In the class of Physiology there had been 127 male students, of whom 25 appeared in the honours list; in the Chemistry class there were 226 male students, of whom 31 obtained honours; of the 5 women, 4 were in honours in both classes. One of the ladies obtained the third place in the Chemistry prize-list; and, as the two gentlemen above her had already gone through a course of lectures on the same subject, Miss Pechey was actually first of her year. In the College calendar it was stated that “the four students who have received the highest marks are entitled to have the Hope Scholarships,”—such scholarships giving free admission to the College laboratory, and having been founded by the late Professor Hope from the proceeds of lectures given to ladies some fifty years previously.[81]
It had occurred to us that if any lady won this scholarship she might be debarred from making full use of it as regards the laboratory, in consequence of the prohibition against mixed classes, but as it had been distinctly ordained that we were to be subject to “all the regulations in force in the University as to examinations,” it had not occurred to us as possible that the very name of Hope Scholar could be wrested from the successful candidate and given over her head to the fifth student on the list, who had the good fortune to be a man.[82]
But this was actually done.
At the same time that the Professor announced to us his intention of withholding the Hope Scholarship from the student who had won it, on the ground that, having studied at a different hour, she was not a member of The Chemistry Class, though he, at the same time, gave her a bronze medal of the University, (to which I should think her claim must have been neither greater nor less, since these medals were given to the five students highest on the list,) he offered us written certificates of having attended a “ladies’ class in the University,” as of course he saw that to give the ordinary certificates of attendance on “The Chemistry Class of the University” would be to destroy his own argument with reference to the Scholarship. As, however, such certificates were absolutely worthless to us as students of medicine, we declined them, and appealed to the Senatus to ordain that the ordinary certificates should be granted to us, as they alone would qualify for professional examination. At the same time Miss Pechey made an appeal to have the Hope Scholarship awarded to her in due course. It is hardly credible that (by very narrow majorities in each case) the Senatus decided that we were to have exactly the ordinary certificates, which declared us to have attended the Chemistry Class of the University of Edinburgh, and yet acquiesced in Miss Pechey’s being deprived of her Scholarship on the ground that she was not a member of that class!
I do not wish to dwell longer on these incidents, but I have narrated them here because I believe that the above mentioned results of the class examinations aroused in our opponents a conviction that the so-called experiment was not going to fail of itself, as they had confidently hoped, but that if it was to be suppressed at all, vigorous measures must be taken for that purpose.
At the previous meeting of the University Council, no Professor had stood up to oppose the admission of women, though Dr Andrew Wood had covered himself with glory by protesting that he had too many sons to provide for, to acquiesce in the education of women for the Medical Profession![83] At the next meeting, however, of the Council, in April 1870, Professor Masson moved that, in view of the success that had hitherto attended the ladies’ studies, the existing regulations should be so far relaxed as to allow of the attendance of women in the ordinary classes, where no special reasons existed to the contrary, that they might be spared the additional expense, inconvenience, and difficulty, attendant on the formation of separate classes in every subject. Professor Balfour, Dean of the Medical Faculty, seconded this motion, and expressed his opinion that arrangements might easily be made to carry it out. Professors Laycock and Christison, however, opposed it vigorously, and that in speeches of such a character that the Times[84] remarked in a leading article:—“We cannot sufficiently express the indignation with which we read such language, and we must say that it is the strongest argument against the admission of young ladies to the Edinburgh medical classes that they would attend the lectures of Professors capable of talking in this strain.”[85] When the vote was taken, the motion in our favour was lost by forty-seven votes to fifty-eight, and no change was therefore made in the University regulations.
The Professor of Botany kindly made arrangements for giving to us and other ladies a separate course of lectures, though he much regretted to be forced to this double, and needless, expenditure of time and trouble. Dr Allman, the Professor of Natural History, who had in the previous summer consented to my entering his ordinary class, stated that his health would not allow him to undertake the labour of two classes, and, therefore, he could not teach us. We then made application for instruction to Dr Alleyne Nicholson, the extra-mural teacher of the same subject, and he at once agreed to our request. Before making any arrangements, he spoke to the members of his class at their first meeting, and, mentioning our application, he enquired whether they would unite with him in inviting us to join their class. This they unanimously did; and, as we had no objection to offer, the first “mixed class” was inaugurated, and continued throughout the summer without the slightest inconvenience.[86]
In the meantime, we were anxious to make arrangements for the next winter session, and it was especially necessary that a course of instruction in Anatomy should be provided, as the subject was one of the greatest importance, and the University professor flatly refused either to instruct us himself or allow his assistant to do so in any way whatever. Under these circumstances we endeavoured to obtain a competent extra-mural teacher who should form a special class for our instruction; but I was repeatedly warned that, by this time, the medical prejudice had been so strongly aroused against us, and the medical influence was so strongly at work, that we should fail in our endeavours, as no young medical man dare run the risk of being ostracised for giving us help. The only extra-mural teacher of Anatomy who was already recognised by the University was Dr Handyside, who was one of a band of nine associated lecturers who conjointly rented a building, called Surgeons’ Hall, for their lectures. Some of these lecturers were indignant at the way in which we were treated in the University, and, in July 1870, they, by a majority, passed the following resolutions:—