“Still, she found even the friendly professors alarmed at the idea of a woman matriculating, and becoming _Civis Edinensis;_ so she made a moderate application to the Senate, viz., for leave to attend medical lectures. This request was indorsed by a majority of the medical professors, and granted. But on the appeal of a few medical professors against it, the Senate suspended its resolution, on the ground that there was only one applicant. “This got wind, and other ladies came into the field directly, your humble servant among them. Then the Senate felt bound to recommend the University Court to admit such female students to matriculate as could pass the preliminary examination; this is in history, logic, languages, and other branches; and we prepared for it in good faith. It was a happy time: after a good day's work, I used to go up the Calton Hill, or Arthur's Seat, and view the sea, and the Piraens, and the violet hills, and the romantic undulations of the city itself, and my heart glowed with love of knowledge, and with honorable ambition. I ran over the names of worthy women who had adorned medicine at sundry times and in divers places, and resolved to deserve as great a name as any in history. Refreshed by my walk--I generally walked eight miles, and practiced gymnastics to keep my muscles hard--I used to return to my little lodgings; and they too were sweet to me, for I was learning a new science--logic.” “That was a nut to crack.” “I have met few easier or sweeter. One non-observer had told me it was a sham science, and mere pedantry; another, that it pretended to show men a way to truth without observing. I found, on the contrary, that it was a very pretty little science, which does not affect to discover phenomena, but simply to guard men against rash generalization, and false deductions from true data; it taught me the untrained world is brimful of fallacies and verbal equivoques that ought not to puzzle a child, but, whenever they creep into an argument, do actually confound the learned and the simple alike, and all for want of a month's logic. “Yes, I was happy on the hill, and happy by the hearth; and so things went on till the preliminary examination came. It was not severe; we ladies all passed with credit, though many of the male aspirants failed.” “How do you account for that?” asked Vizard. “With my eyes. I _observe_ that the average male is very superior in intellect to the average female; and I _observe_ that the picked female is immeasurably more superior to the average male, than the average male is to the average female.” “Is it so simple as that?”