A few days later the following paragraph appeared in _The Advocate_:
“_The Beginning of the End._ A correspondence between the President and two lady applicants for admission to the Medical School was published some days since in the ‘Boston Advertiser.’ We understand that the friends of female education have no notion of resting satisfied with their first rebuff; and that prominent Alumni of Boston are already taking measures for the prolonged agitation of the question.”
A month later S.J.-B. had obtained introductions to each of the professors in the Medical Faculty at Harvard, and to each member of the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital and of the Eye and Ear Infirmary: as well as to many people of standing connected with these various institutions: and she now proceeded to canvass them systematically. In addition to a number of influential friends, she was ably supported by Miss Dimock.
On the whole their reception was encouraging. The individual letters, indeed, are so favourable, that the hopes of the inexperienced young applicants must have run high. The following from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes is typical of some half dozen at least:
“I should not only be willing, but I should be much pleased, to lecture to any number of ladies for whom we can find accommodation in the anatomical lecture room, always provided that any special subject which seemed not adapted for an audience of both sexes should be delivered to the male students alone.”
Dr. Brown-Séquard is even more emphatic in a letter to Dr. Holmes:
Miss Blake, who will hand you this note, wishes me to say that I am strongly in favour of the admission of persons of her sex at the Medical College. As such is my decided opinion, I write very willingly.
Very faithfully yours, C. E. BROWN-SÉQUARD.”
The corporation of Harvard, however, exerted its power to veto any such inclinations on the part of individual professors.
S. J.-B. quotes the above and a number of similar letters in the diary, and adds the comment:
There were always flashes of humour to temper the various disappointments.
“Those wise men of Gotham at the Eye and Ear think it ‘the kindest and most gentlemanly thing’ to shut us out after all!”
“Dr. A. ‘not afraid of responsibility, of course’—only—he’d rather not admit us till other people do”!