36 
Susan  Hay  hurst. 
J  Am.  Jour.  Phartn. 
1    Jamiivry,  1911. 
in  various  country  schools — an  important  and  interesting  portion  of 
her  life,  as  much  of  her  time  was  spent  with  a  class  of  people  inter- 
ested in  the  stirring  events  of  that  day,  and  many  of  them  not  lack- 
ing in  intellectual  culture.  At  one  time  she  was  a  frequent  compan- 
ion of  a  skilled  botanist,  and  together  they  became  acquainted  with 
the  wild  flowers  of  field  and  forest  and  meadow. 
When  her  parents  moved  to  Philadelphia,  amongst  her  new  ac- 
quaintances she  found,  in  one  of  the  professors  of  the  Woman's 
Medical  College,  a  very  superior  teacher  of  chemistry.  To  avail 
herself  of  Dr.  Johnson's  instruction,  she  entered  the  college  for  that 
and  physiology,  thinking  to  better  qualify  herself  for  teaching  these 
branches.  After  some  months'  study,  becoming  deeply  interested, 
she  decided  to  take  the  entire  medical  course.  To  do  this  it  was 
necessary  to  teach  in  the  summer  while  attending  lectures  in  the 
winter.  Again  she  went  to  the  country,  where  she  found  liberal- 
minded  people  and  a  devoted  botanist.  There  she  and  her  medical 
books  were  curiosities. 
The  last  year  of  her  course  at  college  she  was  induced  to  take 
charge  of  the  Friends'  School  at  Fourth  and  Green  Streets,  Phila- 
delphia, and  was  principal  of  that  school  when  she  graduated  in 
medicine  in  1857. 
That  graduation  day  would  contrast  greatly  with  one  from  the 
same  college  at  this  time.  The  medical  woman  of  to-day  knows 
little  of  the  social  ostracism  that  attended  the  pioneers  in  this  pro- 
fession. Now  unnoticed  in  the  crowd,  or  respected  and  even  hon- 
ored whenever  they  come  to  the  front ;  in  past  days,  even  on  the 
street,  they  were  subject  to  indignities  from  their  fellow  students 
of  other  medical  colleges.  The  commencement  (numbering  ten  can- 
didates) was  a  quiet  affair,  with  a  few  friends  who  were  brave  enough 
to  stand  by  those,  who,  better  than  they  then  knew,  "  were  paving 
the  way  for  liberal  education."  On  this  occasion.  Prof.  C.  D. 
Cleveland,  the  writer  on  English  Literature,  then  president  of  the 
college,  came  forward  and  stated  that  he  had  sought  in  vain  in 
this  city  for  a  reverend  who  would  take  part  in  the  services,  and 
then  himself — a  layman — asked  the  Divine  blessing  on  these  young 
women  who  were  about  to  enter  an  almost  untried  field. 
Dr.  Hayhurst  still  continued  ten  years  at  Fourth  and  Green 
Streets,  then  opened  a  school  of  her  own  with  a  class  of  fifty,  many 
of  whom  had  been  her  former  pupils. 
