(1.) That ladies be allowed to matriculate as medical students, and to pass the usual preliminary examination for registration; (2.) That ladies be allowed to attend medical classes, and to receive certificates of attendance qualifying for examination, provided the classes are confined entirely to ladies; (3.) That the medical professors be allowed to have classes for ladies, but no professor shall be compelled to give such course of lectures; (4.) That, in conformity with the request of Miss Jex-Blake’s letter to the Dean, ladies be permitted to arrange with the Medical Faculty, or with the individual professors as to minimum fee for the classes.
At a meeting of the Senatus Academicus, July 2, 1869, the Report of the Medical Faculty was read, agreed to, and ordered to be transmitted to the University Court. At a meeting of the University Court, on 23d July 1869, “Mr Gordon, on behalf of the Committee appointed at last meeting to consider what course should be followed in order to give effect to the resolution of the Senatus, reported that the Committee were of opinion that the matter should be proceeded with under section xii. 2, of the Universities Act, as an improvement in the internal arrangements of the University. Mr Gordon then moved the following resolution, which was adopted:—
“The Court entertain an opinion favourable to the resolutions of the Medical Faculty in regard to the matriculation of ladies as medical students, and direct these resolutions to be laid before the General Council of the University for their consideration at next meeting.”
This resolution was approved by the General Council on October 29th, 1869, and was sanctioned by the Chancellor on November 12th, 1869. The following regulations were officially issued at the same date, and inserted in the Calendar of the University:—
(1.) Women shall be admitted to the study of medicine in the University; (2.) The instruction of women for the profession of medicine shall be conducted in separate classes, confined entirely to women; (3.) The Professors of the Faculty of Medicine shall, for this purpose, be permitted to have separate classes for women; (4.) Women, not intending to study medicine professionally, may be admitted to such of these classes, or to such part of the course of instruction given in such classes, as the University Court may from time to time think fit and approve; (5.) The fee for the full course of instruction in such classes shall be four guineas; but in the event of the number of students proposing to attend any such class being too small to provide a reasonable remuneration at that rate, it shall be in the power of the professor to make arrangements for a higher fee, subject to the usual sanction of the University Court; (6.) All women attending such classes shall be subject to all the regulations now or at any future time in force in the University as to the matriculation of students, their attendance on classes, Examination, or otherwise; (7.) The above regulations shall take effect as from the commencement of session 1869–70.[78]
In accordance with, the above resolutions, four other ladies and myself were, in October 1869, admitted provisionally to the usual preliminary examination in Arts, prescribed for medical students entering the University. Having duly passed, and received certificates to that effect from the Dean of the Medical Faculty, we, after the issue of the regulations above cited, all matriculated in the ordinary manner at the office of the Secretary of the University. We paid the usual fee, inscribed our names in the University album, with the usual particulars, including the Faculty in which we proposed to study, and received the ordinary matriculation tickets, which bore our names, and declared us to be “Cives Academiæ Edinensis.” We were at the same time registered in due course as students of medicine, by the Registrar of the Branch Council for Scotland, in the Government register kept by order of the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom, such registration being obligatory on all medical students, and affording the sole legal record of the date at which they have commenced their studies.
It seemed now as if smooth water had at length been reached, after seven months of almost incessant struggle. The temporary scheme first suggested had been set aside, but its place had been taken by one much more comprehensive, which had resulted from five months of consideration and consultation, and which had ultimately received the sanction of every one of the University authorities in succession. Not only were women allowed the privilege of matriculation which we had been told involved so much; but formal regulations, entitled “For the Education of Women in Medicine in the University,” had been framed, and have now for three years formed an integral part of the University Calendar.
For six months our hopes seemed realised. We pursued most interesting courses of study in the University, and found nothing but kindness at the hands of our teachers, and courtesy from the male students, whenever we happened to meet them in the quadrangle or on the staircases. Even Dr Christison was reported to have said in Senatus that, as the experiment was to be tried, he for one would co-operate to give it a fair trial.
Though the lectures were delivered at different hours, the instruction given to us and to the male students was identical, and, when the class examinations took place, we received and answered the same papers at the same hour and on identical conditions, having been told that marks would be awarded indifferently to “both sections of the class,”—this latter expression being, by the bye, repeatedly used during the course of the term by both the Professors who instructed us.
I am obliged now to mention the results which appeared in the prize-lists, not with a view to claim any special credit for the ladies,[79] (whose efforts to obtain education might well make them more zealous than most of the ordinary students,) but because I believe that the facts I am about to mention had a real and immediate connexion with subsequent events.[80]