Your University Intelligence of October 29 contains a report of what I said on the previous day in Congregation in support of my amendment requiring women to pass Greek and Latin responsions if they are to be admitted by the proposed statute to medical examinations in Oxford. But the report is necessarily brief, and will, I fear, convey to your many readers an imperfect impression on a most important point. I concluded my remarks by saying that, even if the amendment were carried, I should still oppose the statute as wrong in principle. But your report puts this fundamental objection as if I only meant that the statute would make women medical practitioners. This, however, is not at all the main point. I added emphatically that the statute would induce young women to study medicine in Oxford together with young men; and this is the main point. This was also the main point of a pamphlet which I issued to members of Congregation before the promulgation of the statute last term. It is not only unnecessary,' I concluded, but positively improper to initiate, educate, or examine young women in the essentially delicate subject of disease and medicine, surrounded by young men in a university of men.' The late Canon Liddon wrote me a letter on the subject, which will carry more weight than any words of mine. I hope you will give me this opportunity of quoting it: 'MY DEAR PROfessor, 'Pray let me thank you for your note and for your pam' phlet. The latter I have read with entire sympathy and, if 'you will allow me to say so, with admiration for its clearness ' and its courage. I say courage", because in the present state of opinion on such subjects a man may think twice 'before he ventures to suggest that a woman is not fitted to 'do, or to be, anything whatever. Your remarks on the 'moral bearings of the proposal ought to command the atten 'tion of those who know that morals may be seriously im'perilled without the occurrence of a social catastrophe. I have to be in London on Monday night and Tuesday 'morning; if it should be at all possible, I should hope to come and give my vote, but I fear I cannot be very sanguine ' about this. 'Let me once more thank you and remain, 'Professor Case.' 'Yours very truly, 'H. P. LIDDON. I refuse to believe that anybody who is acquainted with the delicate details of medical study, or has even read the regulations of the Board of the Faculty of Medicine, or has glanced at the examination papers, could for a moment contend that it is right for young men and women to study medicine together. But I have lately ascertained that the supporters of the statute had made up their minds that the acceptance of the statute would in no way facilitate the instruction of women in medical subjects in Oxford. Well, Sir, the answer to this surprising opinion is that there is no statute whatever to prevent the Regius Professor of Medicine from admitting women to his lectures. He has a statutable right to admit them, as other professors have, and usually do admit them. I do not say that the present professor does, or will, admit them. That is not the point; the statutes permit him and his successors to admit them. I do not say that there are women studying medicine here at this moment. If not, it is only because at this moment women have not yet the stimulus of the medical examinations. But if the proposed statute be carried, admitting women to medical examinations, the one thing wanted to make them study medicine here will be supplied by the statute itself. When the proposed statute shall have been added to the existing statutes about professors, it is easy to see what will, not perhaps always, but frequently, happen, in strict accordance with the statutes, old and new. Women studying medicine will have to come up to Oxford for the preliminary examinations required of all candidates in the first examination for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine—that is, for the preliminary examinations in mechanics and physics, in chemistry, in animal morphology, and in botany. As candidates for Oxford examinations usually find it best to study for them in Oxford lectures, women studying medicine will frequently come to Oxford to study for all those preliminary examinations. Meanwhile, they will at the same time be studying in Oxford for the first examination for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine, somewhat in the manner authoritatively recommended in the paper entitled Teaching, Examinations, and Degrees in Medicine at Oxford', at the Clarendon Press. Naturally, being in Oxford for the purpose of studying medicine and its preliminaries, these women will ask the Regius Professor of Medicine to admit them to his lectures. He has a statutable right to admit them; he would be acting on a number of precedents of professors of other subjects; if he refused, he would be an object of odium to women and their advocates. The proposed statute, then, for admitting women to medical examinations in Oxford is the one thing necessary not only to facilitate, but to produce, the study of medicine by women in Oxford. I challenge the supporters of the statute to disprove this conclusion; not by referring to the intentions of any individuals (for, as Aristotle says, 'intentions are obscure',) but by proving, if they can, that the Regius Professor of Medicine has not a statutable right to admit women to his lectures. I am writing to you, Sir, on a topic which extends far beyond residents in Oxford, which has been already discussed in the Press, and which affects the parents of young men, and, I may add, of young women. At present a high moral tone prevails in the University. It would therefore be a matter of profound regret to Oxford and to English parents if, to use the expression of Canon Liddon, morals were seriously imperilled, as they certainly would be if there were young women living with other young women in Oxford, and studying, for medical examinations, the structures and the functions, the diseases and the cures, of the most secret organs of the human frame together with young men in a University of men. What a different picture of a woman Cowper presents to us! Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade, Apt emblem of a virtuous maid— Silent and chaste she steals along, Far from the world's gay busy throng.' Oxford. FROM The Times, NOVEMBER 15, 1890. In my letter to you (The Times, November 6) I said nothing about the thin end of the wedge'. The point I urged was, not that the proposed statute to admit women to medical examinations would lead to a future statute to admit them to medical lectures in Oxford, but that, without any further statute, the proposed statute would of itself encourage them to ask the Regius Professor of Medicine to admit them to his lectures, because he has already a statutable right to admit them. In his letter to you (The Times, November 10) the Regius Professor does not deny his statutable right. He ignores the point. Nevertheless, he argues that the proposed statute would merely admit women to medical examinations. Under what conditions', he says, 'is not stated. These have to be discussed hereafter.' In this argument he confuses himself with the University. The conditions are the existing statutes of the University. It is true that he would have to decide whether he would exercise his statutable right to admit women to his lectures. But the University would have to pass no further statute to give him the right, because he has it already. By existing statutes, and by general precedent, he could admit women as a matter of course. So far from requiring a further statute to allow, it would require a special disabling statute to prevent him. Moreover, his own letter is a proof that he does not think it wrong to admit them. 'Personally,' he says, 'I do not share Mr. Case's terror at their studying here.' His references also to our general and our infectious hospitals, hospital for the insane, workhouse infirmary, district nurses tending the homes of the poor, dispensary officers, and sanitary engineer', show how far he would extend the medical instruction of young women in the University and city of Oxford. This is direct information to the University that, if Congregation and Convocation pass the proposed statute to admit women to medical examinations, which needs no further statute to admit them to medical studies in Oxford, the Regius Professor of Medicine, having already a statutable right to admit them to his lectures, would also think it right to admit them to the best of his power. It is therefore a foregone conclusion that, if the proposed statute be carried, women will be encouraged to study for medical examinations in Oxford by the statute, and will not be discouraged by the Regius Professor of Medicine. Great part of his letter is a disquisition on the intellectual education of women. Supposing', he says, 'that women did study medicine here with men, what are the studies which they should be encouraged to pursue?' A wise general education, physics and chemistry in application of biology, general anatomy and physiology, and, to some extent, psychology, ethnology, and geography-such |