[78] As some attempts have been lately made to throw doubt on the validity of the regulations just quoted, and, in fact, on the legality of the matriculation of women, I think it well to specify distinctly certain of the persons who were most immediately concerned in the University action just described. The University Court which drew up the above regulations, contained among its members Mr Moncreiff, then Lord Advocate of Scotland, and Mr Gordon, who had held the same office under a previous Government, besides two other legal members. The Chancellor who gave his express sanction to all the measures taken, was Lord Glencorse, (Inglis,) the Lord Justice-General of Scotland. I leave the public to judge how far it is probable that these gentlemen conjoined to do an illegal and invalid act on behalf of the University. [79] I fully agree in the following remarks made by a local paper when the results of the next summer term were declared:--“The whole number of gentlemen who appear in the prize-lists (in Botany) are 32, out of 140 competitors,--_i.e._, about 23 per cent.; of the ladies, _all_. We believe that these results prove, not that women’s capacities are better than those of men--a thing that few people would assert--but that these women who are devoting themselves to obtain, in spite of all difficulties, a thorough knowledge of their profession, are far more thoroughly in earnest than most of the men are, and that their ultimate success is certain in proportion. Nor would we omit the inference that, this being so, those who wantonly throw obstacles in the way of this gallant little band incur a proportionately heavy responsibility, as wanting not only in the spirit of chivalry, but even in the love of fair play, which we should be sorry to think wanting in any Briton.”--_Daily Review_, August 5, 1870. [80] Compare Miss Garrett’s experience, p. 78. [81] I am told that on this occasion the obstructives of the day actually shut the College gates on the ladies, but that the gallant old Professor, nothing daunted, admitted them through a ground-floor window in South College Street! [82] See _Note I_.