^l6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxvi 



arrange for one that session. The late demonstrator at the 

 Surgeons' Hall, who had given them most of their teaching 

 before, had undertaken to teach this separate class, but was 

 refused recognition by the University Court, on the ground 

 that they had no evidence of his qualifications, while refusing 

 to let him prove his qualification by examination. This the 

 women students understood to be an indirect means of sup- 

 pressing their aspirations ; they therefore begged Huxley 

 to examine their instructor with a view to giving him a 

 certificate which should carry weight with the University 

 Court. 



He replied: — 



Oct. 28, 1872. 



Dear Madam — While I fully sympathise with the efforts 

 made by yourself and others, to obtain for women the education 

 requisite to qualify them for medical practice, and while I think 

 that women who have the inclination and the capacity to follow 

 the profession of medicine are most unjustly dealt with if any 

 obstacles beyond those which are natural and inevitable are 

 placed in their way, I must nevertheless add, that I as com- 

 pletely sympathise with those Professors of Anatomy, Physi- 

 ology, and Obstetrics, who object to teach such subjects to 

 mixed classes of young men and women brought together with- 

 out any further evidence of moral and mental fitness for such 

 association than the payment of their fees. 



In fact, with rare exceptions, I have refused to admit women 

 to my own Lectures on Comparative Anatomy for many years 

 past. But I should not hesitate to teach anything I know to a 

 class composed of women ; and I find it hard to believe that any 

 one should really wish to prevent women from obtaining efficient 

 separate instruction, and from being admitted to Examination 

 for degrees upon the same terms as men. 



You will therefore understand that I should be most glad 

 to help you if I could — and it is with great regret that I feel 

 myself compelled to refuse your request to examine Mr. H . 



In the first place I am in the midst of my own teaching, and 

 with health not yet completely re-established I am obliged to 

 keep clear of ail unnecessary work. Secondly, such an examina- 

 tion must be practical, and I have neither dissecting-room 

 available nor the anatomical license required for human dis- 

 section ; and thirdly, it is not likely that the University authori- 

 ties would attach much weight to my report on one or two 



