Miss Susan Dimock was a student of great promise who afterwards
completed her education at Zurich. She was lost at sea in the wreck of
the steamer _Schiller_ in May 1875.
“Harvard University. April 8th. 1867.
MY DEAR MADAM,
After consultation with the faculty of the Medical College, the
corporation direct me to inform you and Miss Dimock that there is no
provision for the education of women in any department of this
university.
Neither the corporation nor the faculty wish to express any opinion as
to the right or expediency of the medical education of women, but
simply to state the fact that in our school no provision for that
purpose has been made, or is at present contemplated.
Very respectfully yours,
THOMAS HILL.
Miss S. Jex-Blake.”
A few days later the following paragraph appeared in _The Advocate_:
“_The Beginning of the End._ A correspondence between the President
and two lady applicants for admission to the Medical School was
published some days since in the ‘Boston Advertiser.’ We understand
that the friends of female education have no notion of resting
satisfied with their first rebuff; and that prominent Alumni of Boston
are already taking measures for the prolonged agitation of the
question.”
A month later S.J.-B. had obtained introductions to each of the
professors in the Medical Faculty at Harvard, and to each member of the
staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital and of the Eye and Ear
Infirmary: as well as to many people of standing connected with these
various institutions: and she now proceeded to canvass them
systematically. In addition to a number of influential friends, she was
ably supported by Miss Dimock.
On the whole their reception was encouraging. The individual letters,
indeed, are so favourable, that the hopes of the inexperienced young
applicants must have run high. The following from Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes is typical of some half dozen at least:
“I should not only be willing, but I should be much pleased, to
lecture to any number of ladies for whom we can find accommodation in
the anatomical lecture room, always provided that any special subject
which seemed not adapted for an audience of both sexes should be
delivered to the male students alone.”
Dr. Brown-Séquard is even more emphatic in a letter to Dr. Holmes:
“MY DEAR PROFESSOR,
Miss Blake, who will hand you this note, wishes me to say that I
am strongly in favour of the admission of persons of her sex at the
Medical College. As such is my decided opinion, I write very
willingly.
Very faithfully yours,
C. E. BROWN-SÉQUARD.”
The corporation of Harvard, however, exerted its power to veto any such
inclinations on the part of individual professors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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