There was, of course, one visitor whom she would fain have welcomed to her “pleasant places.” She had followed Octavia Hill’s life with unfailing interest, and had subscribed to the Derwentwater scheme, and to other of Miss Hill’s beneficent works. In July or August 1910 a letter opposing the extension of the suffrage to women appeared in the Times above the signature of Octavia Hill. S. J.-B. replied to the letter, regretting that Miss Hill should have “given the support of her honoured name” to the negative side of the controversy. The Times did not often refuse a communication from S. J.-B., but on this occasion her letter was not inserted. Perhaps the trifling episode called up memories too insistent to be stilled, for a day or two later she wrote to her old friend:

Miss Octavia Hill had allowed herself no “sabbatical year,” and she was flagging in harness. Her life had been spent in unremitting service of her fellow men. She answered her old friend’s letter, but she could not respond. One has no difficulty in understanding her attitude now. A conventional meeting would have been useless, and anything else would have involved a greater upheaval than most people are willing to face as life goes on.

And it well may be that she had acted wisely all along. As Mrs. Jex-Blake had said many years before with that strange prevision that is given sometimes to the pure in heart,—“God has two great works,—one for her, one for you.”

Those two great works could never have been combined.

And, indeed, no one with a disposition like S. J.-B.’s can go through life without losing friends. She might have said with St. Teresa,—“For one thing, the devil sometimes fills me with such a harsh and cruel temper; such a spirit of anger and hostility at some people, that I could eat them up and annihilate them.” But, as in the case of St. Teresa, the obverse side of the medal was a capacity for loving that can seldom have been surpassed in our human nature. “Went not my heart with thee...?” she used to say: and it did,—not only with those nearest to her, but with all who appealed to her mother-heart. The comforting letter was written, in spite of all fatigue and inconvenience, at the earliest possible moment: the box of flowers, the grapes, the wine, the cheque, the open hospitable doors,—all seemed messengers waiting for their turn, like the swift-heeled servants of the Fairy Queen.

No appeal ever came to her that she ignored. The Charity Organisation Society was familiar with her name; and great sometimes was her disappointment when those she wanted to help were pronounced hopeless or unworthy. Nothing that she loved ever grew old. Her friends, her horses,—even the purely material things to which she was attached—grew more beautiful in her eyes as their market value decreased. She always parted deliberately with the flowers that had stood by her hand. No one was ever allowed to throw them away as a matter of routine, and often she would raise them to her lips before putting them in the fire.

St. Teresa’s love no doubt was a more transcendent thing. It was her lot to live in an age of faith. S. J.-B. often quoted Whittier’s Autograph:

There are those of whom Teresa herself said:

No portrait gives any adequate idea of Sophia Jex-Blake. Someone who saw her first in 1886 writes:

It was twenty years later than this that a girl friend said,—“She has the look of one ‘following fearlessly’.” Throughout life, the tendency to sadness of expression was wholly contradicted by her smile; her eyes very readily bubbled over with merriment; as some reporter had said in the days of the fight, “With those dimples she must be good-natured.” When an old servant was shown the final portrait in this volume, she said, “But I want her to look up at me and laugh as she used to do!”

One does not wish to dwell on the history of the last few months. From the physical point of view it is a familiar story. One by one every medicament lost its efficacy: the failing heart ceased to invigorate one organ after another. But the strong and disciplined will held the shattered tabernacle together. Sometimes acute symptoms forced her to stay in bed for a day or two, but she always struggled on to her feet again at the earliest possible moment and went for the daily drive through her beloved lanes and woods. True that towards the end she noticed these less and less,—drowsed most of the way; but, if there was occasion to rouse herself and speak to anyone, she did so almost as of old.

“The worst of lying awake at night,” she used to say whimsically, “is that one realizes all the mistakes one has made in one’s life.” It was not even lying awake sometimes: it was a weary sitting up or lying down as each position in turn became intolerable. And often, after only three minutes’ unconsciousness, she would exclaim in something like the old happy voice, “I have had such a lovely sleep!”

Almost to the last day she repeated bits of her favourite poems and psalms,—and nothing gave her so much pleasure as to plan holidays for those who still had a day’s work before them. She was infinitely mindful of those who tended her. Almost her last words were,—“Now do go and have a good rest.”

And so the end came,—suddenly but not unexpectedly. She sat down one day more tired than usual—it was the 7th January, 1912—stretched herself back, and rendered up her soul to God who gave it.

A great wave of feeling arose in the village and round about when it was known that the familiar figure of the old warrior would no more be seen in her Sussex lanes. Perplexed at first, her neighbours of all classes had come in a measure to understand her, to be proud of her,—some of them to love her. With one or two, indeed, she had formed a warm and intimate friendship. There was every token of respectful sympathy and mourning when the little procession made its way to Rotherfield Church.^[163]

And that wave of feeling went out over the whole world. Messages and tributes of appreciation and regret poured steadily in. The most beautiful and adequate was the paragraph in the Pall Mall Gazette:

But the reader may find a special propriety in a very simple resolution passed a few days later in an Over Seas dominion:

The End

S. J.-B.’s father was one of the Blakes of Bunwell, Scottow, etc., in the county of Norfolk.

A family of Blakes settled at Bunwell in 1620. It is said traditionally that they came from Somersetshire and were descended from the same family as Robert Blake, the great Admiral of the Commonwealth, being probably a branch of the original family of the Blaks, Blaaks or Blakes of Pinnels in the parish of Cawne or Calne, Co. Wilts., there seated as early, at least, as 1400. These families bore the same arms with slight differences, namely, argent a chevron between three garbs sable. Crest, on a chapeau gules turned up ermine, a martlet argent.

In the chancel of Bunwell Church, near the altar rails, is a tombstone with the following inscription:

Above this legend are the arms of Blake as above: on the chevron a fleur-de-lis for difference.

From this gentleman is descended in direct line all the present family through his fourth son, Robert Blake, who settled at Scottow about 1680, marrying Margaret, eldest daughter of William Durrant of Scottow Hall. Their son, Thomas Blake of Scottow, born November 7th, 1689, married Elizabeth, daughter of John Jex, Esq. of Lowestoft, and the grandson of these last, William Blake of Swanton Abbots, in the Commission of the Peace, and Deputy Lieutenant for Norfolk, having inherited the chief part of the Jex property, obtained on his petition by Royal Licence on August 17th, 1837, that he and his descendants should assume and use the surname Jex in addition to and before that of Blake, and also bear the arms of Jex quarterly, in the second quarter, with those of Blake.^[164]

What is the thing that you wish for most in the world?

I cannot hear your answers to my question, and I do not suppose that everyone to whom it is addressed would answer it in the same way; but I must try and fancy to myself what you would be most likely to say. And first I suppose that each of you would be likely to wish for that of which he has most felt the need.

Some of you, perhaps, who are very poor, would say, “Money.” Well, money is a very good thing, and, if we know how to use it rightly, a great blessing for which to thank God when He gives it to us; but you might have money, and yet be far from happy—yet have a great many of your deepest wants unsatisfied. And very many of those who have most money would be the first to tell you that this is the case; and I am sure that with very little of it, it is possible to be very happy if we have some other things.

I hardly think that money is what we should wish for most.

Those of you who are very ill, and who are constantly suffering pain that seems to be always coming freshly upon you, would perhaps say, “Health.” Well, that too is a very good and great gift of God’s, and those of us who have it should thank Him very much for it, and pity heartily and helpfully those who have it not. But I think that with even this blessing, there may be very great wants left; and I believe that it is possible to be very blessed without it. I do not think that Health satisfies the deepest want of our nature.

And some of you perhaps, who have felt how sad it is to be ignorant of many things that it would be so good to know, and who are longing to learn more about God and His great and wonderful works, might say that “Knowledge” was the gift which of all others you desire.

Some again who have felt how sad it is to stand all alone in this great world, every part of which God has made so dependent on the rest,—who long for some heart to lean upon in all life’s troubles, some hand to help to cut a way through them, will say that “Love” is the greatest blessing that it seems to them possible to receive.

I have no doubt that if I were really talking to you, or, still better, could see the thoughts of your hearts, I should be told of many wants which you earnestly desire to have satisfied,—wants, some of them belonging to the lower and some of them to the higher part of that wonderful nature which God has given to us all.

And now perhaps you would like to hear my answer to this question I have been asking of you, “What is the thing we most want?” It seems to me that there is one blessing which sums up in itself—which seems to imply or to contain—almost all others, and which, if we go deeply enough into it, does really satisfy all the great wants of our nature. This is Rest.

Now let us think what Rest is: and see whether if you had that, you would have the deepest part of all your wants satisfied.

You said you wanted Money? Well, was not the comfort which you thought money could give you, just that freedom from care and anxiety which we call Rest?—was it not really for this, and not for the money itself, you longed?

And you wanted Health? Is it not just because health would give you rest from pain and from continual weariness that it seems to you the best of all things? Does not Health for you really mean Rest?

And is it not because there is something that you are always longing to know and understand that you desire so much to have Knowledge? Is not your wish for it founded on the feeling that God gave you a mind and understanding which can only be satisfied by learning and knowing. Do you not really desire knowledge that your intellect may have some firm standing ground?—that it too may have Rest?

And most of all do not you who long for Love, long for it because you feel that to have some one beside you to feel for you and help you, to pray with and work with you through all the labours of this life, is the nearest approach to Rest that we can have on earth, except that deepest Rest which comes through feeling the constant nearness of Him who loves most of all, who “will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Heb. xiii. 5). If then we can but look forward to Rest, are we not sure of having all that we need?

And it is just this that is promised to us in the text we read at the beginning, “There remaineth a Rest for the people of God.” God knows so well all our wants, and knows so well what will best supply them, that all through the Bible you will find beautiful promises about Rest. Let us look at a few of them. Job in the midst of his great troubles speaks of the future life as that “where the weary are at Rest” (Job. iii. 17). The prophet Jeremiah promises to those who will hear God’s will and seek to do it, that they “shall find Rest for their souls” (Jer. vi. 16). Our Lord Jesus Christ knew well about this deepest want in our nature when He spoke that most beautiful of invitations to all who heard Him on earth, and to all who read His words now, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find Rest unto your souls” (Matt. xi. 28, 29).

And the whole argument of the chapter from which the text we are talking about is taken, is this, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His Rest, any of us should seem to come short of it” (Heb. iv. 1).

But now let us ask what is implied or meant by those last words about “coming short of it?” What is meant by our Lord’s telling people that they must “take His yoke upon them” and be “meek and lowly of heart” if they would find Rest? What is meant when Rest is promised specially to the “people of God”?God”?

Now, if we believe that God loves us as He does, quite infinitely—more than we can even understand—we may be quite sure that He will always give us every good thing that He can—that He will never put any limit to His promises if He can help it—that He would like to give Rest and all other good things to everyone if it were possible.

We must never doubt for one moment God’s willingness to give us all good things, and to do all for us that it is possible for love to do. Remember what Christ says about that, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven know how to give good things to them that ask Him (Matt. vii. 11). And again, “I say not that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loveth you” (John xvi. 26, 27). And St. Paul tells us that “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?” (Rom. viii. 32).

So you see that we may be quite sure that if we do not get this great blessing, Rest, it will not be because God is not willing to give it to us.

But there are certain great principles, which we call laws, which govern God’s world, which are of the very nature of God’s own being, and the more we come to know and realize about these laws, the more we shall find them to be the most wonderfully good and beautiful and blessed ones which could be imagined, and see in every one of them some great and glorious provision for the best possible things, which could not come without them.

Now you know God made man in His own image (Gen. i. 27), and, though man afterwards broke that beautiful image and lost the perfect likeness that God had given him to Himself—(as we are told in Eccles. vii. 29, “God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions”)—still man is so deep a partaker of God’s nature, that the truest and deepest part of him is that which is like God and akin to Him, so that St. Paul tells us, “In God we live, and move, and have our being ... for we are also his offspring” (Acts xvii. 28). Now just because our whole blessedness, and our only hope of returning at last to the perfect image in which God made us, lies in our trying to get nearer and nearer to God, and to become more and more like Him, so that our Lord Jesus bids us “Be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. v. 48)—just because of this, I say, one of the great and merciful laws of God is that none of us shall ever find any true happiness apart from goodness; and no one can hope for Rest who does not seek it in the way of striving to do God’s will. Some one has said that the true Rest of the soul is attained only when God’s will is our will. So we are told by Isaiah, that “There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked” (Isa. lvii. 21).

And “the wicked” do not mean those only who do great and shameful sins, which seem very terrible even to us, but all who do not strive in everything to do God’s will. Let us look a little more closely at what this will of God’s is.

We are told in the Old Testament what it is. Look at Isaiah i. 16, 17, “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of thy doing from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” And again, look at Micah vi. 8, “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

And when we come to the New Testament, we find Our Lord Jesus Christ telling men who those are whom God blesses—what it is to do God’s will:

And while He says that that man only “shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,” who “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. vii. 21), He explains that will to be, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength; and thy neighbour as thyself.... This do and thou shalt live” (Luke x. 27, 28). So that if that Rest seems to us a great and glorious thing to attain, we must seek it in God’s way; we must try to do God’s will here, that we may rest in perfect harmony and agreement with that will hereafter.

Is it not a wonderful and beautiful thing that God loves us so much that He will not let us be otherwise than good?—that He will not cease to remind us by constant unhappiness and restlessness that we are not fulfilling our highest end, till we strive day by day to come nearer to Him; so that at last, in that great happy day of Rest, there will be no more striving; for “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Would you like to hear once more those words, which I daresay you know so well, and which tell us better than any others have ever done, what that Rest shall be, and how it shall satisfy all our wants at last, as “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.”

Let us turn to the Revelation of St. John, and hear the description he gives of those who have entered into Rest: “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.... And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev. vii. 16, 17; xxi. 3, 4; xxii. 5, 14).

APPENDIX C
CONCLUSIONS FROM “A VISIT TO AMERICAN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES”

“The two features of American education which strike an Englishman as characteristic, are, the union of all classes in the same schools and of both sexes in the same colleges; the first being nearly universal throughout the Northern States; the second still exceptional, and as regards public opinion, still on probation.

I. That no disadvantages attend the system of mingling all classes in school can hardly, I suppose, be maintained, though it may be thought that the advantages greatly preponderate.... So far as distinctions and consequent separations of rank depend on merely external circumstances, such as wealth and position, I do not believe that we gain much by observing them; but when they rest on real differences of culture and refinement, the case becomes different, and it does not seem good policy to risk certain loss to one class, without being sure of securing a more than proportionate gain to another. In short it seems to me that, if we can mingle different classes of children in such proportions and under such conditions as to ensure that the higher standard shall prevail over the lower, and the tone of all be raised to that of the foremost few, the measure must be an altogether good one: and I am sure that to some extent and under some restrictions this may be done: but if once the inferior standard of refinement is allowed to predominate, the lower dragging down the higher rather than being raised by it, I fear that no results gained can pay for the loss accruing.

II. With regard to the joint education of the sexes, it seems to be pretty clearly established that, in America at least, this system can prosper for years without any markedly evil effects as to the morals and manners of the fellow-students, and the evidence of most professors and teachers goes strongly to show that, on the contrary, the mutual influence exerted is usually very beneficial.

It seems also to be proved that at least a considerable number of women can undertake and successfully complete the same course of study that is usual for men, and that without more apparent detriment to their health than students of the other sex.

The general issue divides itself into three practical questions: (a) whether men and women shall pursue the same course of study; (b) whether they shall continue it to the same point; and (c) whether their studies, if identical, shall be pursued together....

(a) If there is no fundamental education answering to the needs of common humanity, and, therefore, equally necessary both for men and women,—it follows that the difference of sex is more radical and more essential than is the common humanity that underlies it.... Women have, I think, from the earliest times, suffered from the fact of men’s pretensions to ‘evolve out of their moral consciousness the idea of’ a woman,—which idea has not by any means always happened to correspond with the facts that might, perhaps, afford a surer guide.... It might perhaps be shown that those who, starting with their ‘evolved idea’ of a woman, deny that the same education may safely be given to each sex because of the vast essential differences of nature, are in point of fact more incredulous of the reality of that difference than those who hold the opposite views.... The naturalist will not fear to lay meat and hay before horses and lions, cows and tigers, for neither will the lion be seduced by the offer of hay, nor will the horse and cow lose their distinctive characteristics because they both partake of it.....

I do not by any means intend to say that I desire to see the education of all women made identical with that at present given to men. It must first be proved that that education is, in truth, the best and most desirable for the human being, before we can wish to make it universal. But I do say that what is ultimately decided by the wisdom of ages to be the best possible form of culture for one human nature, must be so for another, for our common humanity lies deeper in all, and is more essential in each, than any differences.

I do not believe that women are to be ‘educated to be wives and mothers’ in any sense in which it is not equally imperative to educate boys to be husbands and fathers. I believe that each human being, developed to his or her best and utmost, will most perfectly fulfil the duties that God may appoint in each case, and if teachers and parents have ever before their eyes the aim of making good, true, and sensible women, I do not fear but they will also train the best wives and mothers....

(b) I confess that I have been surprised in America to find how much study young women do seem able to accomplish without material injury, but I do not know how much allowance to make for possible differences of national constitution.... My own belief, founded mainly on observation of English girls, is, that in quickness of intellect they in no way fall behind their brothers, and that during one or two hours’ study of any subject they would be quite able to keep up with them, but that after a certain time their physical powers flag,—sooner perhaps than those of boys,—and that a long continued strain is apt to be injurious to them. I state this opinion with great diffidence, however, for many of my fellow-teachers and friends assert the contrary....

Above all, be the limits of study what they may, let whatever is done be done thoroughly, so that the only too well deserved reproach of superficiality and incompleteness may at length be removed from our system of female education. Work half done is not merely unsatisfactory, it is absolutely injurious to the moral and mental health of the worker; and I believe it is better to omit any and every study altogether, than to allow a pupil to skim over it so as to gather together a string of words thereto relating, with no solid meaning or knowledge lying beneath.

(c) The third question,—whether men and women shall pursue their studies together,—I do not much care to discuss, for I am by no means sure of having sufficient data whereon to rest any opinion, and moreover it seems to me not vital to the general issue. So long as men and women can each obtain an absolutely good education, it does not appear very material whether they get it in company or not,—not material, that is, as regards the education, whatever may be the case as to the social results.

But one thing does seem to me important, viz. that not merely a similar but an identical standard should exist for all, whether it be the many or the few who avail themselves of it. This fixed standard does exist for men, being represented by the examinations and degrees of the Universities, and that the same facilities should be thrown open to women does seem to me vitally important. I have already said that I should not care to see all women aim at so high a mark; nor do I believe that, for many years, a large number would present themselves for examination. But that those who do, by earnest study, attain to the prescribed standard, should be excluded from recognition of the fact, seems to be manifestly unjust and wrong. Universities hold, I suppose, in some sense a national trust, and that trust involves all possible aid to the cause of education throughout the land.”

APPENDIX D
THE EDINBURGH EXTRA-MURAL SCHOOL

The Edinburgh Extra-Mural classes are medical classes conducted by fully qualified and authorized lecturers other than the University professors. They prepare students primarily for the examinations of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, but their certificates are, as a matter of fact, accepted by many examining bodies. The history of the association of these classes with the University is—briefly—as follows:

In 1840 Professor Syme begged the Town Council of Edinburgh, who were then the recognized patrons of the University, to order the recognition of extra-mural classes, an argument for the innovation being “that one of the professors was so comparatively inefficient that many students, after paying his fee and obtaining his certificate of attendance, went to learn his subject elsewhere.” In 1842 the Town Council ordained that four Extra-Mural classes should be allowed to count for graduation,—the classes to be chosen by each student at his discretion. The Medical Faculty of the University refused to consent to this except on the condition that any student taking such classes should have a year added to his curriculum. The Town Council refused this condition, and the Senatus, supporting the Medical Faculty, referred the matter to the Court of Law. In 1850 judgment was given against the Senatus; they appealed to the Inner House, but the judgment was confirmed in 1852. An appeal was taken to the House of Lords, but again in 1854 the Town Council gained the day. In 1855 the regulations came into operation and have ever since remained in force.

“To the Editor of the Times.

Sir,—I have only just seen the letter from Dr. Garrett Anderson which you published on the 5th inst., and I venture to beg that you will allow me to point out my reasons for thinking she has selected the very worst of all the alternatives suggested, when she advises Englishwomen to go abroad for medical education.

In the first place, I think that Dr. Anderson assumes greatly too much in supposing that all the Scotch Universities are permanently closed to women by the recent decision, especially when notice has already been given in Parliament that a Scotch member will, at the beginning of next Session, bring in a Bill to enable those Universities both to teach and examine female students. Even if no such Bill were announced, it would, I suppose, be open to every Scotch University at this moment to obtain the necessary powers merely by application for the sanction of the Queen in Council, as it was repeatedly stated, both by the defenders in the late suit and by those Judges who gave decisions in their favour, that it was merely the absence of Royal authority for recent changes which rendered those changes illegal. I think there is very good ground to hope that this course may be taken by one or more of the other Universities, even if Edinburgh is content to rest quietly under the imputations on her good faith which can hardly be effaced in any other way.

Even if the Scotch Universities are left out of the question, those of Cambridge and London may well be expected to move in a matter like the present; or it would hardly seem unreasonable to hope that some of the surplus revenues in Ireland might be applied in one way or other to the solution of the present difficulty.

I think, moreover, that Mrs. Anderson concedes very much more than has yet been proved when she states that the examining bodies, such as the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, ‘have the power to refuse to admit women to their examinations and qualifications.’ That they have the will to do so may, I fear, only be too probable, but it is at least a very open question whether such power does lie in their hands. I have been assured on very good authority that this is not the case, and at any rate I believe no decision to that effect has ever been given by a Court of Law. Certainly the primâ facie assumption would be the other way. The Medical Act of 1858 in no way excludes women from the profession, and two women are actually registered under its provisions. It is, therefore, hardly credible, that when all candidates are by the Act required to submit to certain examinations, the Examining Boards should at their option be able to turn away all applicants who are not of the male sex, no mention of any such power being contained in the Act itself; nor, I think, need we assume even a desire to exclude women on the part of all the Examining Boards until application has been made to each individually; and this has never, so far as I am aware, been done at present.

I trust, therefore, that I have shown that Mrs. Anderson’s advice that all Englishwomen desiring to study medicine should at once expatriate themselves is premature in the extreme; I hope further to show that it is moreover radically erroneous in principle. Even if it should ultimately be proved (as is at present by no means the case) that women cannot obtain official examination in this country, and therefore cannot enter their names on the Register, it would still, I think, be very far from certain that their best plan was to seek such examination abroad, seeing that after having spent years of labour and much money they would, as regards legal recognition, be exactly as far as ever from gaining their end. Mrs. Anderson says that they would at least obtain ‘what is denied them in their own country, a first-class medical education.’ If it were true that such an education could not be got without going abroad, there would, no doubt, be much force in this argument, but I submit that this is not the case. Without stopping to consider the alternatives brought forward by your correspondent herself—the establishment of a new school for women or the purchase of one of the existing hospital schools—either of which seems to me infinitely preferable, Mrs. Anderson quite overlooks the fact that at this moment medical classes of first-rate quality can be obtained in Edinburgh in the Extra-Mural school (many of whose lecturers stand much higher than the University professors in public estimation),^[166] and that with very little trouble a complete curriculum of medical study could be there arranged, without altering any of the existing conditions of affairs. The doors of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary have also been thrown open to women, though under some restrictions, and excellent clinical instruction is given to them there by two of the best and most popular teachers in the city. Can any one doubt that when so much has been secured, and when every year promises increased facilities, it is infinitely better that Englishwomen should study medicine under the direction of their own countrymen, in their own language, and amid the social and hygienic conditions which will occur in their own future practice, rather than in a foreign land, from lecturers who teach in a strange language and in hospitals where all the arrangements and theories vary from those of this country, and where even the types of disease may be so far modified as greatly to lessen the value of the instruction for those who intend to practise medicine in Great Britain?

In point of fact, the question of medical education in this country may be already considered solved, even if we grant the necessity of attending lectures on every subject in the medical curriculum. It is, however, worth remark that many of the very first men in the profession are becoming more and more strongly in favour of free trade in study—i.e., of allowing every student to obtain his knowledge as he pleases, whether from books or from lectures, requiring only final evidence of satisfactory results. It may be that on investigation the present system will be found to rest rather on the ‘vested interests’ of teachers than on the needs of students, and, if so, the question of medical education for women will be still further simplified. At present, however, it is not needful to argue that question. I have shown that provision for the education of women after the present fashion is to a great extent already made, and that, for purposes of instruction at least, it is quite unnecessary for them to expatriate themselves.

With regard to examination, the case seems to me equally clear. No foreign diploma or degree is at present acknowledged as qualifying for registration in this country, and though it may be well for those who covet such ornamental honours to go through the examinations requisite to obtain them, I cannot see any ground on which it would be worth the while of most Englishwomen to live for years abroad to arrive at a result so eminently unpractical. We live under English law, and to English law we must conform, so far as lies in our power; if we are arbitrarily precluded from such compliance it is to the English Government that we must look for a remedy. I can imagine few things that would please our opponents better than to see one Englishwoman after another driven out of her own country to obtain medical education abroad, both because they know that, on her return after years of labour, she can claim no legal recognition whatever, and because they are equally certain that, so long as no means of education are provided at home, only a very small number of women will ever seek admission to the profession. I do not say that a woman may not be justified in going abroad for education if her circumstances make it imperative that she should as soon as possible enter upon medical practice; but I do say, and I most firmly believe, that every woman who consents to be thus exiled does more harm than can easily be calculated to the general cause of medical women in this country, and postpones indefinitely, so far as in her lies, the final and satisfactory solution of the whole question.

It is not an easy thing to remember at all times that

but I do believe profoundly that at this moment the very best service we can do to the cause in which we are all interested is to make use of every opportunity open to us in this country to qualify ourselves as thoroughly as possible for the profession we have chosen, and then (refusing resolutely to be driven into byways or unauthorized measures) to demand, quietly but firmly, that provision for our ultimate recognition as medical practitioners which we have a right to expect at the hands of the Legislature. Mrs. Anderson seems to think it hopeless that the present Parliament should ‘promote the interests of an unrepresented class,’ but it must be remembered that one of the very strongest arguments against granting the franchise to women has always been that their substantial interests are and will be provided for by the existing Government, and a case like the present will certainly afford a crucial test of the truth of these assertions. If they be true, we cannot doubt that Parliament will in its next Session make full provision for a case of such almost unexampled hardship; and if, on the other hand, this be not done, the argument above referred to can hardly be again brought forward when the suffrage for women shall again be claimed.

Let me, therefore, conclude, as I began, by protesting as strongly as lies in my power against this idea of sending abroad every Englishwoman who wishes to study medicine; let me entreat all such women to join the class already formed in Edinburgh, the great majority of whose members are thoroughly of one mind with me in this matter, and who, having counted the cost, are, like myself, thoroughly resolved to ‘fight it out on this line,’ and neither to be driven out of our own country for education nor to be induced to cease to make every effort in our power to obtain from the Legislature that measure of justice which we imperatively need, and which is, in point of fact, substantially implied in the provisions of the Medical Act of 1858.