For the sake of clearness, let me first explain, in few words, who constitute the different bodies that take a share in the government of Edinburgh University, taken in the order in which my application was considered by them. The Medical Faculty of course consists of Medical Professors only; the Senatus comprises all the Professors of every Faculty, and also the Principal; the University Court is composed of eight members only;[76] and lastly, the General Council of the University consists of all those graduates of Edinburgh who have registered their names as members. Each of these bodies had to be consulted, as also the Chancellor, before any important change could be made.
When I first went to Edinburgh, I found many most kind and liberal friends among the Professors. In the Medical Faculty itself, Sir James Simpson, Professor Hughes Bennett, and Professor Balfour, Dean of the Medical Faculty, at once espoused my cause; and I need not say that Professor Masson and other members of the non-medical Faculties were not a whit behind in kindness and help. I found, on the other hand, a few determined enemies who would listen to nothing I could urge on the ground of either justice or mercy, and one or two who seemed to think that the fact of a woman’s wishing to study medicine at all quite exempted them from the necessity of treating her even with ordinary courtesy. The majority, however, occupied a somewhat neutral position;—they did not wish arbitrarily to stretch their power to exclude women from education, and yet they were alarmed at what seemed to them the magnitude and novelty of the change proposed.
Several Professors were especially timid about the question of matriculation, and argued that, till they had some evidence of probable success, it would be premature to let women matriculate, since, by so doing, they would acquire rights and privileges of the most extensive kind. To meet this difficulty I gladly accepted a suggestion made to me privately by the Dean of the Medical Faculty, that I should, for the present, waive the question of matriculation, and should, during the summer months, attend his class in Botany and that of Professor Allman in Natural History, to see whether, as the Spectator expressed it, “Scotch and English students were really so much more brutal than Frenchmen and Germans,” or whether a lady could, without discomfort, attend the ordinary classes. This plan met with much approval, and some of the Professors’ wives most kindly offered to accompany me to the classes when the time should come. The Medical Faculty and Senatus successively sanctioned this tentative plan, and, after a short stay in Edinburgh, I left for England to make preparations for returning to spend the summer session as arranged.
But two or three hostile Professors appealed to the University Court; some of the students also sent up a memorial against the arrangement proposed, and the question was reconsidered.
I am anxious, as far as possible, to avoid personalities in this matter, and yet, I think, I cannot properly tell my story without explaining at the outset that, in my opinion at least, the whole opposition to the medical education of women has in Edinburgh, been dictated by one man and his immediate followers. It is hardly necessary to say that that man is Sir Robert Christison,[77] whose great age and long tenure of office naturally give him unusual weight, both in the University and among the medical men of Edinburgh. Having said this, I need only remark further that Professor Christison has, ever since I came to Edinburgh, been the only professor and the only medical man who has had a seat in the University Court, and also the only person who has all along been a member of every body, without exception, by whom our interests have had to be decided, viz., of the Medical Faculty, the Senatus, the University Court, the University Council, and the Infirmary Board.
The question then was brought before the University Court in April 1869. The meetings of the Court are held in strict privacy, (against which the public and the members of the University Council have often protested,) and I can only state the result of their deliberation. On April 19th the following resolution was passed:—“The Court, considering the difficulties at present standing in the way of carrying out the resolution of the Senatus, as a temporary arrangement in the interest of one lady, and not being prepared to adjudicate finally on the question whether women should be educated, in the medical classes of the University, sustain the appeals, and recall the resolution of the Senatus.”
The very palpable invitation to other ladies to come forward, which appeared on the face of this resolution, bore fruit; for, in the course of the next month, or two, four more ladies expressed their wish to be admitted as students, and certain of the University authorities held out hopes that an application for separate classes would be successful. Accordingly, in June 1869, I addressed a letter to the Rector of the University, who is also President of the University Court, enquiring whether the Court would “remove their present veto in case arrangements can be made for the instruction of women in separate classes; and whether, in that case, women will be allowed to matriculate in the usual way, and to undergo the ordinary Examination, with a view to obtain medical degrees in due course?”
I also wrote to the Senatus asking them to recommend the matriculation of women as medical students, on the understanding that separate classes should be formed; and, moreover, addressed a letter to the Dean of the Medical Faculty, offering, on behalf of my fellow-students and myself, to guarantee whatever minimum fee the Faculty might fix as remuneration for these separate classes.
On July 1st, 1869, at a meeting of the Medical Faculty of the University, it was resolved to recommend to the Senatus:—