary, now bravely advanced and provided the means for this new enterprise.
Through all of my former acquaintances I at once found warm friends and protectors here in our beloved city of Boston. I may mention the names of Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall, F. W. G. May, Francis Jackson, Rev. William E. Channing, Dr. W. F. Channing, Dr. Samuel Cabot, Dr. E. H. Clark, Mrs. Sarah S. Russell, Miss Abby G. May, Miss Lucy Goddard, Rev. and Mrs. James F. Clarke, Mr. and Mrs. Bond, Miss Mary J. Parkman, Mrs. R. G. Shaw, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Mrs. F. Fenno Tudor, Miss Susan Carey—and there were a host of others, both men and women.