“There are probably few persons who did not learn with regret the decision of the Edinburgh Senatus in respect of the Hope Scholarships. It is not pleasant that such a story of, at least, seeming injustice should circulate through foreign universities, to the discredit of our own, for there cannot be much doubt as to the view that will be taken of the case by those nations--now forming the majority in Europe--who have admitted women to their medical colleges on terms of exact fairness and equality with their other students.... A medical contemporary argues that this affair proves how unwise it was to admit women to the University of Edinburgh--such admission being, as is asserted, the natural source of ‘constant squabbles.’ But most unprejudiced people, judging the case at first sight, would surely rather see here the evil of a partial, restricted, and permissive legislation. If women have a claim to medical education at all, they have exactly the same claim as men; if they are to be received as students at all, they must certainly be treated with even-handed justice, and not as social or rather academical _pariahs_, to whom the bare crumbs of instruction are vouchsafed as a grace and bounty; while all the honours and rewards are to be reserved to their male competitors. Looking at the thing for a moment, merely in the interests of the young men, and as a question of expediency, we cannot imagine anything much worse for their moral guidance than to find that women are indeed to compete with them, but so shackled that they can never win; or rather that, if they do win, the prizes will be snatched from their grasp and given to men whom they have beaten. We have heard that, in both classes where the ladies have this year studied, a very unusual access of zeal and energy has been noticed among the gentlemen in the other section of the class--a happy effect of such competition, which has often been observed in the mixed colleges of America, and which surely need not be neutralised here by the providence of the Senatus.” _Scotsman_, April 15, 1870. “The Senatus has, by a small majority, confirmed Professor Crum Brown’s decision with regard to Miss Pechey and the Hope Scholarship, on the grounds previously presumed by us. But these grounds, if so they may be called, are in our opinion insufficient to deprive Miss Pechey of the Scholarship. Whatever may be our views regarding the advisability of ladies studying medicine, the University of Edinburgh professed to open its gates to them on equal terms with the other students; and unless some better excuse be forthcoming in explanation of the decision of the Senatus, we cannot help thinking that the University has done no less an injustice to itself than to one of its most distinguished students.” _British Medical Journal_, April 16, 1870. NOTE J, p. 96.