I am fully aware that this will not be nearly so satisfactory to you
as unconditional permission on my part; and I must beg you to believe
that it is in many respects far from being so satisfactory to my own
feelings in the matter. If I were a thoroughly independent man I can
assure you that I should not be deterred from doing what I thought
right in this question by any fear of the consequences. As things
really stand, however, I do not feel justified in running the risk of
losing my ordinary class in whole or in part, as I am assured I should
do if I were to attempt to introduce this innovation wholly without
warning. If I _knew_ my class, if I had the opportunity of even two or
three days’ acquaintance with them, I think I should have little to
apprehend as to their behaviour on any such question as this. You will
remember, however, that I am dealing with an unknown quantity in
making up my mind as to the course I shall adopt; and that I am wholly
without adequate data to guide me in my determination.... My present
opinion is that whilst I have every wish to admit you to my general
class, it will be safest for me to submit the question to my class and
to abide by a decision of the majority.”
Apparently S. J.-B. obtained a verbal, but satisfactory, modification of
this programme by suggesting that the class should be asked “to unite
with the lecturer in inviting” the women to join them, but that was a
mere matter of detail. Everything depended on the way in which Dr.
Nicholson stated the case, and one is not surprised to hear that the
favourable reply came not from a majority, but from the entire class.
“So,” says S. J.-B., “the first ‘mixed-class’ was inaugurated and
continued throughout the summer without the slightest inconvenience.”
“The course of lectures on Zoology which I am now delivering to a
mixed class,” wrote Dr. Nicholson later in answer to a mistaken
statement in a medical paper, “is identically the same as the course
which I delivered last winter to my ordinary class of male students. I
have not hitherto emasculated my lectures in any way whatever, nor
have I the smallest intention of so doing. In so acting, I am guided
by the firm conviction that little stress is to be laid on the purity
and modesty of those who find themselves able to extract food for
improper feelings from such a purely scientific subject as Zoology,
however freely handled.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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