XIV. QUESTIONINGS
When S. J.-B. left England her plan had been to spend at least part of the winter with an old school-friend, now married to the Revd. Addington Venables—afterwards Bishop—of Nassau in the West Indies; but life in Boston proved too attractive. She liked the women doctors and they liked her; possibly they had designs on her; in any case Dr. Sewall was anxious to get her health up to such a level as would make professional life a possibility; and, for the furtherance of this end, it was arranged that she should share the resident’s little house in connection with the hospital. Miss Isabel Bain had gone to pursue her education in one of the good girls’ schools. Already in October one had heard of S. J.-B. “helping the doctor through oceans of figures in hospital reports,” and one can well believe that she was an efficient member of the little community. The very day after she took up her residence in the hospital precincts the “student” who did the dispensing was summoned away, and as—of course!—there was a run of arduous cases at the same time, S. J.-B. cheerfully volunteered to do the dispensing,—“and was very thankfully accepted” to fill the gap! Within a week she writes to her Mother:
“It’s very amusing, dear, to learn to write and make up prescriptions so easily,—I shall be up to the doctors in future you see! I have just been making one up for myself under the doctor’s directions, to my great amusement,— ... and precious nasty it is!
It’s a great comfort to be of some sort of use to these people who are so frightfully overworked just now.... Besides being apothecary, I’m general secretary,—write all the business letters (which the doctor hates) and post up the hospital records of cases, etc.; and besides this I requested to be and got appointed what I call ‘chaplain’ with discretionary powers. The only people who visit in the hospital (besides friends at visiting hours) are the Lady Managers, each of whom has a month on duty, and besides that Mr. Barnard comes and holds a short service and preaches every Sunday afternoon. So I thought that the patients would like some reading, etc., sometimes, and Dr. Sewall gave me leave to do all I liked.... You can’t think how pleased they were all of them, and how heartily they asked me to come again, which I shall do pretty often.”
A week later (Nov. 24th) she writes again:
“At present I am so exceedingly content in my quaint pleasant quarters in the midst of so new a working world, that I hardly feel the need of anything beyond; and I do greatly want quiet and rest to ‘recuperate’ as the new word goes. I can’t tell you when I have found so much chance of rest of mind and quiet interest in things wholly unconnected with the old pain,—not for years, I am sure, and I have ready to hand just as much work as I feel able for, and yet no strain on me to do it if I am not able. I can’t tell you the pleasure it gives one simply to see Dr. Sewall in her hospital and especially among her poor patients. She is such a true Healer;—so infinitely compassionate and sympathetic, with blue eyes sometimes quite full of sorrow for the people’s pain, yet such strong firm hand and will to remedy even through pain. I say a dozen times a day,—‘Were I not a teacher, I would be a doctor’—if I could.
(Nov. 27th.) This hospital life is simply charming. So busy, so simple, so quaint and so interesting! I am entering more and more fully into it daily, and finding more and more nooks which I can fill ... sometimes giving mechanical aid in operations where they want an extra hand, etc.
Darling, one very unexpected result is coming out of this new life which I embraced simply for its rest and comfort,—I find myself getting desperately in love with medicine as a science and as an art, to an extent I could not have believed possible. I always associated so much that is repulsive and nasty with it in my mind, but I find that one really loses all sense of that in close contact,—that the beauty of nature’s arrangements and of art’s contrivances absorb one’s mind from everything less pleasant, and I find myself saying to myself a dozen times a day that, did I not feel my life devoted to another object, I would be a doctor straightway. As it is, I mean to use all the time I have in gaining all I can, by observation (for which one so rarely has such a chance) even more than by study, though I find myself devouring all sorts of medical works too, and am quite amazed to find how far even in this little time I am able to understand to a certain extent all sorts of things going on around me, and how very interesting they all become in the new light.... Of course one has access to an enormous medical library here, and the junior doctors are all as ready to help or show me all I want as possible. I in my turn do all I can to take extra work which I can do off their hands. Today the hospital note-book was handed over to me, and I went round with the physicians taking down directions for food, medicines, etc., and then making up the latter and taking them to the wards: all of which was very little for me to do, and very interesting, but a great deal saved for the over-worked junior doctor of the wards. I am really a great deal stronger and healthier than I have been for a long time.”
“Nov. 27th. We get up at 6.30 a.m.,—breakfast at 7, then go round the wards with the doctors, then I make up the hospital medicines and see what drugs need to be ordered into the dispensary. The Dispensary opens at 9, or two days in the week at 10, and on Mondays and Thursdays (Dr. Sewall’s days) I am there all the morning, making up prescriptions as fast as she writes them (two of us generally have our hands full, but sometimes I am alone), and very often we have not got through our work when the dinner-bell rings at 1 p.m. Dr. Sewall always has an enormous number of patients—from 60 to 70, and if I go down into the Dispensary waiting-room I get seized on so eagerly,—‘Is Dr. Sewall here herself?’ as she is occasionally obliged to be absent part of the time.
I think anyone who passed a couple of mornings in this dispensary would go away pretty well convinced of the enormous advantage of women doctors; and one sees daily how the poor women feel it by the crowds that come on the four days in the week when the lady physicians are in charge, and the handful that comes on the two days when a man presides.... They say that they have cases again and again of long- standing diseases which the women have borne rather than go to a man with their troubles,—and I don’t wonder at it.”
15th.I have just begun to have a little Sunday service in the wards where there was none before. Dr. Sewall is very good in letting me make such plans if I like, and comes herself to the service. Of course we have a very mixed multitude, but I think we manage to worship our ‘Father in Heaven’ and look forward to the ‘One fold’ some day, when neither ‘Jerusalem nor this mountain’ shall be the vital thing.”
“(Dec. 19th.) My chaplain’s work has rather fallen into abeyance now from the crush of other things,—the only thing I do regularly being the Sunday service, writing a weekly sermon for which, by the bye, is not to be omitted in one’s list of work. It’s all but impossible to find any printed ones one could read,—one needs to be so absolutely non-doctrinal and non-combative; and besides the doctors and people will come to hear mine when they’d think twice about anything else.
The young surgeon I told you about has a splendid voice, and last Sunday she brought a sort of large accordion and played all our hymn tunes, so we are getting quite grand. Wouldn’t you like, darling, to peep in at us and see all our busy doings?—I wish you could.”
To say that the young doctors who came to her services were frankly critical of her and her beliefs is an understatement of the facts. Some of their remarks have survived,—clever and flippant for the most part; but the following letter from an intimate friend, whom she had persuaded to accompany her to church, is worth quoting:
“Sunday evening, 11 o’clock.
My dear Baby, I cannot sleep for thinking of the rude speeches I made to you this evening. I am so sorry that I said them, but at the same time I could not help it,—the whole service and the going to church of most all the people there was such a farce that it roused the devil in my nature.
Besides all this, my Baby answered me so sweetly and truly that it did me good to make her talk, and raised my faith in human goodness which was getting almost extinguished by that man’s sermon. If I ever get into such a disagreeable mood again, and say ugly things to tease you, you must give me a good moral box on the ear so as to bring me to my senses.
I do not believe that going to church is good for me.
Don’t think me foolish for writing this, and don’t let anything I said today trouble you, but be as good to me as you have been.”
In the midst of all this busy life, S. J.-B. never forgot the family festivals at home, the birthdays of parents and friends, the date when such an one was to be married, or another to sail for India. This was a striking gift, more of the heart than of the head, that she retained throughout life. “I was thinking in bed this morning of the faithful few who would remember my poor old birthday,” wrote her childhood’s schoolmistress, Miss Teed, at this time, “And a little bird whispered, ‘You will get a letter from Sophy.’”
Not that she ever felt bound to say the thing that was expected of her.
“I suppose you don’t expect me to say much about Uncle’s death, darling,” she writes to her Mother. “It cannot seem to me sad for anyone concerned. I do not think he would have learned much more here; doubtless he will hereafter.”
Three weeks before the anniversary of her parents’ wedding, she writes to her sister:
“DEAR OLD CHARLIE,—Please keep the enclosed very secret till the morning of May 12th.
Get a grand plant of some sort—full of blossom, geranium or fuchsia or something,—any price up to 5s.—and put the letter in its leaves on Mother’s plate at breakfast. Mind you get a glorious plant....
Your aff. sis., S. L. J.-B.”
From a letter written to her Mother at Christmas 1865 one realizes what a child she was still:
“Our rooms did get so prettily decorated,—Dr. Sewall is clever that way,—and I took holly round to all the wards that everybody might have some bits to look at. We had quite a rush of babies just then—four born on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.—When we were going round the wards on Christmas Day Dr. Sewall ordered of course ‘light diet’ for the new Mothers,—so I said laughingly to console them, ‘Well, I guessed the babies were worth losing a dinner for, weren’t they?’ ‘Humph!’ says one of the Mothers, ‘a good dinner’s worth more to poor folks!’
To tell the truth I was too much taken aback to reflect what a sensible woman she was!—What would you have said, dear?
Darling, I come more and more to the conclusion that anyone who wishes to preserve intact all romantic ideas about ‘Mother’s love,’ etc., had better not live in a Lying-in Hospital. It’s a grand and blessed thing when it does come, but that isn’t always. We had two of the babies born here found deserted in the streets a few days ago,—the day after their mothers were discharged.”
On March 4th, 1866, she writes to her Mother:
“I have given up my Sunday service, or at least have resigned it into the hands of a minister who already had a service in the medical wards. I found it very hard to find time to prepare properly for it, and sometimes it tried my nerves very much, and besides it got to be a great weight upon me in the way of responsibility and absolute honesty in what I said. Things seem so very un-clear to my own mind that it rather weighs upon me and worries me to be trying to say much about them to others. Perhaps this state may just pass away again, but in the meantime I like best to ‘be true to every honest thought’ and, till I’m sure, to be silent.
Much love to Daddy and Carry, and such a lot of kisses for my darling.
Yours lovingly, SOPH.”
To understand the inner history of this change one must revert to the diary,—the most intimate friend of all—and this takes us back for a moment to the time of her arrival in America.
“June 18th. How thoughts and plans and possibilities rush upon me! The opening of the bar to women here,—Mr. Sewall’s wish for a female pupil. ‘Ah,’ as I said to L.E.S. last night, ‘if I had been an American, I believe I should not have doubted to be a lawyer.’ She thinks one should be, if one has the powers and will.
Yes, but is the ‘dedication’ and vocation of years nothing? Have I believed rightly or wrongly that God meant me to do something for teaching,—and that in England,—to the almost certain exclusion of all other life-work? Rightly, I think.
Then, again, the ministry. What seems to draw me so irresistibly that way? Is it pride or wish of note, or is it vocation? Is it partly Dr. Arnold’s belief that Headmaster ought also to be chaplain?...
One seems at crossways,—‘the tide’ perhaps. Well, look,—and surely the kindly Light will lead.”
Anyone who had gone through all S.J.-B.’s papers up to this date with an open mind would have said that the choice really lay between teaching and preaching. All her life she had been more interested in religious subjects than in any others, and her gifts of exposition and of public speaking were far above the average in either sex. In later years, when she was addressing thousands of people, she could make all hear without seeming to raise her voice; it remained full, mellow, easy, perfectly controlled, just as when she sat at the head of her own dinner-table. She might have spent some considerable part of the day in “wishing somebody would shoot her,” but no one would have guessed it when the moment came. “My mind is perfectly at ease when she rises to speak,” said one of her patients in Edinburgh, many years later, “one feels then that humanly speaking nothing can go wrong.” As a matter of fact it was when she was addressing a large audience that she looked most radiantly happy.
In many ways, then, she would have made a good minister; we know that she wrote a number of sermons that were appreciated by her colleagues, and she went so far as to preach at Weymouth (Mass.) for the Rev. Olympia Brown. “On seeing Him who is invisible” was the subject she chose, and, judged by ordinary standards, the sermon seems to have been a success.
The main reason why she did not follow it up was (as indicated in the last-quoted letter to her Mother) the change that took place in her religious views after she had lived some time in America. In England she had been considered an advanced thinker on religious subjects: in America—the America in which her lot happened to be thrown—she was amazingly orthodox and conservative. For the first time she found herself among people who really did not care about religion as she understood it.
“July 2nd. Very nice these people are,” she writes in her diary, “and very nice Mrs. Rogers’ deep clear interest about the poor and wicked,— refuges, etc.
Yet is there not in them the sort of un-religiousness which half jars on one in Unitarians? I wonder why. I hope I shan’t get into it. ‘More of reverence in us dwell.’ Yet so difficult in throwing off old bonds of sentiment not to lose something of the real feeling,—and, as Miss Cobbe says, if our religion is not a synthesis of all the good and beauty we know, we are less, not more, by rejecting errors.”
And again:
“A new psychical study in the shape of Mrs. F., who ‘can believe in Providence but not in God,’ and who ‘means to say that there is absolute right and wrong, but not good and bad people. People were born with certain notions and acted accordingly; they did the best they could and could do no more.’
Mr. F. allowing and accepting the consequence that men differed no more from brutes than by finer organization, no more than the elephant from the fish! It is really good to contrast opposite extremes of thought,—it gives one a certain sense of stability and reality to have to defend one’s castle on both sides, and so to feel sure that it is one’s own at least....
Talking of struggle as the only root of good, I quoted ‘perfect through suffering,’ and spoke of my belief in Christ’s struggle in those 30 years as the only possible root of his accordance of will with God’s.
July 16th. Curious how the things most living to me are just simple absurdities to another. Talking of tombstones, Mrs. H. doesn’t like them, as preventing the dead rising—in idea. Mrs. F.—‘Well, you don’t expect them to, do you?’ (as a sort of reductio ad absurdum). ‘Certainly I do: the Bible says so.’ ‘Oh—aw—ah!’ with such a face,—‘if I thought so, I’d take to Banting at once.’”
Curious how none of them seem to have seen that the frivolous remark involved a great principle!
There were many stories and jokes on biblical themes, and—though S. J.- B. even at this time was a touchstone in the matter of jokes, never allowing one to pass which was not funny enough or clever enough to justify its breadth or its seeming irreverence—her sense of humour was keen.
“Suggestion to read the prayer for fair weather,—‘Lor, sir,—not a bit of good with the wind in this quarter.’”
But she was constantly reverting to the old religious intensity:
“How reading of any spiritual conflict—even such an ‘ébauche’ as in Agnes of Sorrento—rouses one’s whole nature in a sort of enthusiasm of longing and half prophecy!...
Sometimes I feel such intense sympathy and pity for Christ because of his very deification. That after spending his whole life to learn and tell men about his Father, he should find them, after his death, trying to set him up himself to obscure that Father,—making God a foil to Christ!”
With that extraordinary frankness that does such credit to both, she writes to her Mother at this time,—“I was thinking the other day how curious it was that I really never read one Unitarian book till I was altogether Unitarian,[38]—never one but the Bible at least, if that counts.”
Footnote 38:
It was only for a very brief period of her life that S. J.-B. would have called herself by this name.
“It is strange,” says someone, “that, in all our talk of the evolution of the individual, we fail to recognize the evolution of the medium.” S. J.-B. seems to have thought—as so many earnest spirits thought in those days—that she stood practically alone. “It has so been,” she says in the same letter to her Mother, “(I can’t say chanced) that I have had next to no human sympathy or help on my way. I do not remember that anyone but Mrs. Ballantyne has given me much of either in this one strife, and before I knew her the worst was over.”
One must bear this in mind in reading the passage that follows:
“To realize more and more that my life will be one—for years if not to the end—of struggle and perhaps obloquy, certainly outcasting from the synagogue,—struggle theological and social: and will it even succeed at last? Yes, surely,—inasmuch as Robertson says how to fall in the gap is success,—to be one of the conquering army, if not of the conquerors.”
The next entry in the diary is the quotation of a flippant joke about the Californians who “when they go to a certain warm abode have yet to send back for their blankets.”
“July 30th. A very interesting talk with the Fs. ... trying hard to show Mrs. F., who longs so to believe in a loving God, ‘Thou wouldst not seek me, hadst thou not found me,’—and that to long is almost to believe. Also to show her that Christ’s Christianity is a strong true manly thing,—that what she deprecates is the letter not the spirit, and that her willingness to live, and yet fear to die, without Christianity is of the essence of Calvinism.
With him, still more interesting, (except that one pities and longs to help her) about origin of evil, free will, etc. I arguing that God could not give men the possibility of virtue without the possibility of evil,—he arguing a higher state where evil not possible. I say—then you exclude the idea of goodness from God.
With some effort cleared ideas so far as to detect the ‘undistributed middle term,’ to distinguish between the possibility of evil and the wish toward evil. Saying that the very truth we prized in Unitarianism was that it said ‘Christ, if God, was no example’ and that Christ’s very goodness consisted in that he had the possibility of evil and no wish for evil.
Illustrating with May forbidden sugar, in a room with and without it. In one case unable to disobey, in the other restrained from the wish to disobey.
The two, confused in one, being absolute opposites.
Is this all part of my training ‘for the ministry’? Please God. One does so gain a clearness never, one trusts, to be lost.
He asked me tonight if I did not find I had a clearness of thought and language very rare; and she said I was the first person who had made her feel the intense reality of the invisible and long after it. Please God, a prophecy.
I said I had won through infinite struggle—almost ‘to blood’—a certainty to which the visibility of the outer was nothing. And, please God, it is deeply true.”
Ah me, Prometheus! The audacity of us small mortals all!
But the words that follow are indeed ‘a prophecy.’
“I have such a conviction of infinite struggle and contest in the future,—yet please God, of earnest, on-pressing struggle, and in the end, victory and Rest....
Oh, dear, the ‘religious’ people and their effects!—very nearly making L. E. S. hate the name. So far from all good being ‘in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ or rather in God’s, there is actually room for the reverse to be said;—not wholly truly, I trust though. But she said, ‘If I want help for those poor things in or out of hospital, I never go near the pious people. I have and I know them. Go to atheists, and you are never refused.’
Oh, dear!”
Knowing the spiritual history of earnest souls in that generation, one is not surprised to come a couple of months later upon the entry:
“I am wonderfully unsettled and uneasy somehow.... I do believe this terrible sort of logical doubt of Theism that enters in—not un- faith, but a failure of the abiding surety—an entrance of the admission how possibly reasonable Atheism may be—hurts horribly.
And then isn’t the whole world void?
Oh for the ‘I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not‘!—and doubtless one has it,—both in ’Neither pray I for these alone,’ and also in those who live and love one, Mother and Octa....
L.’s absence of sympathy weighs heavily. Hitherto all my friends have met me here,—she does not. ‘All the help she ever got, she got from herself and her will.’ Not from the Bible or hymns, etc. She calls herself a theist, but it seems to me to run close to practical atheism....”
“Oct. 29th. She is so good! Told her something of today’s pain, she so sympathizing and good! Believed that the struggle was part of the sequence of early training and later reaction into ‘wider faith’—what many had to go through one time or another. I spoke of herself,—asked her what practical difference she would find if an atheist. ‘Not much generally,’ she thought, but in trouble she did pray. She couldn’t help it, and believed it was good, and when her friends died she was happier. ‘When she thought of it, she felt very sure about God, but very seldom did stop to think. She was sure her first duty was her work, etc. and then she had small time and sense left.
I said lives not continually lived as seeing Him who is invisible would be worth but little; she said Then her’s was so, and many others. So I retracted hastily. ‘At least mine would be.’
Perhaps her’s is actually higher and more childlike. ‘He will care for my soul,’[39] as it were.”
“Nov. 13th. Looking at p. 253, ‘the Ministry?’, I ask whether the sort of spiritual speechlessness—almost deadness—is not perhaps a merciful answer to that question. Clearly I can’t preach now.”
“Nov. 24th. This temptation to medicine is pretty strong in some ways, both as to present study and future life.... But ‘not each on all’ come the claims,—this is surely already responded to, and will surely grow without me.
I feel as if my work would not [how little she knew!] as if, at least, it was given me to do and needed most of all my labour.
So ’Traveller, hold thy cloak’!
While it was identical with life interests and labour am I to claim ‘vocation,’ and then when others open, forsake it?
‘Shalt not excel.’”
“Nov. 25th. I cannot but believe that if God enables me ... to do my work as I have believed and planned it, it will do wider, deeper good for England than the addition of one woman doctor can.[40]
And then if I say,—‘Ah, but see how my theology will impede me!—well, would you have everyone give up working but those who hold the popular views?—is it not just those whose views have changed who need to work and justify them, and not hide light under a bushel at call of indolence or cowardice? You know that you believe in the horrible harm of leaving education to Calvinists, downtreading and hardening earth round the root,—that you believe in children being taught ‘the two commandments’ and no more,—and yet, because you would so teach them, you half shrink from the battle through which you must do it.
L. E. S. says, ‘If you feel you can and wish to be a doctor, you ought.’ Ah, but I can do the other too. And if it is only selfish or worldly considerations that sway you to medicine—if it is the interest or the power or the success, mainly or wholly—if it is the difficulties present or future that make you half yearn to turn from the other—surely these are no reasons.
Surely, having presented ourselves, our souls and bodies, a reasonable sacrifice, these things no longer enter in.”
Footnote 39:
The reference is probably to the reply of Wilberforce when asked whether in his struggle for the emancipation of the slaves, he was not neglecting his own soul,—“I had forgotten that I had a soul.”
Footnote 40:
“But thou wouldst not alone Be saved, my father! alone Conquer and come to thy goal, Leaving the rest in the wild. * * * * * ... to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of the day, O faithful shepherd! to come, Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.”
In view of all that was to follow, it is interesting that, in turning to Medicine, she should suspect herself of ‘half shrinking from the battle.’ Here is proof, if proof were needed, that while half of her enjoyed the fray, the other half had to be dragged, an unwilling captive, begging always to lie down and be at peace.
“The Medicine fascinates me.... If I resume teaching, it will be grand to have an M.D. for head of College: if not, why Medicine is a ‘good work,’ and if I am led up to it, it may be mine after all.
But won’t E.G. be cross?”
Here are two pleasant little sidelights on the situation—from letters to her Mother:
“(Jan. 21st. 1866.) And, darling, do you know that the doctor has such a splendid temper, and is so infinitely gentle, that I really believe she is improving mine,—because I’m absolutely ashamed to be cross to anybody so good. Suppose I come home angelic, dear?”
Her best friends would have said there was no great cause for anxiety on that score.
“(Feb. 6th.) Yes, dear, I mean to be a thoroughly good nurse for you at any rate, if ever you need me; as to ‘Doctor too,’ I can’t say. I should like to be enough of one at least to know how to save you some pain. I listen to and learn specially everything that I think can ever help my darling,—it would be grand to be of some use and comfort to her if she was ill.”
A few weeks later she wrote to Mrs. Unwin:
“13 Pleasant Street, Boston. March 3rd. 1866.
MY DEAR LUCY,
I hope you are quite prepared to renew your invitation to me for next summer, for I’m beginning to think seriously of my visit home, and I want very much to see you! I say my ‘visit’ for I have been so well and strong since I came to America, and have found so much to interest me, that I think it very likely I may come back here after seeing all my home folks....
I am so glad to hear that you have got Alice with you, and expect to like her. She is a real friend of mine, and a very true and valuable one.... I only hope you will let her take as good care of you as she used to do of me....
Whenever you feel energetic enough to enjoy a chat by pen and paper, I shall be very pleased to hear of your doings. Pray tell me all about the Baby—of course the most wonderful of his kind—and be sure, dear child, that I shall care very much to hear and know about everything that concerns you.
Please give the enclosed lines to A. I shall enjoin her to feed you up no end, and whenever we do meet, be sure I shall ask if you let yourself be taken proper and sensible care of. I believe in food and rest as just the best doctors in creation—with all my new medical lights!
Goodbye, dear child. With every good wish for you in the New Year, I am,
Yours affectionately, S. L. J.-B.”
All through this time her happy letters had been giving no small pleasure to the “old folks” at home.
“Brighton. 18th Dec. 1865.
DEAREST,
Your welcome letter arrived a day or two before the 17th., but dear Mother kept it back till the morning. Thanks for all your good wishes. One thing you can always do,—pray for me,—and that, I trust, you will do daily. I have constant faith in prayer simply offered up to our heavenly Father through the one mediator between God and man. I believe it never fails.
I am rejoiced you are so quiet at Boston, and have employment that interests you, but even that work will hurt you, remember, if you have too much of it. You want rest, dearest child, and only light agreeable work on your hands. I wish I could see Dr. Sewall, to give her a Father’s heartfelt thanks for all her loving kindness to you. She is indeed an invaluable friend. If I am to see her, she must come to Europe, for I shall never cross the Atlantic.... I am very glad you are so well, and your letters are so cheery that they are a great pleasure.
We are all, thank God, fairly well, and are to have Tom and his wife, and four (I think) of the children here after Christmas. On Thursday last, at 2 a.m. their house was on fire, and till 2.30 a.m. he did not expect to save the house; and had there been a high wind, nothing could have saved it probably. Mercifully it was a still night and everything went well. Two engines were on the spot rapidly, in perfect order,—plenty of water close by, and the superintendent very active and intelligent. No crowd, and the entrances kept clear by respectable known men: and by three o’clock every spark was out.
The children were sent off rapidly to the school-house, and all five (baby being put elsewhere) put in Miss Temple’s bed! Nobody has been hurt,—a few colds and that seems all. Our God be praised. How different it might have been!
Your affecte Father, T. JEX-BLAKE.”
And the Mother writes:
“Jan. 29th. 1866.... You were very good and very right not to attempt to enter yet as a student....
I had much rather know you well and happy there than see you ill and know you worried here. If they would only have the Cable, I think Boston no distance. I should certainly like the Cable,—but I don’t hear a word about it. Couldn’t you apply to Government?”
“Feb. 20th. I hope your medical education is progressing, and that you don’t addle your brains. I shall expect you to make something on the way home by your medical knowledge.”
“Mar. 5th. It is such a repose and joy to me to hear of your being occupied so usefully and happily, and feeling comparatively well, though I suspect sometimes my little one is a wee overdone.”
The medical study was more or less of a joke so far to her friends at home, and many are the enquiries as to when she means to return and go on with her life after this interesting digression.
“I am very glad you find things and people pleasant in America,” writes Mrs. Unwin. “I hope they won’t be so nice that they will tempt you to stay there very long, for I shall be very glad when I can think of you again without that great sea between us. I do so want a long talk with you about no end of things. I don’t think I ever wanted you more than when I was ill.”
And Mr. Unwin expressed the view of many when he wrote:
“If I told you of the estimate in which I hold the purpose to which you are devoting your life, you would suspect me of flattery, so I abstain; but, barring all that, your friends in England are in great need of you, and I think it is very horrid that you should leave them all, to whom you would be of infinite service, on God knows what outlandish errand. They all grudge you to Boston entirely, so pray be quick and come back.”
Dr. Sewall, on the other hand, had become not a little dependent on her competent helper, and, although this friendship too was not without the “cataracts and breaks” to which S. J.-B. so often refers in her diary, there is no doubt that the older and gentler woman found it not only a pleasure but a great asset. “How I wish I had you here: I do so want your strength! So few people are strong,” is a sentiment that recurs in her letters many times from now to the end of her life.
So in June 1866, S. J.-B. returned to England to see her parents, and to talk over the whole question of her future career with them and with other friends.
“Most people are much more in favour of Medicine than I expected,” she writes, “except Miss Garrett, who thinks me not specially suited, and E. S. M., who thinks it indecent of unmarried women knowing all about these things.”
“July 8th. Sunday. ‘Taller,’ say Laurence, Mother and self. ‘More firmly knit,’ say do. ‘Muscles like iron, as if rowing all morning and prize-fighting all afternoon,’ says Nigger.
Well done America and L. E. S.!—bless her.”
Almost at the same moment Dr. Sewall was writing:
“I really feel quite well satisfied with the increase in my practice, and if it continues to increase for the next two years as well, we shall be able to take a fine house and live in style. I cannot tell you how much pleasure I get out of anticipating our house-keeping. When I am too tired to do anything, I lay on the sofa and plan and plan and think what a good time we are going to have, and am as happy as a cricket.”
So America won the day, though not without many questionings.
“August 12th. Sunday. On Sunday last at Mrs. Hyde’s suggestion wrote to Macmillan. On Tuesday heard from him, and had a ‘book—not too short’ warmly accepted by him, at ‘no risks and half profits.’
So we gradually come to our wishes when we have ceased to look for them. I accept it almost as I did the preaching,—because I had so longed for it.
This day three weeks on the Atlantic,—5 weeks, home to L. E. S., I trust. Study Medicine? ... or push on in literary career now opening apparently?
How about conflicting interests and powers hereafter? If my book— inter alia—brings me to notice of Commission,[41] etc.,—cry off from my chance because too busy as a doctor?
Ah, well,—long way off yet! Do the work ‘lies nearest thee’ and leave the rest!”
Footnote 41:
The Schools Inquiry Commission, presumably.
XV. PIONEER WORK IN AMERICA
On September 1st, 1866, S. J.-B. sailed again for America. A warm welcome awaited her, and she speedily fell back into her niche at the Women’s Hospital. Her main interest for the first month or two was the writing of her book on A Visit to Some American Schools and Colleges, the manuscript of which was duly despatched to Macmillan in November. Based though it avowedly was on somewhat limited observations, and dealing with a transient stage of a great subject, the book was extraordinarily fair and clear, and was greeted with genuine respect by those who were qualified to form an opinion. What was equally important, it made really excellent reading. At the close of a four column review the Athenaeum said:
“An English teacher, whose special avocations enabled her to gain prompt attention from American instructors, and qualified her to detect the true worth and significance of the facts brought under her notice, Miss Jex-Blake has written a sensible and entertaining book upon an important subject; and, while we thank her for some valuable information, we venture to thank her also for the very agreeable manner in which she imparts it.”
“Redolent with common sense and practical suggestions,” said The Stationer.
How sane a view she took of the whole subject may be gathered from the quotations given in the appendix.[42]
Footnote 42:
Appendix C.
Having happily despatched her book, she was free to give her whole mind to the subject of Medicine, and she seems
now to have enrolled formally as a medical student. In any case we hear of her dissecting—when material could be got—and finding, in the stimulus this gave to her work, a new interest and fascination.
Excellent work was done at that Women’s Hospital in Boston, as a number of our English women doctors have had reason to testify: sickness was relieved, and—what is quite as much to the point—competent and able doctors were turned out year by year. But of course the scholastic side of the work was on a very different level. Even for those days, the practical scientific education, and, above all, the sheer supply of material, were inadequate in the extreme. Then as now, of course, it was true that “la carrière ouverte aux talents,” and when women doctors were so rare there was little doubt that a competent woman would make her way. Certainly it was not the hallmark of a good University degree that helped her, for good Universities existed for the male sex only. Graduation in America to this day may mean a great deal or it may mean just nothing at all. It was not the fault of the woman doctor of that period if her “degree” was one that failed to inspire the enthusiasm of those that understood.
Now S. J.-B.’s entry on any new sphere in life could seldom be fitly described as the addition of a little more of the same stuff. For better or worse, she was apt to come somewhat as the yeast comes to the dough, and yet that metaphor, too, falls short, for the medium reacted upon her as intensely perhaps as she acted on the medium. In the present case she had drifted into medical work all uncritical and full of admiration[43]; but a visit to England brought her back as an outsider with her critical faculty fully awake. She saw that the need of adequate Graduation—urgent though it might be—was as nothing compared to the need of adequate Education. It was hard to make bricks without straw. In America women doctors had proved, against heavy odds, that women doctors were wanted. Why not give them a fair field? One heard on every side of the splendid advantages laid, so to speak, at the feet of men students at Harvard.
Footnote 43:
As early as June, 1866, she had written to Dr. Sewall:—“I am glad you are pleased with prospects as to the College; but, however good you may get it to be, take notice (if I study at all) I don’t mean to graduate at any Woman’s College,—on principle,—or else for vanity and ambition sake,—which is it?” Whichever it was, there can be no doubt as to the soundness of the decision, but she little guessed what that decision was to cost.
Why should not women be admitted to Harvard?
Why not ask?
In April, 1867, the following correspondence was published in The Boston Daily Advertiser:
“March 11th. 1867.
GENTLEMEN,
Finding it impossible to obtain elsewhere in New England a thoroughly competent medical education, we hereby request permission to enter the Harvard Medical School on the same terms and under the same conditions as other students, there being, as we understand, no university statute to the contrary.
On applying for tickets for the course, we were informed by the Dean of the Medical Faculty that he and his coadjutors were unable to grant them to us in consequence of some previous action taken by the corporation, to whom now therefore we make request to remove any such existing disability. In full faith in the words recently spoken with reference to the University of Harvard,—‘American colleges are not cloisters for the education of a few persons, but seats of learning whose hospitable doors should be always open to every seeker after knowledge’—we place our petition in your hands and subscribe ourselves,
Your obedient servants, SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE. SUSAN DIMOCK.[44]
To the President and Fellows of the University of Harvard.”
Footnote 44:
Miss Susan Dimock was a student of great promise who afterwards completed her education at Zurich. She was lost at sea in the wreck of the steamer Schiller in May 1875.
“Harvard University. April 8th. 1867.
MY DEAR MADAM,
After consultation with the faculty of the Medical College, the corporation direct me to inform you and Miss Dimock that there is no provision for the education of women in any department of this university.
Neither the corporation nor the faculty wish to express any opinion as to the right or expediency of the medical education of women, but simply to state the fact that in our school no provision for that purpose has been made, or is at present contemplated.
Very respectfully yours, THOMAS HILL.
Miss S. Jex-Blake.”
A few days later the following paragraph appeared in The Advocate:
“The Beginning of the End. A correspondence between the President and two lady applicants for admission to the Medical School was published some days since in the ‘Boston Advertiser.’ We understand that the friends of female education have no notion of resting satisfied with their first rebuff; and that prominent Alumni of Boston are already taking measures for the prolonged agitation of the question.”
A month later S.J.-B. had obtained introductions to each of the professors in the Medical Faculty at Harvard, and to each member of the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital and of the Eye and Ear Infirmary: as well as to many people of standing connected with these various institutions: and she now proceeded to canvass them systematically. In addition to a number of influential friends, she was ably supported by Miss Dimock.
On the whole their reception was encouraging. The individual letters, indeed, are so favourable, that the hopes of the inexperienced young applicants must have run high. The following from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes is typical of some half dozen at least:
“I should not only be willing, but I should be much pleased, to lecture to any number of ladies for whom we can find accommodation in the anatomical lecture room, always provided that any special subject which seemed not adapted for an audience of both sexes should be delivered to the male students alone.”
Dr. Brown-Séquard is even more emphatic in a letter to Dr. Holmes:
“MY DEAR PROFESSOR,
Miss Blake, who will hand you this note, wishes me to say that I am strongly in favour of the admission of persons of her sex at the Medical College. As such is my decided opinion, I write very willingly.
Very faithfully yours, C. E. BROWN-SÉQUARD.”
The corporation of Harvard, however, exerted its power to veto any such inclinations on the part of individual professors.
S. J.-B. quotes the above and a number of similar letters in the diary, and adds the comment:
“All which ends in ... smoke!”
There were always flashes of humour to temper the various disappointments.
“Those wise men of Gotham at the Eye and Ear think it ‘the kindest and most gentlemanly thing’ to shut us out after all!”
“Dr. A. ‘not afraid of responsibility, of course’—only—he’d rather not admit us till other people do”!
Here is the official letter from the wise men of Gotham:
“Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary. June 18th, 1867.
DEAR MADAM,
The surgeons of this Infirmary are, at the same time, members of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and are bound to respect the opinion of its Councillors. And in view of the recent action of that Board, we are of opinion that we cannot continue to allow female students to attend our cliniques. Ungracious as is the task, we therefore feel compelled to ask you to suspend your visits.
We have no hesitation in adding that our intercourse with yourself and companions has been throughout most pleasant to us personally.
Very truly yours, HASKET DERBY, for the Surgeons.
Miss Sophia Jex-Blake.”
A certain amount of clinical teaching in the Massachusetts General Hospital the women did obtain, and for this they were duly grateful, though it only made them feel more keenly the deficiencies of their lecture-room and laboratory training. And, even in hospital, they walked with a constant sense of insecurity, as one member of the staff was keenly opposed to the presence of women, and was on the look-out for causes of offence. Little by little S. J.-B. began to feel the wear and tear.
“July 5th. Rest yesterday, but altogether weighed down yesterday and today with the fear and horror of this irritability which seems so fatally unconquerable,” she writes in her diary.
And one knows how terrible an enemy that irritability was.
Fortunately, a few weeks later, she and Dr. Sewall got away together for a holiday; and this, apparently, was the first of the long series of driving-tours which were to prove the great joy and recreation of an arduous life.
“Tuesday. July 30th. Atlantic House, ‘Town of Wells,’ Maine.
DARLING MOTHER,
As I have a spare hour, I may as well use it to chat a little to you about the oddities of our journey.
I wrote to you from Newbury where we stayed one night at the Merrimac House,—having slept the previous night at the Agawam House, Ipswich (!)—both Indian names, of course. Yesterday we drove (as I told you at the end of my last letter) from Newbury port to Portsmouth, and were uncertain when I wrote whether to stay or go farther. It had been a hot day, but, after posting your letter, a violent rainstorm came up, deluging the streets for about 20 minutes about 5½ p.m.
After it was over, everything looked so cool and clear that Dr. Sewall was anxious to get on, though I was a little afraid of the heavy roads. So we set out soon after six, and had a most delicious drive at first. By-and-bye, however, we came to terribly wet clay roads and could only go at a walk. Our horse got tired and it began to get dark, and we found that the distance to go was even longer than we had been told.
It’s hard for you to understand the sort of society in these country places,—no gentry and no peasantry—almost all small farmers doing their own work and owning house and land, with some education but no polish. We stopped at two or three houses, scattered at wide intervals,—and enquired for lodgings, but with no success till after dark when we got to a house belonging to a widow woman who informed us we could come in and have bed and food, but there was ‘no one in the house but her,—no one for the horse.’ However, I was perfectly ready to act groom, so in we drove to such a queer loose sort of yard, where I unharnessed by very uncertain lantern light, and then the doctor and I had a tremendous job getting our phaeton into a queer coach-house up a sort of hillock!
Then the lantern led on to the ‘barn,’ which (here as usual) meant also stable, and soon I found myself plunging in the dark through soft masses which proved to be long wet grass, leading my horse by the halter. Then up among big loose stones, and up a step more than 1½ foot high into a barn so low that my horse all but hit his head. Then over some boards set edgewise to divide off stalls ... the good woman being amazed at my venturing in ‘with the horse’!
Then a queer hunt in the half darkness for a pail for water and wooden box for Indian meal (which, stirred with water, often replaces oats here), and then to bed, tired enough!
This morning I groomed the horse, and, so doing, found a stone in his foot, fed him, and we between us washed the carriage. You may tell Daddy I had no idea what hard work it was before! We washed a long while at it, and somehow it wouldn’t look quite clean at last.
(N.B. Why will water dry muddy on to a carriage?)
Then we drove on again some distance and found a place for dinner,—one of the big boarding-houses like what I was in at Compton,—and then on again. Dr. Sewall began to get tired when we were still 5 or 6 miles from our next point, Kennebunk,—and seeing a notice on a bye-road, ‘Atlantic House 3/4 mile’—we drove down,—found a charming inn almost on the sands, close to the Atlantic,—fresh and bright and airy, and settled here for the night. If you only knew what my afflictions are in American country inns,—I have hardly seen decent food in one since I left Boston—you may imagine my satisfaction at getting here the best supper I have had yet,—excellent fresh fish, lobsters, etc., and currants, and nice bread, and milk. Altogether the best table we’ve found yet.
It sounds natural, too, to hear the roar of the Atlantic as I write,— only it seems sometimes to murmur, ‘Over the sea!’
But then it always makes me feel nearer home to see the actual water which is the only thing between us,—of which you at Brighton see but another part.
Wednesday.... We have spent the day quietly here, and shall very likely drive to Portland in one day tomorrow,—30 miles is not much for a rested horse. He has not been out today, except for a short drive on the broad smooth sands which stretch for miles here.
It is deliciously cool here by the ocean,—Dr. Sewall says ‘cold,’ and borrows my old blue jacket.
It is very pleasant and restful after Boston. If Portland is hot, we may return here for a few days on our way back.
Goodbye, darling. Yours lovingly,
SOPH.”
“Atlantic House, August 9th. 1867.
DARLING MOTHER,
Here we are staying again on the very verge of the Atlantic, having found Portland more gay than restful, and desiring some perfect quiet before we get home again.
Your letter of July 25th has been forwarded to me with a long one from Carry, and one from an old schoolfellow of mine who had seen and liked my book, and so bethought herself to write to me and say so. She is a governess now.
I should like to see that review in the Pall Mall,—perhaps some of you will send it to me,—and any others of which you hear....
“August 11th. Sunday evening. We have been spending the afternoon ‘camping out’ in the midst of some woods (Haywards Heath fashion) letting our horse graze and enjoying the cool and quiet. We have one more day here and then go on towards home, and expect to get there on Friday. Soon after—in September probably—we shall make another attempt, aided by Mr. Loring, and, I hope, by Prof. Rogers (have you seen him?) to get into Harvard or to get some advantages out of them; and I suppose on our success will depend a good deal what we do in the winter....
The Doctor begs me to send her love. I do hope you may know her by this time next year. Don’t you?
Love to all. Tell Carry I’ll write soon in answer to hers.
Yours lovingly, SOPH.”
“I think what you say is true about the difficulties of ‘Joint Education’ in England,” she writes to her brother in answer to a criticism of her book. “Myself, I care very little about it if both sexes can somehow get all the education they want or wish for.”
There is little record of the winter’s work, though the following rough draft—in S.J.-B.’s handwriting—of an appeal to Harvard has been preserved:
“Jan. 1868.
GENTLEMEN,
Having during the past year been granted access to the clinical advantages of the Massachusetts General Hospital, but finding it impossible anywhere in New England to obtain adequate theoretical instruction in Medicine, we now earnestly entreat you to reconsider the subject of the admission of women to the lectures at Harvard Medical School,—such admission being, as we understand, forbidden by no past or present statute of the University.
We do not wish to enter on the vexed question of the capability or non-capability of women for the practice of Medicine, as we believe that time and experience only can furnish its true answer, but we now present our urgent petition that some opportunity may be afforded us for the thorough study of the medical science and art, that we may be granted at least some of the advantages that are not denied to every man, and allowed to show whether we are or are not worthy to make use of them.
We are willing, Gentlemen, to submit to any required examination, to qualify ourselves according to any given standard, to furnish any personal references, and to abide by any restrictions and regulations which may seem proper to the Corporation or to the Faculty.
Several of the Professors having expressed their personal willingness to allow us to attend their lectures, we earnestly request that the Corporation will authorize our admission to those classes into which the respective Professors do not object to receive us, and that, in any case where the Professors does so object, we may be allowed to receive private instruction from some medical gentleman approved by the Faculty, whose lectures shall in our case be held equivalent to those given to the College classes in the same subject.”
“Fighting on for Harvard with a sort of dull persistency,” she records in her diary in March 1868, “expecting another answer from the Corporation on the 11th.
Well, having been in Mass. Hospital for 8 months is something. With all my dull atheism, I do believe somehow the Best will be,—if not this, another. ‘And so far have brought me—to put me to shame’?”
Many entries in the diary about this time prove that she was passing through that veritable “dark night of the soul” that has lain in the path of so many bright spirits of her generation.
“I suppose it isn’t till the whole world—and oneself—breaks away under one that one does know what rubbish one is made of,—‘dust and ashes.... And what fine things I started with! Sir Launfal[45] and gilded armour, etc. To conquer all the giants and beam Christian charity everywhere.
I believe old folks do ‘know young folks to be fools.’
A nice result at near 28—Chaos!—with a possible sawbones in futuro!”
Footnote 45:
Some few intimate friends will recall the evenings, 30 or 40 years later, round the study fire at Windydene, when the white-haired woman would recite Sir Launfal from beginning to end with a subdued enthusiasm that was more expressive than pages of commentary.
“Jan. 21st. 1868. ‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus’!
Eight and twenty!—‘and a sinner!’”
One must bear in mind always, of course, that a diary is apt to reflect the graver side of a character, the side that associates, and even friends, would scarcely guess at. Certainly the letters to “the dear old folks” bear small witness to this stress and strain. They recount all sorts of innocent adventures and happy doings which were quite as real— one is glad to believe—as the strong crying and tears of the night watches.
“13 Pleasant Street, Boston, U.S. Monday, Jan. 27th. 68.
DARLING MOTHER
Such a sleigh ride as we had yesterday I hope you’ll never have,—and indeed I don’t care about repeating the dose myself! I drove the doctor eight or nine miles in a pelting snow-storm, partly across open country, long bridges and marshes, etc., the thermometer somewhere about 10° or 15°, a good deal of wind, which always makes it feel much colder, and the sharp crystals of snow cutting into our faces and eyes like so many pin points and causing actual pain. Towards the end I found it rather hard to see,—some white things seemed to get in front of my eyes;—what do you think they were? Solid icicles hanging from all my eye-lashes on the side exposed to the wind,—frozen together into three or four solid little balls as big as small peas, and partly freezing the lids together! When I got in I called Eliza to see them,—you should have heard her ‘Gracious goodness!’
Even sealskin gloves fail one in such stormy cold,—one’s hands freeze and have to be thawed out as regards sensation several times in a drive! So we carry hot bottles to do it with, and Dr. Sewall laughed at the figure I cut yesterday, driving with one hand, the other grasping a big two-quart bottle upright on my lap, and my head bent on one side like a lapwing’s to see out of the one eye that wasn’t frozen up!
She herself offered to drive again and again, but speed was my object, and I always make the horse go half as fast again as she does. He did gallantly yesterday,—the roads and streets were clear, and we spun over the white frozen surface at eight or ten miles an hour.
When it is not actually snowing, sleighing is very exhilarating,—the horse has a light load and is generally in good spirits,—sleigh-bells jangling merrily, etc.”
“March 6th.
... A few days ago one of the women who had been confined here was fetched home by her husband, and with him came a rather big dog of the setter or lurcher kind, I think, or rather a cross on one of them. The folks went away, and so did the dog, but in half an hour he was back again, scratching at the Hospital door. He was fetched again by the man and again ran back, no one having, so far as I know, petted or enticed him at all. Then he was refused admission or turned out on the street, and when his master came again for him I believe he found him on the street; but in the evening there came a scratching at our hall door—not the Hospital,—and in walked the same dog again! I knew nothing of the previous story, but remembered having seen him with the man who came to our house to see Dr. Sewall, so I took him in. From that moment he attached himself to me, so that he follows every step I take, and whines at any door I enter without him. As the man didn’t come again for him, I drove to his house this morning,—the dog following close to the sleigh all the way (some two miles), and when he got there the dog greeted his master certainly, but directly I rose to go, up he jumped after me. So, as his choice seemed to be made, I offered the man $5 (15s. 6d.) for him, and now am undisputed owner of my loyal friend!
It is rather queer, for I had been wishing for a dog of my own, and, though he is not a great beauty, he has a nice face, is very obedient, clean, and, I think, intelligent,—though Dr. Sewall professes to disdain him for being ‘so big’!—and then one can’t help liking even a dog who so plainly declares ‘elective affinity.’”[46]
Footnote 46:
The dog was named Turk, and became a devoted friend.
In the midst of all these new interests she had not forgotten the question of education at Bettws-y-Coed, and she was deeply interested in the maturing plans for a new school there. She writes to her Mother:
“I am glad to understand that you have bought, not the first bit of ground, but another near it. I hope Carry will soon send me some idea of her plans, though, of course, we can’t build for some months. I enclose a very rough sketch of what would be my own idea of a schoolroom with gallery at one end and with classroom at the other,— and besides the class room a sort of lobby with second entrance and with stairs leading to the rooms above for Anne. The porch to have places to hang hats, etc., as also under the gallery (as at Hastings).
I can’t remember about dimensions, though I have a sort of idea that, when we spoke of building before, we planned our schoolroom at 18 ft. by 28, and 10 ft. or 11 ft. high, the class room to be perhaps 11 ft. by 8.
Ask Carry to see how that agrees with the standard space for 100 children.”
The school was actually built in 1869, everything being done in a fashion characteristic of the Jex-Blake family. They gave what was needed, but not in such a spirit as to discourage the generosity of others. The landlord gave the site—for a purely nominal rent,—together with permission to take what stone was needed from a neighbouring quarry. Farmers and others did the carting for love. For years the Jex- Blakes had been educating a competent girl—a former pupil—as mistress. Local sympathy and appreciation, combined with the persevering interest of the founders, were the very life-blood of the school. How much finer this than the building of an ornamental edifice that should hand down the name of the donor to future generations.
* * * * *
In March 1868 S. J.-B. gave up Boston in despair for the moment, and went to New York, where she had the support of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily, both of whom had plans for the more adequate medical education of women, and were organizing special classes. S. J.- B. also persuaded the Head Demonstrator of Anatomy at Bellevue to give her and another woman student a course of private lessons in Dissecting and Practical Anatomy.
“March 28th. Saturday. Began dissecting with Dr. Moseley ... oh, dear, isn’t it good to have some real teaching at last!
By-the-bye, the Blackwells think they could get us into Bellevue if Harvard refuses. New York for 3 winters? Shall I bring Alice or what? They want English ladies to come and make a class, and offer to receive them into the Infirmary. (But English ladies are not given to dine in kitchens on poor kitchen fare, etc.)
Is my old idea ever to work out by O. H. studying medicine? Wouldn’t she be a good doctor!
By-the-bye, challenged by the Blackwells as ‘to whose management (in re English Female University) would inspire me with £1000 confidence,’ I say, O. H., Miss M., etc.”
She wrote delightful long letters to Dr. Sewall about the minutiae of her work, and was somewhat concerned as to how the little Boston world was getting on without her.
“I am glad that you find out (as I told you you would) that I did do one or two little things while you wondered how I spent my time. I wish, however, that you had someone to do them now,—I am afraid you will get so tired. I shall ask Eliza if you eat properly. Tell her that I mean to write to her next time.
The little book of your bills is on my shelf in my secretary,—a small account book. Don’t muddle the things in looking for it. Be sure and put down in it all the bills you send out. Can’t you get Miss Call to write them for you? She really can write (unusual in the N.E.H.)....
Tell me if Eliza does nicely,—tell her I asked after her and her housekeeping and Robert.
I am glad that my son Turk behaves better as he grows older. Give him an extra bone with my blessing.”
To her Mother she writes a long account of her difficulty in finding rooms at a reasonable price.
“So living in New York is neither easy nor cheap, you see, ... I hardly know how I shall manage if I go to a medical college this winter, and have to pay all lecture expenses, etc., besides living,— for women have to incur extra expense in all sorts of ways, because they can’t share the arrangements of some sorts made for men....
... while studying, Miss Garrett had, I know, to spend lots of money,— paying £50 for a single course of lectures which the men got (in class) for £5 each.
When there was an idea of my taking the Manchester College, Daddy was willing to advance me £1000 or £2000 for the start, instead of part of the income he allowed me;—do you think he would be willing to do some such thing now? I suppose it is hard for you at home who don’t realize exactly the hard battle we are fighting (especially to get into the good medical colleges) to see how very important it is not to be stopped from seizing every bit of advantage obtainable for want of money. And it unfortunately happens that most of the women who are studying Medicine really cannot get money even when most necessary.
When I began I had no idea of going into any of this,—but somehow one gets talking to Mother of what is uppermost in one’s mind sometimes.
And I know Mother wants to hear all my bothers and perplexities.
Much love, darling, to Daddy and Carry.
Yours lovingly, SOPH.”
“April 12th. Notwithstanding all the discomforts in the way of board, I have been gaining greatly by my stay here. I have had a better opportunity for dissecting, etc., than ever before, and besides have learnt a good deal at the daily medical lessons which take place at Dr. Blackwell’s every afternoon. If I am to be a doctor at all, I mean to be a thoroughly good one, and now that I have gone so far in medical study, I mean to go right through, unless some very unforeseen obstacle comes. And then the future may decide what use my knowledge may come to. I sometimes think that a woman doctor could find very useful work in teaching Anatomy and Physiology,—or at least something of them—to women and girls, who are apt to be so terribly ignorant of them.
Lately I have been spending an hour or so of an evening (for rest) in hearing a nice ‘daughter of the house’ read French to me, she having very few chances of help, poor child.”
On the eve of sailing for England, she sums up the situation in her diary with her usual relentless truthfulness:
“April 11th.... Within three weeks of leaving for home,—what balance sheet?
Nearly three years in America.
In that time complete health regained,—probably better than ever before,—real strength and power of study. A profession opening calmly and clearly before me,—its sciences already ‘as trees walking,’ becoming clearer daily. The edge of pain all gone. But with it vivid faith and life in many directions—belief in all invisible and much reaching after the heroic. A sort of passive ‘quo fata vocant,’—a sort of ceasing to demand the very good or very true, perhaps,—a sort of coldbloodedness that is not peace,—a nil admirari that only ‘will do for it.’ My vocation given up or laid aside, and I quietly learning knowledge chiefly because it is power,—hardly yet shaping out any end; but what does come, selfish enough. Professor of Anatomy? Surgeon? Doctor-Teacher?
Sometimes a sharp pain rushes across,—‘Ah, if Mother shouldn’t live to see me succeed!’—She does seem woven in with the heartstrings,—my old darling who cannot forget.
All this health and new life—more than ever hoped for—comes mediately from L.E.S.”
If this estimate of herself is just, one can only say that the lulling for the time of her higher emotional nature was probably a blessing in disguise. It helped her to make her foundation of knowledge sure. She had in her measure to learn—what every true scientist must learn—that “the natural is the rational and the divine,” that “there is no real break between the natural and the supernatural.”
“A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye—”
and if his eye be single his whole body may yet be full of light.
In any case the closing words of S. J.-B.’s ‘balance sheet’ are significant enough,—
“Comes—mediately—from L.E.S.”!
XVI. GOING HOME
It was in the course of this summer of 1868 that S. J.-B. realized her earnest wish to welcome her friend Dr. Lucy Sewall in England. She had raised great expectations among her friends, but, notwithstanding this, the visitor’s sweetness and grace won all hearts. “That woman is fit to be the apostle of a great movement,” Dr. T. W. Jex-Blake had said when he first saw her photograph, “with a face at once so strong and so tender.” And a closer acquaintance only served to confirm this judgment.
It is impossible to exaggerate the pride with which S. J.-B. took “the Doctor” everywhere, in a world that knew not the “sweet girl graduate” of the present day, and showed her off—for choice in a pretty pale-blue frock—with secret triumph to the friends who were expecting something very masculine and aggressive. Quite a number of sick people—Mrs. Unwin among the number—were eagerly waiting to consult her: and many were the requests that she would come and settle in England.
What Mr. Jex-Blake thought of her may be gathered from the following most characteristic note written a month or two later to his daughter:
“13 Sussex Square, Brighton. 2nd August 1868.
DEAREST,
It is so much in my head and heart, and in the dear Mother’s, to have the privilege of presenting your most valued friend with some memento of her visit, that I beg you to use all your influence, and entreat Dr. Lucy Sewall to accept a carriage, or any other thing that she would value, as a remembrance of your dear Mother and myself, when she has returned home. She can little imagine how much she would please us both by doing so.
Your affectionate Father, T. JEX-BLAKE.”
Two other happenings specially marked the holiday,—a visit from Mrs. Jenkinson (Mrs. Ballantyne), and a delightful rapprochement between S. J.-B. and her Father.
Of Mrs. Jenkinson she writes in her diary:
“So good, so fascinating and dainty! I haven’t had so much wide and deep talk with anyone for three years at least....
The proposal of her driving them to church ending in my doing so. Somehow the service moved me greatly. ‘Gethsemane, can I forget,’ etc....
‘What is truth?’—no jesting Pilate,—yet do I stay for an answer? Oh, dear, the certainties of p. [181], etc., and now! Yet I think the wheel is beginning to sway upwards again. Please God! Yes, surely the Ephesians stretched wise earnest hands (or may have done) to the Unknown God. ‘Strenuous souls ... to stand in the dark on the lowest stair.’”
“May 31st. Wonderful how content everyone is with my medical prospects. Daddy decides our residence (!) for Mount Street, Grosvenor Square. I say now pretty definitely,—in 4 more years England, three years study, and one of practice.
Meanwhile a quiet satisfactory holiday must have. No one can tell how many more with the old folks, and this must be what will be good to remember.”
“June 20th. Maurice’s lecture. ‘Miss Jex-Blake’s investigations in America might help much to the solution of the problem’ [of mixed education, presumably]. And after the lecture he thanked me for my book. I’m cock a hoop now!”
“June 24th. On the whole my resolve well kept till now,—one month’s success in no (or few and light) ‘cataracts and breaks.’ Somehow I have a solemn sort of feeling about it this year, as if it would be the last with one or other.”
“Ah, darling,” she writes to her Mother on the voyage, “it was such hard work to say Goodbye last week! Do you know for one little minute I wondered whether after all the price wasn’t too hard to pay, and whether after all I shouldn’t give up doctor, hospital, M.D. and all and just stay with the old Mother.”
“Sept. 29th. Boston. I am sorry to say that Harvard has refused me again, so I must go to New York!—Ah, well,—‘all things are less dreadful than they seem’!”
In that autumn of 1868 the Blackwells carried out their project of starting a medical school for women in New York.
Two class-tickets are extant admitting Miss S. L. Jex-Blake to the classes of Practical Anatomy and of the Principles and Practice of Medicine at the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary; and there is also a letter from Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell giving advice about rooms:
“With regard to your winter’s work, we will discuss it when you come. We shall be glad to meet your views in any way we can.
There are other matters connected with the school itself we shall be glad to talk over with you, one in particular, which I think would interest you, and in which, from your exceptional position in the class, I think you could help us in our organisation; but I shall leave its discussion till you come.
I hope you will allow time to get thoroughly settled and through with the trouble of it before November.”
“Oct. 23rd. Friday. Came to New York.... Went 137 Avenue for a week to hunt for rooms,—oh, dear!... At length decided on 222 East Tenth [Street]—two back parlours and two above,—gas and all $55. Alice arrived on Monday 26th.”
“222 East 10th Street, New York. Nov. 1st. 68.
DARLING MOTHER,
The term begins tomorrow, and I am glad to say that Alice and I have just succeeded in getting things into some sort of order in time. Besides laying down carpets, buying a stove and kitchen pots and pans, a bedstead and chairs, etc., I have been providing winter stores in American fashion, and yesterday bought two barrels of potatoes, 30 lbs. of butter, etc. etc., to say nothing of flour and wine. My money is running terribly low,—I have only about £20 left when this month’s rent is paid; but then most of my things are bought now, and besides I can borrow from Dr. Sewall if needful. Besides the Hospital owes me about £10 or £11 for duties paid, so I can probably get on till my next quarter comes....
I know Mother will be thinking of me on my own hook in New York. This last week has been a pretty hard time, but now things are falling into shape. Alice has been invaluable. I know that having her, with the proper food, will just make all the difference to me of being able to work on all winter without breaking down. The Blackwells are very pleasant, and, though I have no special friends here, I shall be so busy and cosy that I expect to get on capitally.
I am afraid the poor little Doctor gets the worst of it,—she will really miss my help in many ways, besides mutual loss of company,—and I am sadly afraid she won’t take due care of herself. I can’t tell you and Daddy how thankful I am that he has given her that charming little carriage,—it is such a relief to my mind to know that she will not be forced to drive herself when weary and half frozen: and I believe it will make a real difference in her health.
Her Father was very pleased with it, though I believe he made very careful enquiries as to whether the Doctor was sure Daddy ‘could afford to give her such a splendid present.’ Of course he didn’t ask me that, but I took an opportunity of telling him that I knew you both felt that the carriage represented only a small part of your feeling of real gratitude to her for all the good she has done me medically and otherwise. Wasn’t I right?...”
“DARLING MOTHER,—I wrote the two other sheets on purpose that you may pass them on to Daddy, and I mean to try to do so as much as I can, and put anything private on a separate bit for you, for I think the dear old man really likes to see my letters, and I am sure I want to give him all the pleasure I can.
His Goodbye was so very kind and loving,—I often think of it.”
“Nov. 3rd.
Yesterday was the opening of our College, at which Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell made a speech which I was asked to report for the chief medical paper here. I have done so, and will send you the paragraph when it appears....
My rooms are not far from the College and other places where I have to go daily, and altogether I may consider myself well off. I have managed to buy as little furniture as possible, having brought carpets from Boston, and having hired two tables, a bed and a stove, from the landlady here. I have not yet bought more than £12 worth, and I mean to try to get on with as little more as possible.
I am very glad to hear of Miss Garrett’s good news. I shall send her note on to the Doctor. I know it will please her so much.”
“222 East 10th Street. New York. Nov. 8th. 68.
DARLING MOTHER,
I enclose two letters which you can read and forward respectively to ‘Mr. H. 69 Jermyn Street, S.W.’ and to ‘Sam. Laurence, Esq. 6 Wells Street, W.’ Don’t transpose them!
I have now got fairly settled in my new abode, and am really very comfortable in it,—thanks to Alice. Our rooms are so situated that we can keep quite to ourselves,—having even a back staircase almost of our own,—and we get on famously. My daily routine is pretty regular throughout the week. I go to the dissecting room at 9 a.m. and work till about 11.15. At 11.30 comes a lecture on Anatomy and Physiology on alternate days,—and I get home to lunch a little before one. Alice always has things ready and nice for me, and I rest for about half an hour after lunch, before going to the afternoon lectures which begin at 2 p.m. and continue (except on Saturday) till 5,—three lectures of an hour each. I have just put in a petition to Dr. Emily Blackwell (who manages everything and is very nice) for five minutes space between each two lectures, for opening windows and a walk up and down the corridors,—to which she instantly assented as desirable.
Pleasant as it was to live with the Doctor, and extremely grateful as I feel for the very great good she has done me, I confess now to rather enjoying a completely independent nest once more,—for a while at least. You see it was inevitable that at Boston everything had to be shaped to suit Hospital work, and that was sometimes a nuisance.
I can study and write and read in a much more thoroughly undisturbed way here than I could there,—in fact it would have been simply impossible while living there to work as I am doing now,—there were so very many inevitable interruptions.
And yet, but for my two years there, I never could have been strong enough for my work here,—I believe that I never was so strong in my life before—isn’t that grand?”
“222 East 10th Street, Nov. 13th. 1868.
DARLING MOTHER,
Yesterday your letter (containing the one from the Times agent) was brought to me in the dissecting-room, and wasn’t I pleased to get it!... It is quaint sometimes to think of the different scenes in which letters are written and read! I am really very much grieved to hear of Daddy’s having been so ill,—I did not understand fully before how serious his attack had been. I comfort myself, however, with hoping that while the news is coming here, he is really getting better daily. Give him much love from me and a big kiss on each cheek.... I hope my old lady takes care of herself. Do for my sake.
Darling, I ought sooner to have answered your enquiries about the Colleges, etc. Harvard (Boston) is a University for men, and we couldn’t get in there, because they wouldn’t have any women. I was anxious to go there because the degree is considered a valuable one. Here in New York the College I am at is just opened by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell for women only,—or at least only women attend it, though I believe men would be admitted.
The teachers are 9 in number,—7 men and 2 women professors, as you will see by the circular. In the actual classes we are all women students; in going to hospitals, dispensaries, etc., we mix with the men. The teaching is really very good and I am getting on capitally.
Capitally in every way indeed....
I see it is now a little past nine, and I shall soon be off to bed and sleep like a top till about 6 a.m.
I have never worked so hard in my life (for a continuance), and I have never been in such good health. I am absolutely well, (and what a blessing that is after all these years!) I eat and walk and sleep perfectly, have no pains and aches, and the sweetest of tempers!
I only wish Mother could peep in and see me in my little den!—dog and Alice and all.
With very much love, darling, to Daddy and Carry,
Yours lovingly, SOPH.”
“Saturday. Nov. 14th. [Diary.] In sober fact I get on grandly. Better and stronger than I have ever been.”
“Monday, Nov. 16th. Oh, why, why didn’t they telegraph at any rate? If people only would do as they are asked! Carry’s note just come after Chemistry. ‘I believe if you could start from New York today, you would have no prospect whatever of seeing him alive’.”
“Sunday, Nov. 29th. Brighton. Reached home about 10.30 a.m. yesterday (after a rush through Dublin, Cork, etc.) to find that he had died ten days even before that letter arrived. Nov. 6th. 9.50 a.m.”
It seems a pity for her own sake that S. J.-B. could not have been with her Father during those last days of his life, for his was certainly one of the cases in which
“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.”
It is no very uncommon experience to see people go through their last illness without a word of complaint, but Mr. Jex-Blake rose to a higher level than that. He had felt the end approaching for some months, and had set his house in perfect order, even to the refinement of writing farewell letters—beautiful letters they are—to be delivered to those nearest him after he had left them. There was nothing now to be done save to gather himself together for the great ordination of death. “I suppose this is about as bad as can be,” he said to the surgeon who attended him. “Nothing more can be done, I take it.”
One complaint he did make in the early days of his illness,—that he “could not collect his thoughts to pray,”—he whose “whole life,” in the words of his son, “had been a prayer and thanksgiving.” It was a great joy and comfort to have that son at hand. “I am very happy, very comfortable,” he said. “You cannot tell how happy I am.... God is so good to me.”
When the end drew near, he wanted to be lifted out of bed, but they dared not move him, except as to pillows. About 11.30 Mr. H. [the surgeon] moved him a little in bed, and he said, “Beautiful, beautiful,” and never spoke again.
* * * * *
One can imagine the feelings with which his ardent wayward “youngest little one” arrived in England to hear all this, and to hear it through the transfiguring medium of bereaved affection. With passionate intensity she recalls every detail of the parting which had so lingered in her mind, and which had proved to be the last:
“He had not risen. I went and lay on the bed by him and kissed him, and he told me how they had enjoyed having me,—‘never had so pleasant a summer together,’ etc.
I said I had tried hard and yet I hadn’t fully succeeded. I was sorry I had been cross sometimes. ‘No, no,’ he said, stopping me, ‘I hadn’t failed,—there was nothing to forgive.’ And then I told him I would try and do them credit in my profession, and then he took my hands in his and prayed for me. And then I kissed him again and got off the bed,— but he (very unlike him) sprang out after me and embraced me again and again,—and so we parted very lovingly,—I telling him, I think, that ‘next time’ it should be all right. And so, please God, it shall,—if there is a God and a ‘next time’!”
In the darkest hour she admitted that it might have been worse: it might have been her Mother who was taken. One could almost have foretold how she would act. Cancelling the golden prospects in America with a stroke of her pen,—cheerfully sacrificing the very considerable financial outlay,—the class fees, the “snug little nest,” and “two barrels of potatoes,”—she resolved that never again should the Atlantic divide her from the life that was most dear.
It was not easy for Dr. Sewall to let her go thus finally, and her first letters are not a little pathetic, but—born friend of heroes as she was— she helped to fasten the armour on.
“If you don’t come back to America,” she said, “you won’t give up the work. You will open the profession to women in England.”
And so it came about that Sophia Jex-Blake sought a medical education in her native land.
PART II
It is as hard a thing to maintain a sound understanding, a tender conscience, a lively, gracious, heavenly frame of spirit, and an upright life, amid contention, as it is to keep your candle lighted in the greatest storms.
RICHARD BAXTER.
Individuals, feeling strongly, while on the one hand they are incidentally faulty in mode or language, are still peculiarly effective. No great work was done by a system; whereas systems rise out of individual exertions. Luther was an individual. The very faults of an individual excite attention; he loses, but his cause (if good, and he powerful-minded) gains. This is the way of things; we promote truth by a self-sacrifice.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
I. DRIFTING
S.J.-B. landed at Queenstown on November 27th, 1868, and “came rushing through Cork, Dublin and Holyhead on that weary 24 hours’ journey” back to the home in Brighton, to find that she had arrived too late. Her Father had died some three weeks before, and outwardly the household had already settled down to the old life—as households do—in a way that to her ardent nature must at first have seemed passing strange. There was the joy and pain of meeting her Mother again,—the joy and pain of finding that that Mother was too fine a Christian to be broken-hearted at the prospect of so brief a parting,—and then, little by little, there came for S.J.-B. the realization of all she had left behind.
On board the Java she had written to Dr. Sewall:
“The first thing of all I want to do is to write and tell you what I said so very imperfectly in my hurry and worry when you left,—how much your kind thought for me in arranging even the little things of my cabin has touched me.... Even now when I am going home—and going under such circumstances—the thought of all you have done for me and of all I owe you, comes uppermost....
Mrs. Browning says,—
‘God gives what he gives—be content, He resumes nothing given, be sure,’
and your love and help have been given to me, and I know it is not all over now....
I am going home now to try and be a child once more,—simply to love and serve my Mother, as God will help me (for I do believe in Him in my pain and my love in my heart of hearts) and I believe that by being a child I shall learn to grow a better woman.”
Such was her resolve, and for months she struggled hard to carry it out, with no small success when one considers the complexity of the elements involved. She had come from a busy bustling beneficent life, with an outlook that appealed keenly to her energetic and ambitious nature, and she found herself in the quiet, smoothly-ordered home of her childhood, where she was only “Miss Sophy,” where her medical books and microscope slides were roughly classified as “nasty,” and where she was expected to conform to a rule of life which had never given scope to her possibilities, and was little likely to do so now that all its music was set in a minor key. The free life in America had developed her capabilities; quite possibly it had also rubbed off some few of those superficial elegancies that were regarded as a primary essential in the Englishwoman of her class.
There was another side to the question too. Glad as Mrs. Jex-Blake always was to see her “youngest little one” again, one can imagine that in the circumstances so electrical a presence in the house was not an unmixed boon. “I had much rather know you well and happy there [in Boston] than see you ill and know you worried here,” the Mother had written years before, and there is no reason to think that her feeling in the matter had changed. Nothing could alter the deep undercurrent of love and understanding between this Mother and child, but neither of them had a naturally equable temperament, and one gathers that on the surface things were not always smooth.
“Poor little woman,” S.J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall, on receipt of the first letter from Boston, “I do feel so sorry for you all alone and dreary, but don’t you think I am even worse off than you are? You can fancy what this house is now,—so silent and mourning,—and so much cut off even from outside, and at any rate no people or work or occupation of any interest outside ourselves.
M. and C. have their regular ways and plans, I suppose, but it is so long since I have been at home except for a visit, that it’s hard for me to fit in anywhere, and of course everybody’s feeling more or less sad and pained doesn’t make matters smoother. Just at present I am getting my books and drawers, etc., to rights, and after that is done I mean to try and read some Medicine at least,—perhaps if we stay here all winter I may apply to visit at the Hospital, etc.—only it would be rather disagreeable all alone.
Oh, Lucy dear, I do think it’s too bad to be expected to go on with Medicine, and not have you to help and interest me in it. If I didn’t believe you would after all come and start me in practice when I do get through, I don’t think I should have any heart to go on at all. But we will be together again some day, old lady, won’t we? Oh, dear, I am getting so tired of living and fighting and hoping! As soon as one hopes one has got a little foothold it is all knocked away from under one!”
The letter then plunges into the question of money and accounts, which were not Dr. Sewall’s strong point.
“Poor little girl!—she has so many accounts, and I am dreadfully afraid she will get into a dreadful mess with them all! Do tell me if you got your accounts anything like straight after New York.”
Dr. Sewall was overwhelmed with work, but her letters came as fast and frequently as mails could bring them. “I do hope you do not miss me as much as I miss you,” she wrote, and again:
“I do hope this New Year that begins so sadly may not be a very hard one for you, though I fear you will have to fight hard before you can settle down at home. Do try to get some visiting at the Hospital or some medical work as soon as you can. It will do you good and your Mother too.”
But she too, when it comes to a question of “business,” relapses delightfully into the child. “Do say you are contented with me, and that I have done well.”
* * * * *
For three weeks S.J.-B. drifted, uncertain of her course, and then she set her sail.
“Today—after three weeks of doubt, indecision and rather negation—I was suddenly inspired to get up out of the dining-room arm-chair, walk to the Hospital, and ask Mr. Salzmann to read Medicine with me,—so Thursday and seq.—Histology!
It’s quite odd how pleased I am at the prospect of ‘shop’!”
On the last night of the year, as was her wont, she made her summing-up:
“Within a few hours of eight years ago,—the window,—and
‘May the New Year cherish—’
I don’t think there are any ‘hopes that now are bright.’ I believe I have been growing downwards in some ways. The simply quiet and comfortable, with no bother of any kind, seems to be about my ideal now.”
And this on the eve of the ‘Edinburgh Fight’!
The truth is S. J.-B. was in one of those backwaters of life which may at any moment give place to the swift rush of the current. She was living a great deal, of course, in the life she had left behind. On January 4th she writes to Dr. Sewall:
“When I find time I mean to write to your cousin.... I am sorry for W., he is a very nice boy. But, dear me, they do seem such a pair of children.
I don’t think she will get a nicer man, but of course that is nothing if she doesn’t love him. I quite agree with you, ‘Never marry if you can help it’!”
And, in the depths of her mind she was constantly pondering the problems and mysteries of our being.
“Jan. 21st. [Diary] 29!—‘et praeterea nihil’!”
“Jan. 25th.... Yesterday Martineau’s fine definition of atheism,—the mind that venerates nothing, aspires to nothing.”
“Jan. 31st. Came tonight across old Trench’s line,—‘When God afflicts thee think He hews a rugged stone, which must be shaped or else aside as useless thrown.’
And then those true sad pale lines of Martineau’s (‘Child’s Thought’) about youth’s eagerness for truth, sometimes productive of dark agonies of doubt and loneliness drearier than death,—leaving the soul exposed upon the field of conflict without a God to strive for or a weapon for the fight.
Yesterday his ‘Immortality’ helped me again to seize that idea,— apprehend, ‘hang on to’ (Trench). That the negative testimony was stronger for than against—far harder to realize soul extinct than immortal,—that instinct for immortality grows stronger in sorrow, bereavements and on confines of death,—more likely teachers than the dust and glare of Vanity Fair. That the strange ‘caprice of death’ in selection, etc., inexplicable except in belief of future to which this is the ante-chamber. ‘Simply migrations of mind.’”
Of course the outward stagnation of life, the want of a definite object and purpose, renewed the old regrets for the friendship by means of which “we might have done anything together, we two.”
“Feb. 3rd. 4 p.m.
‘Are not the letters coming? The sun has almost set.’
I seem to have two such abiding ideas (presentiments?—hopes?) 1st. That somehow, somewhen the old door must be reopened,—light in the eventide,... 2nd. That some medical way will open—perhaps in Scotland,—and at length some one take pity on me and really teach me and push me.
Oh, dear, how I wish I had anyone with whom I could really take counsel and make common cause.
Well, I believe I am learning silence and patience at least somewhat, but how ‘bleak and bare’! Everything so grey and so dim.
Feb. 4th. In the night I woke and found M.’s head was ‘dreadful.’ So I laid one hand on her forehead and one on her hand and willed and willed the pain away,—till she slept quietly.
Curious how weary and achy that arm was even next morning,—how ‘washed out’ I was!
She says,—‘How do you explain it?’
‘Nohow.’”
II. AT THE GATES OF THE CITADEL
In any case S. J.-B. was not to wait long for those “with whom she could take counsel.” In the autumn of 1867 Mr. Alexander Macmillan appears to have discussed with her the projected publication of a volume of essays on questions relating to modern women, and in January 1869 he writes in answer to an enquiry from her:
“DEAR MADAM,
Mrs. Butler, 280 South Hill Park Road, Liverpool, is the address. There has been nothing done about the proposed volume yet. But I have by no means abandoned the hope of having it done, and shall not be sorry if you allude to it in writing to Mrs. Butler.
My own notion was that the volume should be wholly written by ladies, and that some diversity of judgement should be allowed on minor points at least, provided that a consensus were assured on the large ground of higher culture for women. I confess myself that the question of the Suffrage is a doubtful one.... I confess myself to think that politics in the sense of mere government is by no means of the highest importance to nations and to humanity, and that what is done in homes is incalculably deeper and more powerful [in its influence] on human character and destiny.
All these points are open to discussion, and I think a volume claiming the very highest and widest culture for women might at the same time discuss with advantage whether the field in which it is to be exercised need be co-ordinate with men’s.
Yours very truly, ALEX. MACMILLAN.”
Apparently S. J.-B. approached Mrs. Butler without delay, and a few weeks later she writes to Dr. Sewall from Bonchurch, where they were staying for the benefit of Mrs. Jex-Blake’s health:
“Did I tell you that I have been making friends with Mrs. Butler, the head of the non-Davies party among the women? She approves of the new Cambridge exams, which Miss Davies ... refuses because not identical with those of the men. Mrs. Butler and I say ‘Take all you can get and then ask for more,’ don’t you?
I expect to be here with my Mother for about three weeks longer, then she will probably go to Cheltenham to see my brother, and I may go to Cambridge, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, etc., to see if I can poke in anywhere.
And yet, even if I got admitted, I don’t feel sure that I should feel ready to leave my Mother next winter. Unless she changes very much for the better, I cannot but think very badly of her. I think she has aged five years since you saw her....
She said to me yesterday, ‘Don’t you wish Dr. Lucy were here?’ I said, ‘No, she’s doing better work,’ but I do sometimes ‘weary for you’ all the same.”
Mrs. Butler was deeply interested in the new ally, and very anxious that she should carry out her dream of obtaining a proper medical education in her own country. Dr. T. W. Jex-Blake was also sympathetic, and so it came about that enquiries were made among University professors who might be supposed to have an open mind on the subject. Some interesting letters were the result:
“Wimborne, Jan. 14th.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I have not been able to obtain quite as accurate information about London University as I should like, but there is no use in my delaying any longer to answer your letter. As regards Cambridge, I do not think that the most sanguine reformer would advise you to look for any relaxation of barriers that would be of service to you, for some years. I am among the most sanguine, and I do not think that we shall be giving degrees to women until after ten years at least. We do not as yet examine men unless resident in colleges. The University of London, which is an open examining board, ought to be much more hopeful. Unfortunately this university (by an arrangement which ought not to have been borrowed from its older sisters) is governed in the last resort by Convocation, an assembly got together by agitation among all graduates of a certain standard, and in which the influence of the London doctors is practically preponderant. This assembly rejected last year a proposal by which women would have been admitted to medical degrees.
The proposal will, I believe, be renewed, but I cannot say what reason there is to anticipate a different result. My information is only at second hand, and you may easily get more accurate in London. As soon as I hear more precisely what is going to be done, I will let you know. I cannot, from what I have heard advise you to expect a very speedy change.
At the same time there is a general movement, of which it is hard to estimate the force, against the exclusion of women from the higher education. You say that you do not wish your plans to be talked of. I am rather sorry, for if you would suffer yourself to be made a grievance, it might help ‘the cause’ in London.
Believe me, Yours very truly, HENRY SIDGWICK.”
“Trin. Coll. Cambridge. Feb. 4th.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I have now been here nearly a week, and hoped to write to you before, but I wished before doing so to see Markby, Bonney, and one or two of the Medical Board, and, being overwhelmed with work, have only just managed to do so. I find that neither Markby nor Bonney estimate any higher than I do the chance of your request being granted. Professor Liveing, one of the members of the Board, is favourable, but shakes his head as to his colleagues. Doctors preponderate on it, and one, Dr. Humphrey, professor of Anatomy, whom I expected to find somewhat more liberal, is averse to women practising medicine, ‘mainly on their own account, because’—but you are familiar with the reasons.
I have not canvassed the others as you had a certain wish for secrecy. If you think it worth while, I will ask Liveing to broach the question at the Board, without mentioning your name, in order to sound opinion: or I will in other ways ascertain privately the views of the members. I do not however feel that this would be decisive, as they may not have considered the question and might yield to argument. However I feel almost sure that your appeal would be rejected without much discussion. Markby is of opinion that even supposing the Board consented to propose the change to the Senate, that body would certainly reject it. And he (M.) is inclined to think that it would injure the cause of female education here in general, to stir up hostility in the Senate on this particular matter. (I do not myself feel sure of this.) But he does not think application to the Board would do any harm. Bonney also thinks this course hopeless but harmless.
Even after consent of the Board and the Senate, you would have to be admitted as member of some college; but in the case supposed, that would not cause much difficulty....
I do not know whether you will think any thing more of us after this. If you do come to look for yourself at the ‘terrain,’ you will at any rate find a minority of sympathizers who will give you any aid in their power, among them
Yours sincerely, HENRY SIDGWICK.
P.S. You will see that, on reflection, I am somewhat doubtful of the advantage of making the application. On the whole, however, I still think it would be a good thing.”
Meanwhile Professor Masson of Edinburgh University had written a letter to Mrs. Butler, from which S. J.-B. quotes the following extract in her diary:
“It will give me much pleasure to see Miss Jex-Blake (whose name is well known to me); Sir James Simpson will be very glad to see her also.... I fear however that at present the chance of the throwing open of professional education and degrees are not so great with us as Miss Blake seems to imagine” (!)—The exclamation point is S. J.-B.’s.— “But who knows what may happen or how soon?”
On February 15th, S. J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall:
“I think I may probably go to Cambridge and see whether there is the least chance of anything medical there. I have almost no hope, but it is thought well to apply at least to the Medical Board just for the principle of the thing. Then I may probably go to Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Glasgow, etc. I understand that Glasgow was expressly founded on the model of Bologna;—now Bologna admitted women!
Did I tell you that there is to be a volume of Essays published in the summer about all sorts of Women’s questions, and I have been asked to write about the Medical question. If I do, I rather think I shall send you my essay to criticise first, shall I?... I wish very much that I could find some English lady to go in for Medicine with me,—it would be such a comfort in thundering at the Colleges, and in working afterwards. There is one very capable woman of about 30,—a thorough lady,—who is staying with us now, who would like extremely to study for many reasons, but is withheld by the great prejudice and very bad health of her mother.”
It was indeed a loss to the whole woman movement that Miss Ursula Du Pre was prevented from taking a more articulate part in it, for one tries in vain to think of one of her contemporaries who was more generously gifted by nature and circumstances. She had mental powers that would have fitted her to shine in almost any of the professions strictly preserved for the benefit of men, great common sense, a finely balanced judgment, and—what appealed to S. J.-B. perhaps more than anything else— a keen and unfailing sense of humour. Tact too she had, and the singular charm of the “great lady” who is at the same time one of the simple- hearted. Deeply religious throughout life, she was absolutely devoid of false humility and of the ultra-sensitiveness that would have rendered her gifts of small avail beyond her own circle. The accident of her sex set her free from the cares and responsibilities of the landowner; and one cannot wonder that S. J.-B. bitterly resented the unalterable decision of some members of her family that a medical career was out of the question.
Nothing, however, can really rob the world of the usufruct of gifts like these. The influence of a man or woman can never be measured by the number of those who experience it at first hand. Who shall say whether it is better to have a thousand disciples, or twelve, or one?
Mrs. Jex-Blake and Mrs. Du Pre had long been acquainted, but it was in this month of January 1869 that the two daughters first met and found each other. S. J.-B. brought much to the friendship, as the reader of the previous volume is aware; her gifts were great, her knowledge of life astonishingly wide for a young woman of her day; but she found no less than she brought. Never again could she complain of the lack of a friend “with whom she could take counsel.” All through the troublous times that were to follow so closely on the inception of their friendship, Miss Du Pre was her admiring critic, her confidante and counsellor, following every move in the complicated game, disapproving, perhaps, sometimes, but sympathising always. She was the friend too of S. J.-B.’s friends and comrades, and in the long days of hope deferred there were those who must surely have fallen in the breach but for Miss Du Pre’s material and spiritual aid.
* * * * *
Meanwhile S. J.-B. wrote the Essay on “Medicine as a Profession for Women,” which was published a few months later in the volume entitled Women’s Work and Women’s Culture. “Fairish, not quite satisfactory,” is her own verdict on the first draft, which was doubtless considerably improved by the suggestions of friendly critics. As the Essay appeared later in her book on Medical Women, it could scarcely be bettered, and indeed it has proved a storehouse of research and argument for all subsequent writers and speakers on the subject.
Professor Newman, to whom Mrs. Butler sent the first draft, wrote an admirable letter:
“I have no learning in the history of female physicians, but I know that in my boyhood I read in a magazine an urgent remonstrance with ladies for their prejudice against man-midwives, of whom the writer speaks as a beneficent innovation. I think I have read that they were first used in the Court circle of Louis XIV.... To prove negatives is always hard, but I should not fear to write that the exclusion of women from acting as physicians to women is quite a modern usurpation by the male sex, and limited to the nations which cultivate modern science. The topic reminds me of the address of the nurse to Queen Phoedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus, when she observes her mistress to be wild and out of health,—‘If thy complaint be anything of a more secret kind, here are women at hand to compose the disease. But, if thy distress be such as may be told to males, tell it in order that it may be communicated to the physicians.’
This is almost as if in no case would the male physician do more than give advice when the facts were reported to him through the women.
It is nearly so in Turkey to this day. A Pasha wanted advice for his wife from a friend of mine without his seeing her.”
“Do quote Euripides in your Essay,” writes Mrs. Butler. “Never mind if we look a little more learned than we are. Let us spoil the Egyptians.”
And again,—
“I am sure Mr. Newman intended you to use anything in his letter which you could make available. He is so generously helpful.”
On February 24th, S. J.-B. writes to Dr. Sewall:
“I have written the Essay I spoke of about Medical Women, and I shall send it to you to see in a week or two, as soon as I can get it copied. There are several points on which I want your authority and opinion;—tell me whenever you think I overstate facts or make mistakes—or tell me if you think I might put things more strongly with advantage. Tell me how many instances have occurred of men doctors putting their womankind under your treatment, or that of other women you know,—Dr. B., Dr. C., and J. W.?—any more?
Also anything else that occurs to you generally.
I had a witty letter from Miss Putnam this morning, in which she says how very indifferent it is to her if Mrs. D. chooses to ‘invent Arabian Nights’ tales’ about her. I do hope that you have published her letter,—don’t simply disregard me because I’m across the Atlantic and can’t pinch you! She made me dreadfully envious by saying that she is going in for some months’ work at Operative Surgery, and that it will be ‘very jolly.’ I believe, however that for the summer at any rate I ought to stay with my Mother and try to make her very jolly (poor old darling!) If I can get into any of the Colleges for the winter, that may be another matter, though I am not sure.”
Meanwhile Professor Sidgwick was pursuing his kind and public-spirited enquiries:
“Trin. Coll. Cam. Mar. 1.
MY DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I should have written to you before, but I have found it difficult to make up my mind. I now, however, after some hesitation, am inclined to dissuade you from making the attempt. I have not visited any of the Medical Board (as I thought it best, if you did come, that you should find them unprepared), but I have discussed the matter with about ten discreet persons varying in age and position.
Not one of us thinks that there is the smallest chance of your request being granted. The feeling of the [? Board] is certain to be decidedly against you: and there are minor obstacles interposed by existing regulations, which might be easily set aside if there was a desire to do so, but which will furnish excuses for rejection to any who may require such.
The question then comes, Will the raising of the matter now advance or retard our ultimate success? On this point we vary in opinion, but no one very decidedly thinks it will be a gain, while some are very strongly of opinion that it will do more harm than good. After much hesitation, I have come myself to this latter view, not on general grounds, for in general I like (as Lincoln said) to keep pegging away: but because we have hitherto done what we have done for women’s education by great quietness and moderation, and so far it seems best to go on in the same way: if our present scheme for examining women succeeds, it will be easier to take a further step: moreover I expect that we shall soon open our examinations more unrestrictedly to men, and that will make it easier to open them to women. Your application now would thus be a ‘breach of continuity,’ and would appear extravagant to many undecided people who after a few years may be brought to look upon a similar application as quite natural.
Against this is to be set the advantage of raising the question, and getting people to exercise their minds on it, especially with so good a case (and I have no doubt advocacy) as yours.
In short, we should gain, I believe, by argument, but should very likely lose more by hardening a mass of fluid prejudice, that may otherwise evaporate in the natural course of events.
So that, on the whole, I am slightly[47] opposed to your making the attempt, on public grounds only: and even if the balance between probable gain and loss is about even, I should hardly like to advise you to incur so much trouble that could not possibly benefit yourself.
If you do come, I need not say that I will do anything I can to assist you, and generally to make your stay in Cambridge as pleasant as possible.
My instinct is to tell you to come, but that is because I like a fight: my soberer judgment is the other way.
Believe me, Yours very truly, HENRY SIDGWICK.”
Footnote 47:
“Slightly” is interpolated in the original letter.
“Trin. Coll. Mar. 8.
MY DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I am sorry that we shall not have the pleasure of seeing you: but, as regards the application, I am quite convinced that your decision is right. Just at present the reformers here do not want stimulating, and I think the neutral people want management. As regards the Scotch Universities, I am afraid I cannot help you personally....
I have taken counsel with a friend here—J. Stuart—who is now examiner at St. Andrews. He has promised to write to you and to send introductions to two or three people there whom you may like to visit. I imagine that either Edinburgh or St. Andrews will be more likely to serve your purpose than Glasgow or Aberdeen. If I can find any means of aiding you at Edinburgh, I will write again. I may have friends who know some of the Professors. Masson is the only one of whom I know anything,—he having once been an editor of mine. I should think he is very likely to help you, Shairp, I should fear, not; but I may be wrong.
Of Ireland I know nothing: but from what I have heard I should think our Conservatism here is nothing to the Conservatism of Dublin— particularly when Gladstone is Disestablishing.
With best wishes for your success, I am,
Yours very sincerely, H. SIDGWICK.”
On the following day came a letter from Mr. Stuart, offering all the help in his power:
“I hope you will excuse my unceremoniousness in thus writing to you by the belief that I have your success much at heart.”
“My husband and I both think that it would be better not to try Cambridge in the face of Mr. Sidgwick’s opinion,” writes Mrs. Butler. “No one is better able to test the feeling of the University than he. I hope before long England will be ashamed of herself in this matter. We must do all we can by working quietly and extensively on the hearts and consciences of men. I find no man of ordinary candour who is not easily convinced, but the M.D.s will be the obstacle. They hang together so.
Shall you try Edinburgh? If not, do you think of taking a foreign degree? I wish you were an M.D. You would have plenty of patients at once.—myself among the number.”
Thus it came about that when Mrs. Jex-Blake went to visit her son at Cheltenham, S.J.-B. “screwed her courage to the sticking-point,” and went to Edinburgh. The entry in her diary is characteristic:
“Monday, March 15th. To Edinbro. How I dreaded the journey and sequence! On waking,—‘If Thou go not with me, carry me not up hence’!”
* * * * *
Meanwhile the University of Edinburgh stood foursquare, and the professors sat in their comfortable chairs, little dreaming that their Day of Judgment was at hand. Even at a cursory glance they were an imposing body of men. Some few of them were great in character, or in intellect, or in both: taken as a whole they were probably well above the average. In any case they were men of like passions with ourselves, well-disposed, kindly, just a little blunted by success, desirous of smooth things. As they acted, so would most similarly constituted bodies of men have acted at that day. The only difference between them and other men lay in the fact that it was to them the challenge of the future came.
And who was to tell them that this was the challenge of the future? It was so trifling an episode in outward seeming,—only the visit of a gifted young woman, with a clear strong head, but assuredly with no immunity from an average human being’s liability to error and mistake. If the professors had been canvassed on the subject of her request beforehand the result would have been an almost unanimous No: they had no more idea of admitting women to the University than they had of founding a Chair of Millinery. But the applicant was among them before they were aware; she knew what she wanted and she knew how to state her wants effectively. Her arguments were all at her finger-ends; and, although she made no sex appeal, she was possessed of fine dark eyes and a singularly musical voice.
In those days men had not learnt to be on their guard against an apparently guileless young woman. To many she stood for little more than a precocious child, who must be humoured, and, if necessary silenced later by sheer force majeure.
But S. J.-B. took them a step farther on than this. She was obviously no mere child: she was a woman who had seen a good deal of life, who realized something of the meaning of sex as a factor in human affairs, and who was prepared calmly to assert that it ought not to stand in the way of the privilege she asked. When she faced the pundits with those candid earnest eyes, there must have been some who were literally mesmerised for the moment into sharing her belief.
Yes, the Day of Judgment was at hand. I do not mean, of course, that the “sheep” were those who forwarded the applicant’s claims, and the “goats” those who put difficulties in her way. In those days there might well be room for two opinions on an experiment that had scarcely been tried. The Day of Judgment is apt to be a subtler, more searching thing than that. What I mean is that one cannot go through the vast mass of letters and documents relating to the whole matter without seeing the stuff of which those men were made,—the “worth” on the one hand, the “leather and prunella” on the other,—and oh, such imposing leather and prunella! One realizes afresh that when a big emergency takes everyone by surprise, only those who are guided in life by great principles can hope to act rightly. They may not all act alike: they may or may not make mistakes; but at least they act with essential dignity: they ring true; when they lie in their graves their greatness shines out from the musty old papers which have chanced for a few short years to embody an imperishable record.
And there is no one whose greatness shines out more clearly than does that of David Masson, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, to whom S. J.-B. went first. From first to last one’s admiration for him never swerves: one does not know which to admire in him most, the clear insight, the high courage, the fine discretion, or the sheer unfailing brotherly sympathy.
This is the first impression he made upon S. J.-B.:
“Quiet, rather reserved, kindly. Promised introduction to most of professors. Seems rather hopeful,—‘tide setting in.’”
One wonders what were the words in which he summed her up. He must have rejoiced in the clear brain, the quick wit, the cultured voice, the easy flow of sane and logical speech. Did he guess at the impulsive nature that was bound to make mistakes?—at the great warm heart that was bound to suffer more than most?
In any case he gave her the following letter to the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine:
“MY DEAR BALFOUR,
Miss Jex-Blake, an English lady known as the author of a work on American Schools, is now in Edinburgh for a few days, chiefly with a view to ascertaining what chance there may be that Edinburgh University may (now that Paris and other continental cities have set the example) see its way to conferring a medical degree, after due study and qualification, on a lady candidate. It is but right that having come to Edinburgh for this purpose she should see you as the Dean of the Medical Faculty, in order to receive the best information and advice on the subject: and I shall be obliged by your courtesy in this matter.
Yours very truly, DAVID MASSON.”
There was a similar note to Dr. Christison, in which the writer said:
“The question, I believe, has been already before you; but it has seemed to Miss Blake possible that, now that Paris and other Universities abroad have set the example, there may be some chance of a modification of the previous conclusion of Edinburgh University on the subject. As she will receive the best information and advice on the whole subject from members of the Medical Faculty, I take the liberty of giving her this note to you, with a request that you will kindly explain to her the state of things as they are, and of possibilities in the direction she has in view.
Yours very truly, DAVID MASSON.”
And so, quite alone—she who was as dependent on a comrade, on a “helpmeet,” as some of our greatest men have been—with strange lodgings for a “base,”—she began the great work of canvassing the Edinburgh professors and the distinguished citizens who, for one reason or another, might be supposed to have a voice in the matter. She stood absolutely alone. She might belong to a good old family: her brother might be Headmaster of an English public school: but on the other side of the Tweed only a few of the enlightened knew anything of that. She was merely a clever young woman, with a rather outlandish name, who had conceived the extraordinary desire of obtaining a medical education by hook or by crook under the auspices of the Edinburgh University. If only Dr. Sewall could have been with her—or Mrs. Jenkinson, or Miss Du Pre,— what a stay she would have been! Fortunately Mr. Begbie was “kind and helpful as ever”; the old friendship with Miss Orr and with Mrs. Burn Murdoch was a great resource still; and Mr. Burn Murdoch was ready and willing to help to the utmost of his power. Miss Orr, it is true, was rather uncertain about the whole quest, wanted to know whether her old friend “went to church and read the Bible”; and, however relevant the question may have been,—S. J.-B. rightly felt that there was no time to go into it at this stage.
Undoubtedly her two great supports through the time of stress—if we set aside for the moment all that was involved in her “If Thou go not with me,—!” were the deep interest taken by Miss Du Pre in every detail of the story; and the possession of Sadie’s poems, which had just been published. In these latter she found fitting expression for the fightings and fears of her own inner life, and for her hard-won “twilight” consolation. It is an interesting fact that these two elements should have come into her life just at this moment, for one scarcely sees how she could have “won through” without them. Sadie’s poems remained dear to her throughout life: she knew many of them by heart and repeated them almost on her deathbed; and her copy is worn even more “threadbare” than are her volumes of Robertson’s Sermons. One can imagine the feelings with which, after a keen exciting day’s work, she went home to her lonely lodgings, with no “Alice” looking out for her, to write her report to Dr. Sewall or Miss Du Pre, and to copy in her diary—as she did—the lines:
“Up the way that is narrow, the path that is steep, With no guide for my footsteps, no help for my fear: Only this—that He knoweth the way that I tread, And His banner of crimson is over my head.
With the loneliness awful pressed into my soul, With no voice for companion, no grasp of a hand—”
Yes, one cannot help wishing that an intimate friend had been at hand. One wonders whether she was even becomingly dressed: we know she would have wished to be; but she so seldom made the most of her appearance.[48]
Footnote 48:
“By the way your accounts of your dress are just a shade contradictory,” writes Miss Du Pre somewhat later. “One day you tell me you look disreputable and plunge me into depths of anxiety! and the next you say you are ‘very tidy.’ Isn’t this more than average inconsistency?”
In any case what happened is perfectly clear. The Professors for the most part had a deeply rooted dislike to having women students in the University: in fact, the idea of such a thing was unthinkable; but when a gifted young woman actually sat in their sanctums urging her plea, they could not bear to say No. Strictly speaking, they should have refused to see her, but did any man yet ever refuse to see a woman whose name was before the public?
One wonders as one reads the papers how many of them knew what their “powers,”—what the legal powers of the University—really were?—how many of them really wished to know? There was a comfortable conviction in the back of their minds that insuperable difficulties lay shrouded in those unprobed depths. In the meantime why not show a little kindness to a gallant girl who was as modest as anyone could be in formulating so outrageous a demand, and whose pleading—so it has been said—would have “wiled the bird from the bough”? It was after she was gone that the real horror of the situation came home to them, and that they fell back again with relief on the thought of those unprobed depths,—the legal powers of the University.
It would all be very ordinary, and sometimes rather depressing, reading, were it not that Professor Masson and some of the others, when they gave her their provisional support, really meant exactly what they would have meant in giving their support to a man—no more and no less. Their own principle, their own righteousness was involved; they were quite prepared to see women students—if so it was to be—in the University quadrangle and class-rooms; and they meant to do what in them lay to give this woman a fighting chance.
III. SUCCESS?
Meanwhile Miss Elizabeth Garrett was providing in her own career the very example that was needed to clinch the argument. After much arduous work and lavish expenditure of money on special classes, she had obtained the “L.S.A.,” a licence to practise from the Society of Apothecaries,[49] and good use she had made of the platform thus gained. Henceforth no one could deny that an Englishwoman had the physique and the wit to study, “qualify,” and practise Medicine,—yes, even to get her full share of patients. It was scarcely to be expected that Miss Garrett would rest content without a University degree, but she considered that the time was not ripe for the agitation of the question in England, and she had little sympathy with S. J.-B.’s efforts in Edinburgh. None the less her successful career was a more valuable argument than her support would have been,—even if, at the moment, she had not been too fully occupied elsewhere to enter into the question at all.
Footnote 49:
After Miss Garrett had obtained her diploma, the Society of Apothecaries passed a resolution forbidding students henceforth to receive any part of their education privately, thus making it impossible even for a woman of means to follow in her steps.
On March 21st, S. J.-B. wrote to Dr. Sewall:
“I have two nice little bits of news about Miss Garrett. One is that the Princess Louise went to see her, and, after enquiring about the medical prospects of women, expressed strong hopes of their complete success. This is really worth a great deal, and I hope you will have too much sense to sneer at it.
Secondly, I see in the British Medical Journal (which I shall try to send you) a notice that Miss Garrett had ‘by special order of the minister’ been admitted to the first examination for M.D. [in Paris] and had passed it in the presence of a crowded audience with very great éclat. That woman certainly has great power of study and work, hasn’t she?
By the bye, you would have been interested at the scene in which I noticed this paragraph. I was sitting yesterday morning at Sir James Simpson’s breakfast table, between him and his wife, and he passed the paper to me....
He was, of course, quite favourable to my application, and I am to breakfast with him again tomorrow and hear what he will do about it.[50] He is going off to Rome for a trip this week, but I am very anxious that he should vote in my favour first. He is so unreliable that I do not know how to make sure of his doing it though,—very likely he’ll be at the other end of Edinburgh when the meeting is held. I told him that you remembered him and always spoke of his kindness to you. I am not quite sure whether he recalled it. He spoke highly of Dr. Emily Blackwell.”
Footnote 50:
To the irreparable loss of the women students, Sir James Simpson died in the spring of the following year.
A few days previous to this an unobtrusive little note of no small import appears in the diary:
“8.30 p.m. at Begbie’s met Campbell Smith, who walked home with me. Older and more quiet than I had expected. Kindly.”
The favourable impression was mutual, if one may judge from the letter that follows:
“30 Royal Circus, 21st March, 1869.
DEAR MISS BLAKE,
I left your MS. yesterday with Mr. Findlay of the Scotsman. I think he will give you some help. If nothing be in the Scotsman tomorrow, and whether or not, you may call for him at the office. He will be happy to see you. He said so, and said further that you needed no note of introduction.
The review of your book appeared on 18th Nov., 1867, and you will see that also in the pile when you call.
Faithfully yours, J. C. SMITH.”
Thus began that support from the Scotsman, which, in the able hands of Mr. Alexander Russel, was destined to be of such incalculable value to the whole Feminist movement. The Scotsman was just approaching the height of its reputation, and its advocacy was the more valuable because it was not supposed to have a specially weak side for new movements and forlorn hopes. It used to be said in those days that, when the North Pole was discovered, a Scotsman would be found sitting on it, and it might have been added that the Scotsman would prove to be engrossed in the newspaper that bore his name. In any case, from this moment on, all that publicity could do for the cause was done. For better and for worse, the doings of S. J.-B. were about to be writ large for the whole world to read. They were the text round which the whole question was threshed out by countless firesides,—the text on which the life and character of every other woman provided a running commentary.
Small notion had S. J.-B. of the great flame that small spark was to kindle. In her diary she speaks quite casually of “my” leader, “highly approved by Masson.”
Meanwhile the canvassing was proceeding steadily, and S. J.-B.’s “thumb- nail” notes and sketches of character often make interesting reading,— none the less so because her gifts in this direction were necessarily immature.
“Thursday, 18th.... A long 1½ hours’ talk with Allman,—-going earnestly over every inch of ground, he very nice; at last, he ‘should be delighted to see me in his class,’ and he thought no legal objection against admission to classes, however about degrees. I am sure he will be a firm strong true friend.”
“Friday, March 19th. Today for the first time the astounding idea dawned upon me that it was perhaps just possible that I really might succeed after all!
If I did!—to enter first a British University!—(‘first’?—Yes, rather mean, I know, but instinctive!—)
11 a.m. [after three hours’ work and visiting]—Fraser. Friendly, but rather non-committal,—speaking of it as a ‘matter for the medical faculty,’ etc.
12. Balfour. At first rather wavering and weak. Didn’t see how a woman could dissect, etc., till I told him ‘I’d done it for some months,’ etc.... Ultimately a very valuable suggestion that he and A. should admit me to their summer courses, of Botany and Natural History, and then, if all went well I matriculate in October, and go to the rest. Proposes to call a Medical Faculty meeting next week if possible before Simpson goes.
1.30, Lunch at the Grants. Very friendly and kind,—he with real English Oxford manner and courtesy,—she very kindly.
He thought ‘all would agree as to end,—only difficulty as to means,’— agreed with Balfour’s idea of wisdom of deferring degree question. Was ‘very much interested’ in it all, and thought my going to see each of the Faculty would make a great difference.
Told me that in a recent speech here, Jowett ‘hoped the Universities would open to women’ and was cheered greatly.
Gave me (sealed) introduction to Christison (the ogre)—and authorized me to tell him ‘he should make no difficulty,’ etc.
3 p.m. Henderson,—feared women ‘would get the cream of practice, if any’ (noble fear!)—would ‘think over it,’—-after a futile ‘non possumus’.”
On the following day S. J.-B. sent in her formal application to the Dean of the Medical Faculty:
“SIR,
As I understand that the statutes of the University of Edinburgh do not in any way prohibit the admission of women, and as the Universities of Paris and Zurich have already been thrown open to them, I venture earnestly to request from you and the other gentlemen of the Medical Faculty permission to attend the lectures in your Medical School during the ensuing session.
I beg to signify my willingness to accede to any such conditions, or agree to any such reservations as may seem desirable to you, and indeed to withdraw my application altogether if, after due and sufficient trial, it should be found impracticable to grant me a continuance of the favour which I now request. You, Sir, must be well aware of the almost insuperable difficulty of pursuing the study of Medicine under any conditions but those which can be commanded by large colleges only; and, in view of the increasing demand for the medical service of women among their own sex, I am sure that you will concede the great importance of providing for the adequate instruction of such as desire thoroughly to qualify themselves to fulfil the duties of the medical profession.
Earnestly commending my request to the favourable consideration of yourself and your colleagues.
I am, Sir, Yours obediently, SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.”
This letter is copied in her diary, and followed by the note:
“Taken to him, and meeting called to oblige me at 1 p.m. Tuesday. Oh, dear, how these folks gain by comparison with Harvard!
9.30 a.m. Turner. Quiet, thoughtful, realizing difficulty strongly, and referring to Christison as ‘our Nestor.’ Still listening heedfully and promising my words should ‘have due weight.’
10.30. Christison. ‘The matter has been decided.’ Not rude but quite uncompromising. He should use no influence, but vote against me.
... 2 p.m. Dr. Bennett, who declared himself tired of fighting Syme and Christison, but will, I think, do it. He railed at them most of the time. Did not see the need of women as doctors, but acknowledged their possible value as assistant physiologists....[51] Will admit me, if possible, to his non-obligatory histology class in summer....
10 p.m. Was awfully cross at having to go to dine at ... and to tea at ..., but at the latter ‘met the gods,’—a very nice woman of 33 or 34 with curiously white hair,—Mrs. Evans, I think. She and I held together on almost all subjects. She would like to study Medicine (and I am sure has the power) but for an ‘old aunt.’ Oh, dear, the ‘might have beens’!—And yet here was I ten minutes ago defending ‘absolute right’ as the only rule.
Curious though how one’s instinct leaps forward at the smallest chance.—‘Couldn’t we take a “flat” together?’”
Footnote 51:
As Physiology was Dr. Bennett’s speciality, the admission was worth having.
“Monday, March 22nd. A cup of tea and then to Simpson’s to breakfast. He said he should probably be here tomorrow and would go to the meeting if at all possible....
Then ... to Laycock ... who was ‘frank’(!)—and told me ‘as a public man,’ etc., he must oppose,—informed me women ‘didn’t understand their position,’ that they did their own work in the world badly, that they had not sufficient strength for medical practice,—‘if women are fit for war, I will allow them fit for medicine.’ And, when I instanced the Amazons, thought that had nothing to do with it! Was sure women preferred men to do everything for them, even in shops;—and informed me no decent woman knew what young men are, or if she did, it was reprehensible, etc.
After lunch to Syme,—he more favourable than I had expected. Did think women ought to supersede ‘that man in ... Street,’—and thought if it was clearly understood that they only meant to practise in Midwifery and uterine diseases, there ‘would be no opposition.’ Not to be present tomorrow any way.
Spence,—rather doubtful-minded. Not strongly opposed,—might turn either way, but is, I think, rather kindly and not irrational.
Then called on kind Lady Grant; then home to rest.”
“Tuesday, 23rd. 10.30 a.m. Now, having done all that lies in one woman’s power—except, perhaps, an article in the Daily Review,— having left a book, as a reminder, on Bennett, hunted up Sir J. Y. S. and crammed him [with] Mlle Unpronounceable at St. Petersburg,—I have to do what is hardest of all,—wait.
Four distinct votes in my favour, I believe, if all go and all keep faith with me. Allman ... Bennett, Balfour, Simpson.
Against me distinctly,—Christison, Laycock, and probably Henderson.
Doubtful,—Turner, Spence, and, perhaps, Syme.
Besides Maclagan (ill), and Playfair (probably absent).[52]
Footnote 52:
It must be borne in mind that at this time the question was before the Professors of the Medical Faculty only.
To lunch with Simpson at 2 p.m., and hear results.
1.45 p.m. Waiting for the verdict? How will it be? Somehow the probability seems rather for me this time,—but there,—the Fates are so habitually adverse! I can’t help hoping and yet I don’t expect success. I hope they won’t ‘give an uncertain sound’ and put it off indefinitely!
8 p.m.—Gloria tibi Domine!...
At 2 p.m. went to Sir J. Y. S.,—found him out, but met him in the street. ‘Yes, ye’re to be let in to the classes if the Senatus allow ye,—‘ of course with all provisos as to ‘tentative,’ etc. But the great fact is granted,—the thin end of the wedge in, and, though nothing is secure till after the Senatus on Saturday, yet it is an enormous triumph!
Three more days’ of calling and entreating and arguing,—then ‘after all these voices ... peace.’
After all, my aspiration to L. E. S. was not so ill-founded,—‘If I can be the first woman to open a British University’—then surely I, like Charlotte Brontë ‘shall have served, my heart and I’—even if I die straightway.
For May, June and July, the Botany, Natural History, and Histology, with preparation for the Matriculation exam.
Oh, dear, I do feel so exultant.... In one sense I do see all the life-preamble to have been needed. The experience in the United States gave me much more chance of success now,—the life there gave me health really to use the chance when it comes.
I hardly fear the future at all;—not the students, nor the work.
I am sorry not to be with Mother, but on the whole this must be best, I think.
Four years of College! All alone? Surely not literally all the time— spiritually, who knows?
What a pity, as I said to U.D. that they will use up gold for toasting-forks!
Well, I am sure the hind-wheels may run by faith for a long time now. Perhaps the tangle is beginning to unravel after all these years,—and I shall have to cry, ‘Oh, why didn’t I bear on better then!’ I suppose that is always the feeling when the cloud begins to lift. But till it lifts,—
‘Still it is hard. No darkness will be light Though we should call it light from night till morn.’
And surely the Father pitieth His children.”
The numberless quotations in the course of her diary,—however fundamentally optimistic—are almost always in a minor key; but the minor key proves inadequate in the face of this great joy. One can see the dark eyes flash as she goes on,—
“‘Fair are the Marcian kalends, The proud ides, when the squadron rides, Shall be Rome’s whitest day.’
Surely I shall have to institute a festival for March 23rd. I wonder who’s the saint. It will be very odd if any other day in my life will be (if all goes well) as vital an epoch as today....
I feel as if everybody was my peer today, for I want everybody to shake hands with me. I am so glad. Dear old Mother!—why are you not here to kiss me?... O.H.?... L.E.S.?... Ursula?... Perhaps your thought is nearest me tonight, because you more than any perhaps realize the day of crisis....”
“Wednesday, March 24th. How very nice it is to wake with a sense of something very good in the wind!”
Indeed it is small wonder that she was elated. Everyone had assured her that the opposition of the doctors was the thing to be feared, and now the Medical Faculty had recorded its vote in her favour. True, the permission only applied, in the first instance, to the Summer Term, and some of the professors may well have thought that the Summer Term would be more than enough to quench the ardour of the solitary woman student. But there is really no need to enquire into the manifold motives that may have swayed them. They had done what she asked, and it was scarcely to be supposed that the professors of the other faculties would prove more obdurate. One thinks with satisfaction of some of the men with whom she now had to deal,—Professor Masson was not the only rock among them. One has but to recall the names of Professor Calderwood, Professor Lorimer, Professor Wilson, and others too, in order to realise that, so far as they were concerned, her feet were on sure ground.
The diary of March 24th continues:
“Then to Masson’s, where I got 5 introductions. He very hopeful, I think. Seems not to think the University Court have the right to interfere.
Then to Tytler’s. He very quiet and legal. ‘Should go to the Senatus quite unprejudiced,’—which was hardly all I wanted!...
... In afternoon went with Mr. Begbie to see ... Calderwood,—at home and quite favourable. Should support me on Saturday. ‘Fine speaker,’ says Begbie.
Then Tait,—quite favourable.
Fleeming Jenkin,—rather so,—indeed I think he almost promised to vote for me, but feared some legal difficulties as to Matriculation, etc.
After Begbie went home, I saw Kelland,—he mildly favourable,—but saw ‘difficulties.’ Still will vote, I think.
In the evening at Blackies’. He with clear pure face, white hair and straw hat! Half mad looking, certainly. But showed me favourable passages in his Notes on the Iliad, etc.—XI. 740—, and ‘unless he hears strong things to the contrary’ will support me. Mrs. Blackie also nice, I think,—not commonplace.”
“Thursday, 25th. Congratulations from Mother and U.D.... Left Iliad notes at Blackie’s. Then saw Lorimer. Very kind and friendly. ‘Very glad to see me.’ Introduced me to Mrs. Lorimer, was ‘sure women could do work men couldn’t’, etc., and were needed. Introduced me to M‘Pherson, saying he ‘sufficiently expressed his opinion by saying he intended to vote for me.’
Which McPherson doesn’t. Not disagreeable however, though less earnestminded than most.
Cosmo Innes. Painfully deaf, but very friendly. Much interested about my written communications about Bologna. Will support me. I’m to send him facts from British Museum.
Muirhead—I had been taught to fear as surely opposed. So he was at first, but candid and earnest and kind, and said at last, ‘You have disposed of many of my objections.’ Much interested as to University statistics,—Bologna, etc. Suggested Balfour should write for information to Paris and Zurich.
Then bought stockings and basket, and called on Miss Blyth, and came home pretty well done up. Now to start again soon.
(I hear Mr. M., downstairs, is interested to hear they have ‘that lady’ here!)
3 p.m. Professor Playfair has been here,—very kindly,—very much in earnest,—laying stress on Bologna degrees, etc. Introduction to Piazzi Smith,—‘I am strongly in favour of granting her desire to attend the classes, with the view of taking the degree in Medicine. She is thoroughly in earnest and desires no favour. Do give her an opportunity of stating her case to you.’
Then with D. B. M. to Stevenson ... who thinks it ‘haigh taime’ to have female practitioners, and means to vote for me, I think.
Then D. B. M. home, and with Mr. Begbie to Dr. C. who seems to have been at a Tory clack with Christison and Co. in the morning and won’t help me. He most naïvely let out ‘what Christison meant to do,’—i.e. argue that the Senate could not act without more legal advice,—delay,— and if possible refer to Chancellor Inglis. Whereon I wrote to Tait, Innes and Playfair to put on guard.
6 p.m. Dinner at 22 Manor Place....
By the bye, how queerly much impressed Muirhead was with the ‘trouble I had taken’ at British Museum, etc.”
“Friday 26th. This morning at 10.30, to Piazzi Smith,—deaf and very hard to get at. Declared nothing but Astronomy to be his business,—and particularly no science used for money-getting!—Then he rambled off to ‘supply before demand’—Meteorological Society and Mr. Lowe, etc., and Registrar of Deaths, etc. Then—had a ladies’ meeting been called to declare they would employ women, etc.... However I might be sure he ‘would not vote against me,’ and advised me not to be discouraged!... Oh, dear, what a strain it is on one to have to sit out that sort of thing!
2 p.m. came Professor Wilson,—very kind and friendly,—though, having inadvertently shown him my list, he instantly pounced down on his own name and asked my authority. So I gave up Playfair instantly!... A grave good thoughtful man,—a very sound champion.
Then to see Lorimer who encourages me finely.”
“Saturday March 27th. Went with Mr. Begbie to see Oakeley (at school with Tom) Oxfordish (i.e. non enthusiastic), but civil enough. Said he should support.
11 a.m. Fraser. The Medical Faculty having agreed, he was ready to do so too. I specially pleaded against “shelving” the question.
Indeed I hope with all my writing and speaking and warning (including my rather ill-advised raid on Balfour at College this morning) I have put a spoke in Christison’s wheel. Just about voting on it, I suppose,—3.30 p.m.
It is to be hoped Wilson will be prophetic,—‘We’ll have a great fight, but we’ll beat them!’
10 p.m. Success,—and such a success,—14 to 4!—‘Nunc dimittis’?—No, surely,—fresh zeal and energy for lifelong work.
Isn’t it good after such a fortnight of rush and battle and strain to go to bed, saying,—‘The work is done!’
‘Of all the gifts of God...!’”
It is interesting to note that the speakers in S. J.-B.’s favour at the Meeting of Senatus were:—Professors Balfour, Tait, Lorimer, Fleeming Jenkin, Masson, Blackie, Bennett, and Sir Alexander Grant. Against her were Professors Christison, Turner, Laycock and Craufurd. To her great surprise Professor Muirhead gave notice of an appeal to the University Court. Professor Playfair was out of town, but the following letter has been preserved:
“University Club, Edinburgh. 26 March, 69.
MY DEAR MASSON,
I have to express my regret that, in ignorance of there being a Senatus Meeting tomorrow, I had made an important engagement in Fifeshire.
I cordially concur in the recommendation of the Medical Faculty, that Miss Blake should be allowed to attend the Summer classes. If no inconvenience be found in practice, there are many precedents for female graduation, and for female professors. Pope Joan herself is an instance, although she professed and graduated in male attire. But lesser people than a pope may be adduced as precedents, in Salamanca, Bologna and Padua, especially from the thirteenth century onwards. Sir Roundell Palmer would not object on the ground of the legality of the prospect of female graduation, though if he were a member of Senatus he might doubt the expediency.
For my part, I have faith that the students will act like gentlemen, and will prove that the tentative session has not been lost by discourtesy on their part.
Yours sincerely, LYON PLAYFAIR.”
IV. A CHECK
On the day following that memorable meeting of Senatus, S. J.-B. had a curious conversation with the wife of one of the professors:
“Mrs. A. tells me Christison actually threatened to resign if women are admitted!—and to the Medical Faculty this is a formidable threat. She thinks also ‘the professors haven’t treated me fairly’ (which I deny) in not letting me know how much they dislike the whole thing. Doubtless A. does,—and the babble of her bourne is magnified to her.
Still I know all is not yet gained. Yet surely very much is. And can ‘He so far have brought me’—? Not that that is a real argument, because if it fails we must suppose failure is right in one sense.
Amusing how much personal power Mrs. A. attributes to me, ‘You’ve just turned them round your thumb,—I don’t believe there’s another woman could have done it,—you are wholly exceptional, etc.’ I say ‘very complimentary, but I think not quite true.’ She thinks I’ve been ‘wonderfully clever,’ and when I object to the phrase, ‘have really shown wonderful power and tact.’
I’m afraid one can’t help being a little pleased to think one’s own effort has done something,—and yet the other feeling lies deeper:
‘If Thou didst will, a mighty sword Out of my stem should grow.’
By the bye U. D. thinks my poem[53] the saddest in the book, ‘Poor child’ [she says] ‘how sorry I am for you! Oh, if the atmosphere of Easter joy which is bright round me were only your’s too, ... Such an “only this,”—it would be better to be in the blackest night with the hope of stumbling into broad daylight some time or other. It is the sort of hopelessness of any more light to come that makes the poem so sad to me.’
I don’t agree. I think the ‘only this’ is just everything,—enough to live on and die on, though not enough (what is?) to prevent life being very hard and stony. It seems to me just the essence of the—
‘... strenuous souls for belief and prayer— Who stand in the dark on the lowest stair Affirming of God,—He is certainly there.’
And did even Christ keep that much always?—
I believe Miss Cobbe is right,—in every Calvary there must be ‘darkness over the face of all the land’ for awhile.
Well, indeed, if we can always keep a firm grip of—
‘Only this, that He knoweth the way that I tread, And His banner of crimson is over my head.’
And again,—
‘This only for solace,—God knoweth indeed Where the poverty galls,—of what things we have need.’
At 1.30 came Mrs. Evans with her clear good eyes and face. Much disposed at least to Botany. How I hope she will!”
Footnote 53:
“Walking in Darkness.”
Meanwhile S. J.-B. was undoubtedly the woman of the moment, and she had the satisfaction—by no means an unbroken one as life went on—of feeling herself a thoroughly popular person. She lunched with this dignitary and dined with that; some of the wives of the Professors offered to accompany her to the lectures if no other women came forward to join her; and some students whom she met at dinner told her they thought the students would be delighted that she should join the class.
Apparently this sanguine view was a mistaken one, for an agitation was raised among some of the men—at whose instigation we have no means of knowing—which resulted in another appeal to the University Court against the decision of the Senatus.
Very characteristically, but with Professor Masson’s approval, S. J.-B. had called on Professor Muirhead to ask him the grounds of his appeal. He told her he had appealed because he did not think the question had been fully considered, and he thought the vote of the Senatus had settled the question too finally for all women. He pointed out that, as things stood, she must matriculate even to go to the lectures, but held out hopes that the University Court could give tentative permission. He was “not at all unfriendly,” and showed her cases of mediaeval women doctors to add to the strength of her armoury.
Meanwhile Lord Advocate Moncrieff had proved “kindly and favourable,” and the Lord Provost, “very lordly in his big chair, but rather gracious” had promised to give the question “his best consideration.” Sir Alexander Grant thought the thing was won with the Professors, and had “hardly a doubt” of the University Court.
* * * * *
When, on March 31st of that eventful year, S. J.-B. returned to Brighton, she fully believed that her cause was so far gained, and there is not the smallest doubt that a number of the professors shared her belief. One cannot read the diary and the letters of the periods without feeling how much cause there was for confident anticipation; but we have only to turn to dry-as-dust facts, to the constitution of Edinburgh University, in order to realize how precarious the situation was.
There were no less than four bodies whose business it was to consider the question at stake, and who—in addition to the Chancellor—had to be consulted before any important change could be made:
1. The Medical Faculty, consisting of Medical Professors only.
This hurdle, as the reader is aware, had been somewhat unexpectedly passed.
2. The Senatus, comprising all the Professors of every Faculty.
This obstacle, too had been passed.
3. The University Court, composed of the Rector, the Principal, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh,—with five others appointed respectively by the Chancellor, the Rector, the Senatus, the Town Council of Edinburgh, and the General Council of the University.
4. The General Council, comprising all those graduates who register their names as members.
Mr. Sidgwick’s remarks about Convocation naturally occur to one at this stage; but what mainly strikes one on facing these particulars is the extraordinary constitution of No. 3 as a body authorized to reconsider the decisions of No. 2. The Rector was some distinguished man who might never have been in Edinburgh in his life; the Lord Provost may be fairly supposed to have his hands pretty full without taking upon him the consideration of highly technical questions that lay outside his sphere. As for some of the other members,—one can only say that the manner of their election calls up possibilities concerning them too varied for the human mind to grasp.
No doubt there were occasions on which this “lay control” had its advantages; but, when one considers how much must depend on the point of view from which the case was laid before the Court, one cannot but feel that it lay in the power of so singularly-constituted a body to defeat the very end for which it was created.
From S. J.-B.’s point of view then, as we have seen, two hurdles had been successfully passed; but the dangers of the third may be estimated from the fact—the importance of which she as an outsider could not possibly gauge—that her avowed and implacable opponent, “our Nestor,” Dr. Robert Christison, was the only Professor and the only medical man who had a seat on the University Court. He had in fact the unique distinction of belonging to every body by which the interests of the women had to be decided, viz. the Medical Faculty, the Senatus, the University Court, the University Council, and the Infirmary Board.
Add to all this that he was a respected and representative citizen, one who made a strong appeal to the religious and church-going public. “No man,” said Professor Masson about this time, “walks the streets of Edinburgh whom I more respect; ... but this is not the first time, and I suppose it will not be the last, when grave and wise men will be found defending a dying tyranny.”
Professor Masson’s feeling for the great man was destined to be sorely tried.
It will surprise no one, then, to learn that on April 19th, the following resolution was passed at a meeting of the University Court held, as was the custom, in strict privacy:
“That the Court, considering the difficulties at present standing in the way of carrying out the resolution of the Senatus, as a temporary arrangement in the interest of one lady, and not being prepared to adjudicate finally on the question whether women should be educated in the medical classes of the University, sustains the appeals and recalls the resolution of the Senatus.”
“As a temporary arrangement in the interests of one lady.”
Supposing that the decision of the University Court was really to be taken at its face value, so to speak, it was one of which nobody could fairly complain. Was it not simply another way of saying,—“If this counsel or this work be of men it will come to nought”? For, although it be true that “God and one man make a majority,” the fighter who has God on his side does not indefinitely remain alone, even so far as his fellow men are concerned.
The mere fact of the adverse decision is recorded in the diary almost without comment. One is glad to think that when S. J.-B. received the news she was among her friends in the south, and no longer so dependent on the lonely solace of an unwritten page. On April 26th she wrote to Dr. Sewall:
“You will have seen my bad news in the papers I sent you on Saturday,— I can no longer urge you to come and settle in Edinburgh, for all my plans there have been overturned again. The University Court has actually vetoed the permission given by the Medical Faculty and confirmed by the whole Senatus (or conjoined faculties).
This is very unusual and seems very hard.
I expect to go to Scotland in a week or two still, to see whether nothing can be done about it. If I had any legal standpoint I would take the matter into the Courts.[54] If I can’t get in at Edinburgh, then I shall try Glasgow, etc., but I should very much prefer Edinburgh....
You see it is very well that I asked you not to talk about Edinburgh to other folks. When I really succeed, you may ‘boast’ as much as you please! I am sure that anything I ever do in Medicine will be all yours.
I am so glad that you are prospering so well, and getting patients sent you by the men. Thank you for all the papers you send me,—when you send whole papers, do mark the paragraph....
I am glad you like my Essay. It will be a good deal better when it is rewritten, for I have a good deal of new evidence to bring in. It may be out in July, or it may wait till October.
I have had terrible wear and tear to go through the last two months. Edinburgh was very very tiring work,—to repeat endless arguments to an endless succession of people took so very much out of one,—and then too there was really a great deal to do, and tho’ I took cabs recklessly I could not but get very tired....
I am sure you are right about women being fitter to understand women. I will put in some more about that. Do you know whenever it comes home to me personally I am more and more amazed how women can go to men for uterine treatment. I think that, sooner than go to any, I would come across the Atlantic again to you. I wish you would let me know how often doctors have sent you their own relations. I wish Dr. Cabot or some leading doctor would publish a pamphlet or something expressing his strong belief in the ‘need of women doctors for young girls.’ This is the point that hits the public hardest, I think. If he could write me a short note that I could quote in my Essay, with or without his name, I would do so....
There is such a nice girl here,—Ursula Du Pre (a sort of connection of Mrs. Jenkinson’s) who would like very much to study medicine, but her Mother objects strongly and she is too ill to be worried, she thinks.
It is a thousand pities, for she would make a splendid doctor;[55] and, being extremely ‘well-born,’ it would have an excellent effect for her to study. She is very anxious to see you,—she has fallen in love with your picture. I tell everybody that neither that nor anything else can tell them how good and sweet you are, my dear child.
Your very aff. S. L. J.-B.”
Footnote 54:
This suggestion had been made to her by one of the legal professors.
Footnote 55:
“Tell me everything that happens,” writes Miss Du Pre about this time, “so that I may not lose the thread of your history. I think I know most of the people’s names now, and should not require much explanation. You need not tell me in every letter that Sir A. Grant is the Principal. I’ll try to remember that fact.”
Meanwhile she was not left without sympathy from those whose sympathy was a distinction in itself. On April 5th Professor Masson had written:
“DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
Here is the latest news. The case was to come up today before the University Court—with these two new elements,—of which I heard only on Saturday: viz. (i) That Professor Turner has appealed independently to the Court, and (2) That there is a petition against you to the Court by a large number of students—not gainsaying the propriety of women studying or practising Medicine, but laying stress on the difficulty and the injury to male students, should a lady student be admitted to open lectures on certain medical subjects, so that a Professor should be forced to abstain from exhaustive treatment of those subjects.
It was known at a Senatus meeting on Saturday, that the appeal, with these new conditions, might come before the University Court today; and, in view of this, Professor Balfour and myself were deputed to appear before the Court and defend the vote of the Senatus,— representing the reasons of the majority of the Senatus for the vote and replying to any new objections.
We were at our post for the purpose today; but the University Court— whether from an excess of business, or because of a desire for delay in this particular question,—postponed the consideration of your case till the 19th of this month. So nothing was done today.
On the whole I am of opinion that delay will do no harm. Prof. Muirhead appeals (as far as I can understand him) not as an enemy, but in order that there may be farther discussion. Professor Turner’s appeal is grounded, I believe, on his own difficulty as regards Anatomy. And then there will be time for outside influences, and the considerations they may induce....
Had I known in time that I should be deputed to defend the case, I would have written to you to request suggestions. As it is, there is plenty of time now, and what occurs to me immediately is that any facts showing the prevalence of right opinion in British Society (both Whig and Tory) might be converted into argument. Please write to me anything that you can collect on this head, i.e. facts and names to prove that the tendency to open the profession to women is approved by eminent and representative personages, of different political opinions, throughout the country.
I will write again. Meanwhile, with doubled zeal for all that has happened, I am,
resolutely Yours, DAVID MASSON.
P.S. Prof. Balfour received this morning a letter from the Medical Dean at Zurich of very satisfactory tenor.”
“3, Rosebery Crescent, April 20th, 1869.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I regret to have to tell you that it went against you at the University Court yesterday. After the three appellants (Profs. Muirhead, Turner and Laycock) had been heard on the one side, and Prof. Balfour and I on the other, we left the Court to their private deliberations. These were long, and resulted, I understand, in an agreement to something like this effect—that considering the extreme inconvenience that would attend any present arrangement for the end in view, especially when that is demanded for only one lady, the Court, without pronouncing on the general question whether ladies ought to be educated in the medical classes at the University, do not consider it expedient, etc. I tried to get the exact terms of the resolution, but, not having seen the Secretary, report the substance as it was told me by Principal Sir A. Grant, and Mr. Nicolson. The Scotsman of tomorrow will probably have the communicated report: if so, I will send it to you.
Only five of the Court were present,—the Principal, Mr. Gordon, Dr. Christison, Mr. Phin and Mr. Nicolson. I believe the petition of the 180 students against you was really the determining argument,—the Court foreseeing the chance of a disturbance, and not being prepared to run the risk. Except two, I rather gathered that those present favoured the notion of the medical education of women, if circumstances would permit, and, on the whole, what has occurred to me, since I learnt the decision, is, that, if a new attempt were to be made, on the University of Edinburgh (and I hope there will), and if it were to come in the form of a joint and simultaneous application from a few ladies (say from half a dozen to a dozen), then our authorities would be obliged to yield and to betake themselves to the consideration of the means whereby such a class could be best conducted—how far along with the men, how far apart.
Much chagrined at the result, but with the firm conviction that your application and visit have done great good, and led to an advance in the right direction beyond what could have been anticipated.
I am, dear Miss Jex-Blake, Yours very truly, DAVID MASSON.”
“Aberdour, Fife, April 20th.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
Your letter has followed me to this place, which must be my apology for not replying to it at once. I was indeed annoyed at the reversal of our judgment in your case at the University Court,—the more so considering how the Court,—at all times a most absurd body to review the decisions of the Senate—was constituted on that particular occasion. I have not a copy of the Universities Act with me, and I cannot therefore express any opinion as to whether this decision falls under the category of those which are reversible by the Queen in Council. If it does belong to this category I should say that your best course was at once to carry it there, and I should say, with the majority you had both in the Medical Faculty and in the Senatus, that the reversal of the decision of so very insignificant and prejudged a body as the Court was which judged of your case was pretty nearly certain. If this cannot be done—which Masson or Playfair or Sir A. Grant will at once tell you,—then I suspect the best thing is to bring the case before the next meeting of the University Council. It has no power to decide, but it may recommend to the University Court, and that will bring the matter up again, and the constitution of the Court can be better looked after than it appears to have been this time. It may be also—though here again I am speaking without the Act, that such a recommendation could be carried beyond the Court to the Queen in Council. Any claim to admission on a legal construction of the Charter would involve you in a law-suit which would not be decided for years and would cost x=£s.!! Against that course I have no hesitation in advising you, as a question of personal interest and comfort, though of the legal merits of the question I can say nothing. I certainly, in your case, however, would lose no time in seeing the Lord Advocate. Substantially, I think he will be with you, and his advice in all such matters is of great value, and will, I feel sure, be willingly given.
Mrs. Lorimer joins me in very kind regards, and in sympathy for the annoyance which you are subjected to, and I am,
Yours very faithfully, J. LORIMER.”
In a later letter Professor Lorimer says:
“There is one point on which I find I am with you against many of my colleagues—even those who are guided by reason and not by tradition, viz. as to whether Medicine ought to be taught to ladies separately, or in the open classes along with the male students. As regards the question of delicacy, I am clearly and strongly of opinion that in holding the latter view your female instincts have guided you right. The root of indelicacy is immodesty, and the root of immodesty is immorality, and the arrangement that would in my opinion be immodest, and might be immoral, would be that such subjects should be taught by one man to one woman. The farther you recede from that arrangement, the more you separate yourself from the circumstances in which according to a well-known legal brocard, ‘charity ceases.’
The opposite pole as it seems to me, is the teaching of science publicly in an open class, irrespective of the sex, age, or other peculiarities of the audience; and mindful only of truth.
I am aware, however, that there are other considerations which influence Sir Alexander Grant, and other members of Senatus who would probably agree with me on this point. If young men and women were thrown together daily, they say, imprudent marriages and the like would come of it. Even here, however, I think the balance of evil is on the existing arrangement, and not on that which you propose to substitute for it. I have not seen Mr. Mill’s ‘Subjection of Women’ and I don’t go in much for that sort of thing, but I cannot see why greater harm should come of men and women meeting at their occupations than at their amusements; and I think imprudent marriages are just as likely to come of croquet parties and riding-lessons as of medical lectures.
As in later life one is sometimes apt to be deceived as to one’s earlier feelings, I asked a young bachelor whom most Edinburgh Mamas would not consider ‘an imprudent marriage’ what his feelings were on the subject; and his reply was ‘Anything rather than those dreary balls and idiotic evening parties which at present afford the only occasions on which men who go in for work in the early part of the day can make the acquaintance of persons of the other sex.’
It can scarcely be doubted that by working together men and women would learn to know each other better, and that many mistakes that are now committed, would be avoided.
With kind regards from Mrs. Lorimer, believe me.
Yours very truly, J. LORIMER.”
No one who has grasped something of S. J.-B.’s character will imagine that she was likely to mistake a check for a checkmate, though she sometimes made the converse mistake. She seems to have had some little correspondence with Professor (afterwards Sir Lyon) Playfair, for the following letter is among her papers:
“Athenæum Club, London, 10th May, 1869.
DEAR MISS BLAKE,
I was much obliged by the list of women graduates and grieved at the result of your case in Edinburgh.
There is no power of appeal against the decision of the University Court. You had overcome the prejudices of the profession, but not those of the students. With their strong opposition the University Court could not possibly decide otherwise, for Scottish Universities, without endowments, cannot go in face of the Constituency by which they are supported. It would not do to ruin classes by the admission of one pupil against the opinion of all the others. Though I regret the result, I am not surprised at it. In the face of this prejudice, the only hope that I see is for intending female graduates presenting themselves in sufficient numbers to induce the Universities to give them a separate education though a common graduation.
Yours truly, LYON PLAYFAIR.”
“What I thought and think,” wrote Sir Alexander Grant, “is that if a sufficient number of ladies could be found to constitute a small extra- academical class in medical subjects, the University of Edinburgh would be willing to make arrangements for the teaching of such a class, and to examining the lady pupils with a view to awarding them medical degrees.”
In her diary S. J.-B. writes,
“Tuesday, May 11th.... Wrote today to ask to see Goschen,—see if anything can be made of appeal.”
“Friday. Saw Goschen, who will have the Act ‘looked up’ about appeals. Lord Advocate also to ‘write.’ Slept at Hampstead Heath.”
“Saturday. Croquet. Came to Brighton by noon train.”
She used to recall many years later how on these much-prized visits to the Corderys, some of the young folks got up at 6 o’clock in the morning to have another game of croquet before the work of the day began.
“Wednesday. Met U. at Waterloo Bridge. It did me good to see her. Had just heard ‘No appeal’ from Moncrieff, and no support except for private classes from Grant.”
Here then she was obliged to stop and take breath. Failure? Surely not. I think no one can view the subject all round, as we have done in the foregoing chapters,—realizing something of the forces that were arrayed against her—without a feeling of amazement that she should have accomplished so much. Whatever the mistakes and failures of her subsequent life, that first campaign must surely be pronounced an astonishing success.
V. OPENING OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY TO WOMEN
The results of the campaign, duly chronicled in the Scotsman, filtered through into other papers, and a certain amount of public interest was the result. Before many days had passed the following letter came to nerve a possibly flagging arm:
“8 Bedford Square, W.C. May 15th. 69.
MADAM,
I venture to write to you as I see that the decision of the University Court at Edinboro is based on the fact that they do not feel justified in making ‘a temporary arrangement in the interest of one lady.’ I also gather from the article in the Scotsman on the subject of your application that you are desirous that in some cases private instruction should be taken instead of compulsory attendance at the public classes.
As these are your views, I should be glad, if you renew your application, to join you in doing so, and I believe I know two or three other ladies who would be willing to do the same....
Trusting you will pardon my troubling you on account of the great interest I feel in promoting the entrance of women into the medical profession, believe me, Madam,
Yours truly, ISABEL THORNE.
Miss Jex-Blake.”
A few days later came an equally interesting letter from Mrs. Butler:
“Your Essay is in Macmillan’s hands. You will receive a proof soon. I have asked him also to let me see one, and to let you have a duplicate to send to America.
I read it once again before sending it away. It is well worth while to have included in it so much research. It gives one strongly the impression while reading it, how much the present male monopoly of the profession is an innovation; also how at all times women seem to have striven to assert their right to a share in the healing art. I cannot help hoping the publication of your Essay may be the beginning of a new social era in those matters. God grant that it may!
It is indeed most trying to be kept back so long by the difficulty of getting leave to do good and to toil. O England, what a wicked amount of conservatism of selfish customs have you to answer for! I daresay to yourself your life must appear sometimes to be being wasted—but it is not so. In every good cause there must be martyrs and pioneers, who, with gifts for more, have had the hard task of opening the way for others to work. I saw a Miss Pechey at Leeds, who wishes to become a doctor, and Miss Wolstenholme told me of a lady she knows who is studying.
I don’t think the story about the Greek lady at all indelicate. I hope no one else will think so. Is it not strange how people cry out at the indelicacy of speaking of a thing which it is far more indelicate should exist, and yet to its existence they have no objection.
In a later letter she says:
“... Have you seen Miss Pechey? She did not seem to me very clever, but very steady and nice,—a silent, quiet woman.”
One knows the fine reserve under which Edith Pechey’s great gifts lay hidden. “I only wish,” wrote a friend who knew her well, “that there were 12 more like her ready to begin.”
This is what Miss Pechey had to say for herself:
“Before deciding finally to enter the medical profession, I should like to feel sure of success—not on my own account, but I feel that failure now would do harm to the cause, and that it is well that at least the first few women who offer themselves as candidates should stand above the average of men in their examinations.
Do you think anything more is requisite to ensure success than moderate abilities and a good share of perseverance? I believe I may lay claim to these, together with a real love of the subjects of study, but as regards any thorough knowledge of those subjects at present, I fear I am deficient in most. I am afraid I should not without a good deal of previous study be able to pass the preliminary exam, you mention, as my knowledge of Latin is small and of Euclid still less. Still, if no very extensive knowledge of these is required (and doctors generally seem to know very little of them) I could perhaps be ready by the next exam., and the study of Carpenter at the same time would be a relaxation. Could you give me any idea when the next matriculation exam. will be held, and whether candidates are examined in all the books of Euclid. If I thought I could prepare myself in time for this, I think I could arrange pecuniary and other matters so as to enter in October as you advise; and, though for some reasons I should prefer to wait another year, yet, as I am nearly 24, it will perhaps be better to lose no time.
Allow me to thank you for your kindness in assisting me with your advice. I feel especially grateful as I have no friend able to supply the information I need.
Believe me, dear Madam, Yours sincerely, EDITH PECHEY.”
We know how warmly S. J.-B. felt that the thanks were not all on the side of her unknown correspondents, and she would have felt this even more if she had known the sheer value as human beings of her first two recruits. Taking the trio together, one simply could not have wished for abler representatives of a struggling cause.
* * * * *
Meanwhile a new avenue of hope had opened quite unexpectedly; Mrs. Jex- Blake had been seriously ill, and her daughter had taken her to consult Dr. King Chambers.
“I liked Dr. Chambers very much,” she writes to Dr. Sewall. “I first had a talk with him alone, and told him I was studying Medicine, about which he was very kind. He seemed to think that if women were willing to pay for separate Anatomical teaching, they could get into almost any of the London schools, and promised to enquire about his own school,—St. Mary’s. I doubt whether the way is quite so open as he thinks, but I shall be very glad to hear his report, and meanwhile shall go on to Edinbro’ and see what can be done there by way of a separate class. It would be a much greater thing in the end to get the Universities open, for of course the other medical schools feed Apothecaries’ Hall and the College of Surgeons, and do not give the M.D.
I think it very possible that by guaranteeing some sufficient fees for two or three courses (whatever the number of pupils) we could get the thing tried, and, when once publicly done, I am sure numbers would flock in. I had rather borrow and spend some money about it than be bothered any more. But of that I can tell you more next week.”
In her diary she writes (June 19th):
“After opposite advice from Mrs. Butler (for St. Mary’s), and Salzmann (Edinbro’) and much deliberation, decided for ‘baith, my lord.’ The petition to go today to Dr. Chambers (signed by Miss Pechey and Mrs. Thorne),—mine to Senatus on 25th. and to University Court July 5th.”
Dr. King Chambers spared himself no trouble in the matter.
“I have got over the chief difficulty,” he writes, “viz., that of engaging the Anatomy lecturer, Mr. Arthur Norton, to undertake a class of ladies. There is also a room they could have for dissecting, and arrangements may be made with the porter’s wife to take care of their cloaks and attend to their comforts. The other lecturers shall be approached in due course, but I think Mr. Norton is the chief one to be considered. What number of ladies can you get to form a class?”
A fortnight later, however, he is obliged to write:
“DEAR MADAM,
I fear you will be disappointed with the result of my application to the School Committee of St. Mary’s. It was a full meeting which had been already called on another subject; so I took the opportunity of getting as many of my colleagues as possible to freely state their opinions. And the result is my agreeing with the idea you expressed in your note, that the most insuperable of your difficulties lay in the direction of the students—to which I may add their parents and guardians; of whom, as customers, private firms in the position of the medical schools of London, must stand in awe. Such a sort of partnership is essentially opposed to change, as, if even a minority object to a novelty, their colleagues shrink from forcing it upon them.
It seems hard that British women should be sent abroad to get that of which there is such abundance at home, but circumstances seem to render this inevitable.
Repeating my regrets that I should have deluded you with false hopes, I am
Yours faithfully, T. K. CHAMBERS.”
It is pleasant to note that, if S. J.-B. failed to get from Dr. Chambers the thing she wanted at the moment, she had at least found in him a lifelong friend and helper.
It was well that she had decided for “baith, my lord.” She now once more approached the University Court in the person of its President, the Rector, asking whether they would remove their present veto in case arrangements could be made for the instruction of women in separate classes; and whether in that case women would be allowed to matriculate in the usual way, and to undergo the ordinary examination, with a view to obtaining medical degrees in due course.
She also wrote to the Senatus, asking them to recommend the matriculation of women as medical students on the understanding that separate classes should be formed: and she addressed a letter to the Dean of the Medical Faculty offering on behalf of her fellow-students and herself to guarantee whatever minimum fee the Faculty might fix as a remuneration for these separate classes.
“I appreciate your truly kind and thoughtful plans with regard to the pecuniary arrangements,” writes Miss Pechey in this connection. “I shall be sorry if my means will not allow me to take a full share of the expenses, but I am afraid I shall not be able to afford more than double the usual fees for a man.”
S. J.-B. had returned to Edinburgh in order to further arrangements, and to meet any difficulties that might arise. The first thing to be done was to secure teachers, and, now that it came to the point, some even of those who had been most favourable showed a singular reluctance to take the plunge. Their enthusiasm had had time to cool.
“June 26th ... Today went to see A. Most disappointingly timorous,— ‘could not give the extra time himself,’ though he did not refuse to see the importance and responsibility of the case. I hope he will vote for me still.
B. very disappointing,—very avaricious,—trying for the 100 guineas.
Balfour, out.
I very disheartened and weary....
I do fear failure now,—indeed it seems to me probable, in Medical Faculty.
And then all the time and effort wasted since March 1st! A year’s steady work would have been less strain!...
If one had but faith! Ought one not to say, ‘I fight and work my best,—God will bring out the best result,—let me not prejudge what is best.’
And so be content either way.”
“June 30th. Christison has had to go to London,—wrathfully enough they say,—hurrah! I hear that he asked to have the day changed, and that Balfour refused,—the brick!
Of course this adds to my chances.
Also I had a long crack with Turner this morning. He did not speak against it as in his own person,—only evidently thought how awful it would be if ‘odium were thrown’ on two professors for refusing perhaps what others had granted. I suggested that it might perhaps be more awful to refuse all women for the sake of that.
9 p.m. The 40 lines of Virgil written out [in preparation for the matriculation examination that as yet was a more than doubtful prospect], eyes and head weary. (Oh, dear, ‘it is not good for man to be alone.’)
By this time tomorrow Medical Faculty at least decided.
Thrown back utterly again? Today for the first time since Friday I hope a little. (Something of the Caliban in me says,—‘Unlucky to say so!’)”
“July 1st. Yesterday O. H.’s ‘Two Poor Courts’ interested me much.
7 p.m. Won after all!—and I do think this must be at last ‘the beginning of the end.’ For me 4 out of 6:—Balfour, Bennett, Spence, M‘Lagan. Turner would not vote dead against it, as Laycock wished, so those two did not vote, but Laycock ‘protested’....
Allman absurdly wroth (to Masson) about canvassing and unjustifiable, etc., etc., seeming to mean that my poor little calls on people had interfered with their judicial wisdom.
Just seen a letter from A. G. J.—I must hear that organ at Lucerne (with its storm, etc.) before I die.”
“Friday, July 2nd.... 6 p.m. Hurrah!—The Senate granted my request without limitation and without division, though M‘Pherson tried to get up a motion for delay,—no one (not even Turner!) would second him. Turner wished to have it recorded that he ‘did not vote,’ but as no vote had to be taken this could not be, so he reluctantly had it recorded that he ‘dissented,’ which I regret, for I am sure that it is more than he wished.
Present,—14. Grant, M‘Pherson, Lorimer, Masson, Wilson, Tait, Kelland, Craufurd, Liston, Stevenson, Balfour, Bennett, Spence, Turner.”
“Monday. The day! Even now (4.30 p.m.) a University of Britain may be literally open to women,—if so, won’t that have been worth doing?
When I say to Alice, ‘The University Court may still stop it all,’— ‘They’d better not!’ quo’ she ferociously.”
What actually happened at the University Court this time is best related in a letter to Dr. Lucy Sewall:
“Maitland Street, Edinburgh. July 6th, 69.
MY DARLING,
You may address to me here for a fortnight after you get this, for I expect now to be here till about August 15th.
The Medical Faculty and the Senatus have both voted in favour of special classes in the University for Women, and the University Court at their meeting yesterday passed a vote in favour of the measure. It seems however that there are some legal difficulties about the old Charter, etc., and that the matter will require the sanction of the Privy Council, which will cause delay, but I think no real difficulty,—for the Queen is known to be favourable to women doctors; and the present government is specially liberal. Indeed it has this real advantage that it will make the whole thing very public and very safe and permanent,—so that it will be almost impossible ever again to exclude women.
So now I am looking forward to years of steady work here, and am so very glad to be able to do so!
I am working at my Latin, etc., for the Matric. examination. It would astonish the women studying in Boston to see the examination that we have to pass here before we can even begin Medicine,—and it is a capital thing, because it will keep out ignorant and silly women to a great degree.... Oh, dear child, it is so nice to look forward to having you here next summer to see and know all about it. You will so enjoy Edinburgh. I have been thinking about taking rooms or a house lately, and I keep saying to myself, ‘You must have a room full of sun for my doctor!’ It is so good to look forward to seeing you....
Have you seen Mill’s Subjection of Women? Your Father would delight in it. I mean to send him a copy as a remembrance.
I am very glad to see that the British Medical Journal encourages the opening of classes for women. I shall send you the number.
I am only anxious now to have a good big class of women and of a creditable kind.... How I wish that you would come and settle here! You could establish a Dispensary at once, and have all us students at your orders. We shall want sadly some teaching of that sort.... This climate would be so much better for you, and I should feel so much happier about you if you were here. I know if you are in Boston, I shall worry about you all winter....
Well, Goodbye, my dear child! Whether you come or stay, all good be with you!
Your very aff. S. L. J.-B.”
The reader will scarcely be surprised to learn that when on July 23rd the University Court formally acceded to her petition, S. J.-B. was almost too tired to feel elated, though she admits that she would be “grieving bitterly had things been otherwise.” In addition to her other work, she had spent a fortnight in the house of a very dear friend, nursing several serious cases of scarlet fever. Trained nurses for private houses were almost unknown in those days, and she did not spare herself. On July 9th she had written to ask Mrs. Thorne—who was in Aberdeen at the time—to join her in Edinburgh. “I won’t take the whole responsibility alone,”—the responsibility of engaging lecturers and guaranteeing fees,—she confides to her diary. The grasshopper had become a burden. Even the modest amount of Latin required for the Matriculation Examination was a great effort to her, and she knew of old the importance of husbanding her strength.
“Most folk,” she says with great truth and pathos,—“or at least many, have only their indolence to strive with. If they conquer that, all serene. I (after that done) have to pause half way,—ware crash!—and to calculate nicely how much brain force I dare bring to bear or use up.
Ah, well,—shall my strength be as my day,—or isn’t it fair to apply that to self-imposed work?”
“Self-imposed?” There is a big question involved here. No doubt the readers of this book will answer it in different ways.
* * * * *
In any case she had achieved her task. Notwithstanding a direct negative, moved by the Revd. Dr. Phin, the resolution of the University Court was approved by the General Council on October 29th, 1869, and was sanctioned by the Chancellor on November 12th. The following regulations, drawn up by the Court, were officially issued at the same date, and inserted in the Calendar of the University:
“(1.) Women shall be admitted to the study of medicine in the University; (2.) The instruction of women for the profession of medicine shall be conducted in separate classes, confined entirely to women; (3.) The Professors of the Faculty of Medicine shall, for this purpose, be permitted to have separate classes for women; (4.) Women, not intending to study medicine professionally, may be admitted to such of these classes, or to such part of the course of instruction given in such classes, as the University Court may from time to time think fit and approve; (5.) The fee for the full course of instruction in such classes shall be four guineas; but in the event of the number of students proposing to attend any such class being too small to provide a reasonable remuneration at that rate, it shall be in the power of the Professor to make arrangements for a higher fee, subject to the usual sanction of the University Court. (6.) All women attending such classes shall be subject to all the regulations now or at any future time in force in the University as to the matriculation of students, their attendance on classes, Examination or otherwise; (7.) The above regulations shall take effect as from the commencement of session 1869-70.”
This is how the “first British University”—the University of Edinburgh— was thrown open to women.