In reply, I was calmly informed that the Court meant nothing of the kind; that they would not agree to count any classes we might take as qualifying, and that in fact they would not stir a finger in any way whatever to enable us to become legally qualified doctors, though they might, if we spent a good many years of labour and a quite unlimited sum of money in obtaining our education, give us at the end these wonderful Certificates of Proficiency, which would be worth exactly--Nothing! What had been the meaning of the previous letter of apparent concession I confess myself quite at a loss to conceive. What advantage could accrue to us from submitting the names of extramural teachers to the Court, in which Professor Christison was the only medical man, I have never been able to guess, since the Court did not intend to take any means to make their teaching qualify for graduation, and we hardly needed its sanction in order to make private arrangements for non-qualifying instruction! One is inclined to wonder whether the idea was that the University Court possessed some supernatural power, analogous to that supposed by certain churches to reside in episcopal laying on of hands, which would in a miraculous way benefit those lecturers whom they might “authorise” to teach us, though such teaching was to be given in place and manner wholly unconnected with that University with which I had supposed their functions to be exclusively connected. However, I am content to leave this among the unexplained mysteries, with very hearty thankfulness that, at least, by timely enquiries, we saved ourselves from a still more hopeless waste of time and money, which indeed we were on the point of incurring, in reliance on the good faith of the Court, and the apparent meaning of its mysterious Resolution.[110] Having, however, at length arrived at a certainty that the Medical Faculty would rest with nothing short of our expulsion, if by any possibility they could attain that end; that the Senatus, though far more friendly, had not a sufficient majority of liberal votes to secure the permanent concession of our claims, however just, in the teeth of the strong medical opposition; and that the University Court would offer only such concessions as were quite valueless for our end, it became clear that it was useless to prolong the series of supplications which had, for nearly a year, been addressed in vain to one after another of the the ruling powers of the University.