Thus not only would the morals of the community be preserved, but the burdens on its purse be considerably lightened by the employment of educated women as obstetricians. As the medical profession had just become keenly alive to the peculiarly lucrative character of obstetrical and gynæcological practice, this suggestion that it might now profitably be undersold naturally aroused the keenest resentment. It was soon retorted that the cheaper practitioners were to be prepared by a system of education so cheap as to be absolutely worthless; and unfortunately the early history of the first medical schools for women entirely justified this accusation.
To support Mr. Gregory’s school, a Female Medical Education Society was formed in Boston, and incorporated with a state charter. Nothing seemed at the outset fairer than the promises of the new college,—but it had one fatal defect. There was no one connected with it who either knew or cared what a medical education should be. It followed that, under the name of medical education, was offered a curriculum of instruction, so ludicrously inadequate for the purpose, as to constitute a gross usurpation of the name,—in a word, to be an essentially dishonest affair. And still more unfortunately, the same inadequacy, naïvely or deliberately unconscious of itself, continued in greater or less degree, to characterize all efforts for the isolated medical education of women for the next twenty years. This, the fourth period of their medical history,—deserves therefore to be considered by women rather as a pre-medical or preliminary epoch; where purposes were enunciated that were only to be fulfilled many years later.
The Gregory Medical School maintained a precarious existence until 1874, when, by an enabling act of the Legislature, the funds were handed over to the Boston University, just founded,—upon condition that women should be admitted to the medical department of the latter. This condition was punctually fulfilled; women students were rendered eligible to all departments of the new university. But as the medical school, for some reason, became exclusively homœpathic,—the fortunes of medical women in the regular profession were not thereby greatly advanced.[[42]]
Now, however, the movement for women had widened and reached Philadelphia, where two schools were started. One of these, the Penn Medical School, ran a permanently unenviable career of unfitness, and was finally extinguished. The other, the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, was founded in 1850, and after a long and precarious period of struggle, finally touched upon a solid basis of medical realities, and thence began its prosperous modern career. In the mean time, and fortunately for the cause, a new departure had been taken in several other directions. The Gregory School had been founded with the avowed intention of educating women for midwives; and it did not succeed even in this limited aim, because it was either ignorant of or indifferent to the rigid system of education imposed, wherever, as in Europe, midwives are recognized and educated. In America, where hostility to class distinctions is so profound as to interfere with the recognition of even the intellectual distinctions which are alone just,—it was probably a foregone conclusion that the various ranks in medicine which exist in European countries would never here become officially established.[[43]] But a startlingly long step was taken at a stride, when, thirty years after the pæan of victory had been sounded over the complete suppression of female midwifes, so that not even this corner of possible medicine might remain in possession of women,—that then, half a dozen women, unknown to each other, and widely separated in this immense country, should appear almost simultaneously upon the scene, and demand the opportunity to be educated as full physicians. Their history marks a fifth period in the movement.
The first of this remarkable group of women was Harriet K. Hunt of Boston.
This lady had for several years assumed the responsibility of practicing medicine, while yet unprovided with a medical diploma. This was reprehensible, but from a practical standpoint, the course seems to have been justified by subsequent events. For when, in 1847, Miss Hunt requested permission to attend lectures at the Harvard Medical School, her request was promptly refused. After the graduation of Elizabeth Blackwell at Geneva in 1849, Miss Hunt thought that the times might have become more favorable, and, in 1850, repeated her application at Harvard. In mobile America, three years may sometimes effect such a change in sentiment as would require three centuries in the Old World. On this occasion, five out of the seven members of the Faculty voted “That Miss Hunt be admitted to the lectures on the usual terms, provided that her admission be not deemed inconsistent with the statutes.”[[44]] A week later, the President and Fellows of the University announced that the statutes of the Medical School offered no obstacle to the admission of female students to their lectures. But, on the eve of success, Miss Hunt’s cause was shipwrecked, by collision and entanglement with that of another of the unenfranchised to privileges. At the beginning of the session, two, and later a third, colored man, had appeared among the students, and created by their appearance intense dissatisfaction. When, as if to crown this outrage to gentlemanly feeling, it was announced that a woman was also about to be admitted, the students felt that their cup of humiliation was full, and popular indignation boiled over in a general meeting. Here resolutions were adopted, remonstrating against the “amalgamation of sexes and races.” The compliant Faculty bowed their heads to the storm, yielded to the students, who, though young and inexperienced, were in the majority, and might possibly withdraw in a body to Yale,—and, to avoid the obloquy of rejecting, under pressure, a perfectly reasonable request, advised the “female student” to withdraw her petition. This she did; the storm subsided, and the majesty of Harvard, already endangered by the presence of the negro, was saved from the further peril of the woman. Miss Hunt returned to her private medical practice, which, though unsanctioned by law and condemned by learning, was so successful that, in 1872, she celebrated her silver wedding to it.[[45]]
Thus, on this first occasion, it was not a sentiment of delicacy that forbade the Harvard students to share their privileges with a woman; but a sense of offended dignity of sex, which distinctly allied itself with the other and equally touchy dignity of race. The odd idea was advanced on this, as on so many other occasions, that whenever a woman should prove herself capable of an intellectual achievement, this latter would cease to constitute an honor for the men who had previously prized it. Hence the urgent necessity of excluding women from all opportunity of trying.
In 1849, “Diplomas and advanced courses of study were things entirely outside the intellectual life of women.”[[46]] The pioneer female colleges, the Troy Seminary and the Mt. Holyoke school, had scarcely been founded,[[47]] and women everywhere received only the most rudimentary education. On the other hand, the medical education of men, was, as compared with the objects to be attained by it,—in about an equally rudimentary condition. The intrinsic tests were so shifting and unreliable, the standard of attainments so low, that it was proportionately necessary to protect the dignity of the profession by external, superficial, and arbitrary safeguards. Of these the easiest to apply was the distinction of sex. It was often difficult to decide, in the absence of intrinsic tests, whether a given individual were or were not a competent physician: but it was of course always easy to recognize that he was a man. This simple principle of distinction was adopted, therefore, as the guiding rule in future controversies. All men, however or wherever educated, were to be considered competent physicians, if only they chose to say so themselves. And all women were correlatively to be declared incompetent, no matter what care they had taken to prepare themselves. The principle was well suited to crude and uncultured societies, and became proportionately popular.
Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell were led to the study of medicine in a different manner than Harriet Hunt, their immediate predecessor. While still quite young girls, they were, by the sudden death of their father, unexpectedly confronted with the necessity of supporting not only themselves, but their mother, and a large family of younger brothers and sisters. “Then we realized the infinite narrowness and pettiness of the avenues open to women, and the crowds of competitors who kept each other down in the struggle. We determined that we would endeavor to open a new door, and tread a fresh path,—rather than push for a footing in one already filled to overflowing.”[[48]]
In this determination a new key-note was sounded. The Blackwells, and especially Elizabeth, were less the associates of Harriet Hunt, and of their own immediate successors, than the spiritual daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft, whose courageous demand for a wider field for her sex had remained hitherto almost alone, like a voice crying in the wilderness. They did not seek wider opportunities in order to study medicine, but they studied medicine in order to secure wider opportunities for all women.[[49]]