“Whatever may be our views regarding the desirability 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.”[59] One can imagine the effect of criticism such as this on some of the professors. Here was a tiresome muddle from which it was difficult to see a dignified exit. What wonder if many took the cheap and obvious course of exclaiming, “The _woman_ that Thou gavest me!—she is at the bottom of it all?” So far as the explanation went, it was perfectly true: and of course only a few of the pundits saw today with the eyes of tomorrow; only a few realized that the difficulty that was worrying them was a part of a world-wide upheaval involving the whole human race. Of course there were those who, without taking any extreme view, were admirably sane and dignified. Instance the following letter from Professor Fleeming Jenkin: “April 5th, 1870. DEAR MADAM, I regret that I shall be unavoidably absent on Saturday next, or, as far as might have been possible, I should have supported Miss Pechey’s claims. I regret my absence the less, however, as it seems to me that the legal question of a particular reward is of far less consequence than the fact of the position which you and Miss Pechey have taken in the class. Accept my very hearty congratulations and Believe me, Yours truly, FLEEMING JENKIN. Miss Jex-Blake.” Footnote 59: _Brit. Med. Journal_, April 16th, 1870. There was a question of referring the matter to the University Court, but one is glad to think that wiser counsels prevailed. Miss Pechey had gone to her home in the country, and was listening to the nightingales. “Thank you for Masson’s letter,” she writes to S. J.-B. “He is a grand fellow. Wilson has sent me the minutes of the Senatus meeting about the scholarship. I suppose I ought to write to him. I wish you were here to tell me what to do. You understand that I leave you to do as is thought best about the scholarship,—only remember that my own judgment—apart from personal feeling—is against appealing, and that I do not wish to do so unless our friends are very decisively of opinion that we ought to.”