At a meeting of the Senatus held on Oct. 30th, the question of making further provision for the instruction of women was brought forward, and a letter was received from the Committee of our friends stating that, “in the event of special lecturers being appointed by the University to give qualifying instruction to women, the Committee are willing to guarantee the payment to them of any sum that may be fixed by the Senatus for their remuneration, in case the fees of the ladies are insufficient for that purpose; and that, if necessary, they are willing further to undertake to provide such rooms and accommodation as may be required for the delivery of the said lectures, if it should be found absolutely impossible for the University to provide space for that purpose.” After a long debate the Senatus decided, by a majority, that they would not take any steps to enable us to complete our education. At a meeting a few days later the Senatus further decided, by fourteen votes to thirteen, to recommend to the University Court that the existing regulations in favour of female students be rescinded, without prejudice, however, to the rights of those already studying. This resolution was, as I said, passed by fourteen votes to thirteen, and it may be worth while to mention that two of the fourteen votes were those of Dr Christison and Sir Alexander Grant, who were themselves members of the University Court to which the recommendation was to be made. That the proposed measure was not the wish of a real majority of the Professors was soon made abundantly clear, for a protest against it was sent up to the Court, signed by eighteen out of the thirty-five Professors of the University, while two out of the remaining seventeen were persistently neutral, never indeed having voted on the question from first to last. In the teeth of this protest it was, of course, almost impossible that the Regulations could be rescinded, and so they were once more confirmed by the University Court on January 3, 1872.
The next event of importance was the annual re-election of Infirmary managers, six of whom were to be chosen at the contributors’ meeting at the beginning of January 1872. As on a former occasion, the election evidently turned wholly on our admission to, or exclusion from, the Infirmary wards. The medical party moved the re-election of the former managers, and they were sure of the support of everybody who did not consider our admission a vital question. Our friends, on the contrary, brought forward a list of gentlemen, all of whom were known to be friendly to our cause. After a very warm debate the list of our friends proved to be successful, being supported by 177 votes, while 168 were recorded on the other side. Professor Masson then moved that a Statute be enacted by the Court of Contributors, giving the same educational advantages in the Infirmary to female as well as to male students. The hostile party, finding themselves in a minority, endeavoured to prevent this being put to the vote on technical grounds which were subsequently found to be of no legal importance. Failing in this, they then adopted the remarkably dignified course of decamping in a body, accompanied, I must confess, by some ironical cheers from those left behind. In the lull that succeeded Professor Masson brought forward his motion, which was seconded by the Rev. Dr Guthrie, and passed without a dissentient voice. This Statute is, therefore, now actually law in the Infirmary, and considering that managers friendly to us had also been elected, it might have been thought that our difficulties there were at end. But now comes the most extraordinary part of the whole story. On a scrutiny of the votes it was found that with the majority had voted twenty-eight firms, thirty-one ladies, and seven doctors. On the other side were fourteen firms, two ladies, thirty-seven doctors, and three druggists. These figures may seem, indeed, to have a tolerable moral significance, but it is not with that that I am at this moment concerned. It occurred to the defeated party that here might be found a straw for them, drowning, to catch at,—that possibly a legal objection might be sustained against the votes of firms which were so largely in our favour, and that, if so, the victory might yet be secured![105] The result was, that, when the Contributors assembled at the adjourned meeting,[106] for the purpose of hearing the result of the scrutiny and the final declaration of the election, the Lord Provost found himself served with an Interdict forbidding him to declare the new managers duly elected, on the ground that the votes of firms were incompetent, and that by means of these the majority had been obtained!
Instances have occurred before now where personal feelings have triumphed over public interests, but I do not think that I ever heard of quite so reckless a course as this, by which the medical clique has plunged the great Edinburgh Hospital into litigation, and that with some of its own most generous supporters, rather than allow a dozen women to obtain in its wards the instruction that the Contributors had decreed they should receive![107]
The litigation thus begun is still pending, and the incomplete Board of Managers have for all these months carried on the business of the Infirmary without any representatives at all from the Court of Contributors; and it is probable that they make the very fact of their deficient numbers the excuse for having up to this moment given no effect whatever to the Statute unanimously passed in our favour last January by the Court of Contributors. We applied immediately after the meeting for tickets of admission, but were told that the managers must first be consulted, and from that day to this no tickets have been issued to us, though the statute referred to legally secured that “henceforth all registered students of medicine shall be admitted to the educational advantages of the Infirmary, without distinction of sex.” The matter, however, can now be only one of time; and, since the law of the Infirmary is at length on our side, our opponents may, I think, rest assured that our patience in awaiting the end will be at least equal to theirs. In all such struggles a present triumph may be snatched by those in brief authority, but the future belongs inalienably to the cause of justice and liberality.
In the meantime, I had, on behalf of my fellow-students and myself, appealed to the University Court to provide us with the means of completing our education, and our friends of the Committee also forwarded to the Court a further legal Opinion from the Lord Advocate and Sheriff Fraser, to the effect,—that the University authorities had full powers to permit the matriculation of women in 1869; that the Resolutions then passed amounted to a permission to women to “study medicine” in the University, and that therefore the women concerned were entitled to demand the means of doing so; and finally, that if such means were persistently refused, the legal mode of redress lay in an Action of Declarator.[108]
On January 8th, 1872, the University Court declared that they could not make any arrangements to enable us to pursue our studies with a view to a degree, but that, if we would altogether give up the question of graduation,[109] and be content with Certificates of Proficiency, they would try to meet our views!
In reply, I represented to the Court that no “Certificates” were recognised by the Medical Act, and that any such documents would therefore be perfectly useless to us. I further urged that as matriculation fees had been exacted from us, in addition to the fees for tuition, and as we had been required to pass the Preliminary Examination “for the medical degree,” and as some of our own number had moreover passed the first Professional Examination, I could not but believe that we were entitled to demand the means of completing the ordinary University education, with a view to obtaining the ordinary degree; such belief being moreover confirmed by the emphatic opinion of very distinguished counsel. On these grounds I entreated the Court to reconsider their decision, and made the following suggestion:—
“That, as the main difficulty before your honourable Court seems to be that regarding graduation, with which we are not immediately concerned at this moment, we are quite willing to rest our claims to ultimate graduation on the facts as they stand up to the present date; and, in case your honourable Court will now make arrangements whereby we can continue our education, we will undertake not to draw any arguments in favour of our right to graduation from such future arrangements, so that they may at least be made without prejudice to the present legal position of the University.”
I appeal to every intelligent man and woman to say whether these words, taken in connection with my previous argument, were in the slightest degree ambiguous, or whether any doubt could really exist that in them I was pleading for facilities for such an education as would ultimately enable us to become legal practitioners of medicine, although I was willing that the actual question of graduation should remain in abeyance for a few months, till decided by legal authority, or otherwise. The public evidently so understood my letter, which was published in the papers, for it was considered that I had substantially gained my end, when the following reply from the secretary of the Court was also published:—