15, Buccleuch-place, Edinburgh. Aug. 8.”

APPENDIX F
LETTER FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY, AND S. J.-B.’S REPLY

Sir,—In your article on the medical education of women, under date the 23rd inst., you give utterance to reproaches against the University of Edinburgh, which appear to me to be undeserved, and which I feel sure you would not have admitted had the full circumstances of the case been before you. May I be allowed as briefly as possible to indicate what seems to me to be a correct view of those circumstances? You say:

“It was next thought that an opening for female medical students might be found or made at the University of Edinburgh, and a few were for a time actually received there. The Professors, however, were greatly divided upon the question, and those who were opposed to the necessary concessions threw every possible difficulty in the way of those who wished to make them. After much quarrelling and litigation, and after transactions which reflected very little credit on the University, a legal decision adverse to the ladies was finally given by a bare majority of Scottish Judges, and will remain binding unless carried by appeal to the House of Lords. Under these circumstances the ladies were placed in a position of great hardship and difficulty.”

I acknowledge and regret the hardship and difficulty of the position in which the ladies referred to have been placed; but this is owing to the state of the law of the land as interpreted by the Court of Session, and not to any discreditable transactions on the part of the University. I admit the manifestation, during the history of this question, of a partisan feeling both for and against the medical ladies, to some extent within the University itself, but far more in the outside public of Edinburgh; but I confidently assert that the main body of the Professors were not partisans on either side, and that the general feeling was a desire to give facilities for medical study to women, so far as this could be done consistently with the maintenance of academical good order. Again, it must be remembered that the Professors do not constitute or govern the University. The governing body is the University Court, consisting of eight members (of whom only one is a Professor), headed at present by Sir William Stirling Maxwell, as rector. I utterly deny the appearance of any unworthy feeling in the way in which this Court dealt with the questions relating to female medical education which came before it.

The University was solicited in 1869 to admit ladies, as an experiment, to the lectures of Medical Professors. There was a certain amount of opposition to this request, but the feeling of the majority in each of the constitutive bodies of the University was in favour of conceding under necessary restrictions what was asked. In one of the debates on the subject it was indeed suggested that such a concession should not be made without clearly ascertaining beforehand whether we had the power of ultimately conferring degrees upon women, should it be found on experiment that they succeeded in completing their medical curriculum and in passing the examinations. But such a delay was deprecated by the supporters of the application; it was urged that such an inquiry would be premature, as what was asked for the present was only that trial might be made of ladies in the capacity of medical students. I need hardly point out that these representations were dictated by the policy of “getting in the thin end of the wedge.” And far better for all parties, more prudent, and more consistent with the dignity of the University, would it have been, had we resisted this policy, and refused to take any step before endeavouring to ascertain our powers in respect of the graduation of women. But the University Court yielded to an impulse of liberality, and proceeded at once to frame regulations forbidding mixed classes, but permitting any professor of medicine to hold separate classes for the medical instruction of women. The applicants appeared satisfied with what was done for them; and I must say that it would then have been in their power to ascertain beforehand how many of the Professors were prepared to institute classes for them. The ladies must not now throw on the University all the blame of their disappointment, for they were not without sufficient warning that only a limited number of such classes, far short of a full curriculum, would be provided for them. The regulations said not a word of graduation or of a full course of study; they were merely permissive, and, as had been requested, tentative. But the ladies preferred to enter at once upon such lectures as they could get, trusting, apparently, to the chapter of accidents. To several of the Medical Professors it would have been impossible to open full course lectures for ladies, in addition to their ordinary duties. Some had already on hand the teaching of more than 300 students, not only by lectures, but also by daily demonstrations for many hours in the laboratory or dissecting-room. Others had extensive and important medical practice to attend to, being sought out by patients from all parts of the country. Altogether three of the Medical Professors opened classes for ladies, and of these one has had his health seriously broken down by the labour, and the two others have both declared that the burden of such extra duty was more than they could continue to bear.

Under these circumstances, the medical ladies applied that substitutes might be appointed to lecture to them in the place of such Professors as might be unable, or unwilling, to give them instruction. Now, for the first time, the University determined to seek legal advice. An impartial statement of the case was drawn up and submitted to the Solicitor-General for Scotland, with the question whether such measures as the ladies now asked were within the competency of the University? The opinion of the Solicitor-General was very strongly given, and went even beyond the exact point inquired on; it was to the effect that any step tending towards the graduation of women would be beyond the powers of the University. This opinion paralyzed the action of the University. The University Court informed the ladies, on further application from them, that it was debarred by this opinion from promoting their graduation until the legality of such graduation could be established, but it offered to make, in the meantime, arrangements for their full medical instruction, and it was suggested to the friends of the ladies that an amicable suit should be instituted with a view of ascertaining the law. These offers were rejected, and a suit was brought by the ladies against the Chancellor and Professors of the University, which has terminated, thus far, in a judgment that it is not within the powers of the University to confer a degree upon a woman.

This, Sir, is in brief the history of an unhappy affair, in which the University certainly made the mistake of consenting to an experimental arrangement which was strongly urged upon them, and for this it has been most severely punished. But I doubt if there is anything in what has occurred which can be called a “transaction reflecting little credit on the University,” with one exception—namely, that on one occasion some of the students misbehaved themselves and insulted the medical ladies. But I must say that this lamentable occurrence was occasioned by those ladies having transgressed the regulations of the University Court, and having joined a mixed class in anatomy under an extra academical lecturer. This outraged the feeling or prejudices of the students.

In conclusion, Sir, I sincerely sympathize in the earnest appeal made by Miss Jex-Blake, in the very able letter which forms the subject of your article, to the Legislature to take up the consideration of the medical education of women. It is a subject well worthy the attention of the Legislature, and one which can only be properly dealt with, as a general social subject, by the Legislature. Whether or not an University is a suitable institution for the medical instruction and examination of women is a wide question on which I will not venture to enter. But, however this be decided, all other Universities of the United Kingdom must share in the decision of the University of Edinburgh, and this University will loyally bear her part in carrying out whatever Parliament may ordain as expedient. In the meantime, under considerable obloquy, she can at all events claim to have contributed something in the way of experience to the elucidation of the question.

August 27.

Sir,—As Sir Alexander Grant, as representative of the University of Edinburgh, has thought fit to lay before your readers a statement respecting that University and its lady students which is, to use the mildest term, imperfect in the extreme, I trust to your justice to allow me to supplement his narrative with such additional facts as he has not thought it desirable to make public.

Sir Alexander states that in 1869 the University was “solicited to admit ladies as an experiment to the lectures of the medical professors,” and further on speaks of the regulations as being, “as was requested, tentative.” He implies that all that followed was in compliance with this request, the claim to graduation being altogether an afterthought on the part of the ladies. Now, the real fact is that in March, 1869, I personally did request admission to medical lectures on these terms, but though the application was granted by the Senatus it was refused by the University Court on the express ground of the inexpediency of making any such “temporary arrangement in the interest of one lady.” About three months later four other ladies joined me in making a new and altogether different application—viz., that the University “would sanction the matriculation of women as medical students, and their admission to the usual examinations, on the understanding that separate classes be formed for their instruction.” At the same time (June 21, 1869) I addressed a formal letter to the Lord Rector of the University urging the same proposal, and asking that, if separate classes could be formed, women should be “allowed to matriculate in the usual way, and to undergo the ordinary examinations, with a view to obtain medical degrees in due course.”

Our new proposal was successively submitted to all the different authorities of the University, and received the assent of all—viz., of the Medical Faculty, the Senatus Academicus, the University Court, the University Council, and the Chancellor—and, after five months of consultation and consideration, regulations were, in November, 1869, framed and issued “for the education of women in medicine in the University,” these regulations being henceforth incorporated in the official University Calendar. The first of these regulations states that “women shall be admitted to the study of medicine in the University”; in the fourth regulation exceptional provision is made for “women not intending to study medicine professionally”; and the sixth regulation ordains that “all women attending such classes shall be subject to all the regulations now or at any time in force in the University as to the matriculation of students, their attendance on classes, examination, or otherwise.”

As the decision by which a bare majority of the Scotch Judges absolved the University of Edinburgh from all responsibility towards its matriculated lady students rests on the assumption that the University Court exceeded its legal powers in passing the above regulations, it may be worth while to state that the University Court comprised at that time the then Lord Advocate of Scotland (who is now Lord Justice Clerk), and also the previous Lord Advocate, Mr. Gordon, and that the regulations in question were confirmed by the Chancellor, who happens to be, as Lord Justice General of Scotland, the highest legal authority in the country. It is certainly a tolerably striking instance of the “glorious uncertainty of the law,” that the two highest Judges in the land should concur in an action which is subsequently declared by a majority of their brethren to be illegal.

Sir Alexander further goes on to suggest that we might have ascertained beforehand how many of the Professors would be willing to hold separate classes for our benefit. The answer to this is twofold. In the first place, no less than four of the medical Professors have been changed since my first application was made, and in every case the change has, as regards our interests, been for the worse. One of those Professors whose loss we have most to deplore is Sir James Simpson, whose generous liberality made him always ready to espouse the weaker cause, and whose strong sense of justice would have made him always our strenuous supporter in the councils of the University. Had he been spared, it is, indeed, more than possible that the whole history of the past four years would have been different. On these losses it was impossible for us to calculate; nor could we (before we learnt the full bitterness of professional rancour) have foreseen that those Professors who were themselves unable or unwilling to teach us would absolutely refuse their assent to every one of the alternative measures by which others might have been enabled to give us the necessary instructions. It is hardly necessary to allude to your correspondent’s rather apocryphal statement that the stupendous labour of giving two lectures a day (which is habitually undergone by Professors in the Arts Faculty) has ruined the health of one medical Professor and seriously endangered that of two more. Suffice it to say that these facts are, to say the least of it, quite new to me, and that, did space permit, I think a very different version of the circumstances might be given.

As Sir Alexander has thought fit to refer to the students’ riot in November, 1871 (though to my mind it is very far from the most discreditable episode in this history), I think it right distinctly to deny the interpretation he puts upon the event. It is true that the riot did occur while we were attending an extra-mural class of anatomy (we having utterly failed to obtain a private class, though we had offered a fee of a hundred and fifty guineas for one), but the rioters were, with few exceptions, not our fellow-students at all, but a mob of University students who had been summoned together by a missive circulated in the University class-rooms. The real truth was that the riot was deliberately got up simply and solely in the hope of frightening certain friendly infirmary managers from admitting us to their wards, and perhaps also of frightening us by showers of foul words and of street mud from pursuing our studies any further. Fortunately, the chivalrous device was not permanently successful in either direction.

I pass on, however, to notice the statements made respecting the recent lawsuit and the events immediately preceding it. Sir Alexander says that when the University “for the first time sought legal advice” the authorities obtained an opinion adverse to the ladies’ claims from the Solicitor-General. As that opinion has never been published, there is no opportunity for its discussion; but Sir Alexander appears entirely to forget the fact that an opinion to the exactly contrary effect was delivered by the Lord Advocate of Scotland, who takes official precedence of the Solicitor-General, and that that opinion was not only submitted to the University Court, but published more than once in the newspapers and elsewhere. In that opinion the Lord Advocate stated distinctly that he believed the University to be not only able, but distinctly bound, to complete the education of those ladies whom it had invited to matriculate, and that all necessary arrangements for that purpose could legally be made. It will thus be seen that the above opinions at any rate neutralized each other, and that, had the University willed it otherwise, it certainly need not have been “paralyzed” by one of them.

It is further stated that the University Court informed the ladies that, by the opinion above referred to, “it was debarred from promoting their graduation until the legality of such graduation could be established, but it offered to make, in the meantime, arrangements for their full medical instruction”; and, further, that such offer was rejected by the ladies. Both these statements, Sir, I distinctly deny. I have at this moment the whole correspondence before me, and I fail utterly to find in it any such offer as that alleged. The only thing that in any degree gives colour to Sir Alexander’s assertion is a passage occurring in a Minute of the University Court of January 8, 1872, which is as follows:

“The Court are of opinion that the question under reference has been complicated by the introduction of the subject of graduation, which is not essential to the completion of a medical or other education.... If the applicants in the present case would be content to seek the examination of women by the University for certificates of proficiency in medicine, instead of University degrees, the Court believe that arrangements for accomplishing this object would fall within the scope of the powers given to them by section 12 of the Universities (Scotland) Act. The Court would be willing to consider any such arrangements which might be submitted to them.”

On receiving a copy of this Minute I pointed out that certificates of proficiency, not being recognized by the Medical Act of 1858, would be quite useless to us; but added 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.”

In answer to this letter I was informed that “If the names of extra-academical teachers of the required medical subjects be submitted by yourself or by the Senatus, the Court will be prepared to consider the respective fitness of the persons so named to be authorized to hold medical classes for women who have in this or former sessions been matriculated students of the University, and also the conditions and regulations under which such classes should be held.”

I, of course, replied that we would willingly prepare and submit such a list (though your readers will notice that this simply amounted to all the arrangements being thrown upon us students, and not in any degree made by the Court), but requested first to be assured that, “though you at present give us no pledge respecting our ultimate graduation, it is your intention to consider the proposed extra-mural courses as ‘qualifying’ for graduation, if it is subsequently determined that the University has the power of granting degrees to women.” In reply I was informed that the Court would do nothing of the kind; that we might, if we pleased, take all the trouble and expense of finding teachers, and might “submit” their names to the Court, but that in no case would the Court take any measures for making their teaching of any practical use to us from a University point of view. Your readers will therefore judge of what value was the boon that we are alleged to have rejected—I had almost said the trap that we were fortunate enough to have escaped!

I am sorry to have paused so long over this point, but the assertion of your correspondent was so amazing that it seemed essential that the real facts should be laid before the public. I should be only too glad if your space would allow you to publish the whole correspondence, of which I forward a copy for your own perusal. Should any of your readers desire, however, to ascertain more of the facts, they will find the correspondence fully given in the notes to a little book called Medical Women, published last year by Oliphant & Co., of Edinburgh, to which also I may refer for a detailed account of the whole struggle of the first three years at Edinburgh.

I notice that Sir Alexander Grant thinks it well to omit the fact that, when we were at last driven to assert our rights in a court of law (and I may remark that no proposal for an “amicable suit” was ever made to me or to any of my fellow-students by the University authorities, and therefore none was ever “rejected” by us), an unhesitating decision in our favour was given by the Lord Ordinary, before whom the case was tried, his Lordship also finding the Senatus liable for three-fourths of our expenses. The University refused, however, to accept this verdict, and appealed the case to the Inner House, where they at length succeeded in obtaining a judgment in their favour from a bare majority of the Lords of Session, the whole costs being in this case thrown upon us. Perhaps you will kindly allow me, however, to quote the following passage from the judgment of the Lord Justice Clerk, who adhered to the decision of the Lord Ordinary, and who had himself been Rector of the University when we were admitted as students.^[167] ... I may mention that an abstract of the whole recent lawsuit has been published as a sixpenny pamphlet, and may be obtained from Mr. Elliott, 67 Princes Street, Edinburgh.

Apologizing for so large a trespass on your space,

APPENDIX G
PERMANENT MEMORIALS OF SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE

In St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh,—a brass tablet placed by the Very Rev. T. W. Jex-Blake:

In the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children, placed by the Committee and friends,—a medallion of cast bronze mounted on a slab of verde-antique marble: on the medallion, surrounded by a wreath of laurel, the family crest and motto:

And below this the inscription:

On the family monument at Ovingdean, near Brighton:

In Rotherfield Churchyard, where her body was laid,—a grey granite cross, bearing the words:

“Then are they glad because they are at rest, and so He bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.”