I am frequently asked whether the quality of medical students among women is not much better now than formerly. This question is a very subtle one to reply to justly. There is no doubt but that the educational standard among all youths, female and male, has been greatly raised; that accomplishments are not so universally considered all the education that girls need; that the increase of colleges for women alone, as well as the coeducational institutions, has promoted a thoroughness of training which was unknown fifty years ago in the schooling of young girls; and that all these advantages have promoted thought and earnestness of purpose in deciding upon a profession. But that the student of either sex is in consequence of this education of a better quality and promising more marked ability, especially in the medical profession, by no means follows. In the early decade of this movement, the woman who entered upon professional study had to possess qualities which no school, college or university can bestow. Originality, perseverance, persistency, self-abnegation, industry in study, and a certain amount of practical knowledge, as well as perception of human nature and social conditions, were absolutely necessary for each and every woman student in order to succeed even in going through the medical colleges then at their disposal, to say nothing of later attempts to enter into general practice. The help then offered by professional men was not based at all upon the principle of right nor on the suitability of the woman to become a physician. No, it was offered only by such men as stood head and shoulders above their colleagues in the professions. They were men who could afford to make enemies in and out of professional circles and who could afford to be pleased with a talented “exceptional woman”; intellectually to pet her, as it were; to teach her; to indulge her; yes, to speak in high terms of her and compare her with historic women of the past, feeling even proud that they had discovered such an exception to womankind. They seemed entirely unaware that the woman student perceived their delusions but nurtured in the depth of her heart the conviction, “What I am able to do now, hundreds, yes, thousands, will be able to accomplish after me.” Meanwhile, the women were grateful for all favors, advantages and teachings, utilizing them but industriously aiming higher and higher so as to gain all that could be gained through the qualities enumerated above. Such a schooling trained the women far better than all the colleges do now, in spite of their excellence; on the other hand, the complaints of the women students of to-day as to the disadvantages yet to be overcome are greater than they were then. Yet at this present time, almost every chance exists for women if it is in them, to become original investigators, workers and practitioners. CHAPTER XXXVI