“Thus encouraged, the university court settled the matter. We were
admitted to matriculate and study medicine, under certain conditions, to
which I beg your attention.
“The instruction of women for the profession of medicine was to be
conducted in separate classes confined entirely to women.
“The professors of the Faculty of Medicine should, for this purpose, be
permitted to have separate classes for women.
“All these regulations were approved by the chancellor, and are to this
day a part of the law of that university.
“We ladies, five in number, but afterward seven, were matriculated and
registered professional students of medicine, and passed six delightful
months we now look back upon as if it was a happy dream.
“We were picked women, all in earnest. We deserved respect, and we met
with it. The teachers were kind, and we attentive and respectful: the
students were courteous, and we were affable to them, but discreet.
Whatever seven young women could do to earn esteem, and reconcile even
our opponents to the experiment, we did. There was not an anti-student,
or downright flirt, among us; and, indeed, I have observed that an
earnest love of study and science controls the amorous frivolity of women
even more than men's. Perhaps our heads are really _smaller_ than men's,
and we haven't room in them to be like Solomon--extremely wise and arrant
fools.
“This went on until the first professional examination; but, after the
examination, the war, to our consternation, recommenced. Am I, then,
bad-hearted for thinking there must have been something in that
examination which roused the sleeping spirit of trades-unionism?”
“It seems probable.”
“Then view that probability by the light of fact:
“In physiology the male students were 127; in chemistry, 226; 25 obtained
honors in physiology; 31 in chemistry.
“In physiology and chemistry there were five women. One obtained honors
in physiology alone; four obtained honors in both physiology and
chemistry.
“So, you see, the female students beat the male students in physiology at
the rate of five to one; and in chemistry, seven and three-quarters to
one.
“But, horrible to relate, one of the ladies eclipsed twenty-nine out of
the thirty-one gentlemen who took _honors_ in chemistry. In capacity she
surpassed them all; for the two, who were above her, obtained only two
marks more than she did, yet they had been a year longer at the study.
This entitled her to 'a Hope Scholarship' for that year.
“Would you believe it? the scholarship was refused her--in utter defiance
of the founder's conditions--on the idle pretext that she had studied at
a different hour from the male students, and therefore was not a member
of the chemistry class.”
“Then why admit her to the competition?” said Vizard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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