For twenty-five years the battle was waged, and arguments advanced pro and con, of substantially the same nature as those which have already been sufficiently quoted. A circular was sent to the 1343 members of the society, asking the following question: Do you favor the admission of women to the Society on the same terms with men? To this circular, 1132 replies were received, of which 709 were in the affirmative, 400 in the negative, while 23 were indifferent. “It was thus evident that a considerable majority of the Society, seven to four of all who answered the circular, favor the admission of women.”[118] In June, 1875, a committee of five was chosen from the society to report whether duly educated women could not be admitted to membership. In October a majority reported in favor of examining for membership men and women without distinction. But the minority objected so vigorously, that the whole matter was postponed indefinitely. In 1878, another committee was appointed: in June, 1879, the members were found equally divided; the subject was referred back to the committee, who, in October of the same year, advised no action. But this time the minority reported to instruct the censors to admit women for examination. The councilors voted, 48 to 38, to adopt the minority report.[119] But the end was not yet, for in February, 1880, the censors of Suffolk County (including the city of Boston), voted that the society be advised to rescind its vote of October. This, however, was never done; but, after some further delay, the first female candidate, Dr. Emma Call, a graduate from Ann Arbor, passed a satisfactory examination and was admitted. The decisive step once taken, other women passed in readily, and 1889, ten years from the date of the conclusion of the famous controversy, a dozen women sat down to the annual banquet of the society, among whom was one invited guest from another State. The “moral tone” did not seem to be “perceptibly lowered,” on this occasion. In 1882, Dr. Chadwick published a tabulated summary of the dates at which various State societies had admitted women to membership. In 1872, Kansas, Iowa; in 1874, Vermont; in 1875, Maine, New York, Ohio; in 1876, California, Indiana; in 1878, New Hampshire; in 1879, Minnesota, Massachusetts; in 1880, Connecticut; in 1881, Pennsylvania. Rhode Island, Illinois, and Oregon also had women members, but the date of their first admission was not known. Thus seventeen societies contained, in 1882, 115 female members—that of New York alone having forty-two, much the largest of all.