The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-05
MEDICINE AND MERCHANDISE.


1t appears that the question of medical
education for women, after exciting the
faculty of Edinburgh almost much as it
did the faculty of Philadelphia, has been
finally settled by decision of the corporation
of the former university, that although women
may imbibe instruction they cannot take
prizes. 1t is, according to the faculty, an
admissible thing that women should con-
tribute to the support of their institution, but
a grievous and intolerable thing that they
should profit by its endowments, and upon
this logical ground a scholarship has been re-
fused to a woman who is admitted to have
won it fairly. This decision is doubtless
satisfactory to the male students, who would
otherwise be in danger of seeing members
of an inferior sex taking prizes away
from them, and particularly to
devolVes by default the prize which woman
had won. But it is scarcely in accordance
with a1ybody's notion of justice, and the ad-
vocates of it seem to have felt the need of
an authority which should outweigh reason,
when they invoked upon the discussion the
declaration of her Majesty Queen Victoria
"that she greatly disapproved of women
studying medicine" BY way of enforcing
this august opinion the faculty decided by
one vote not to prohibit women from the
study of medicine in the university, which
would involve the loss of the fees derived
from women, but only to prohibit women
from receiving the prizes which proficiency
in that study might entitls them to. Which
is frugal and "canny," whether or no it be
very high-minded procedure on the part Of
the faculty of Edinburgh.
The same mail which brought us this news
brought US also an account, published in
Sundays World, of the adventures of an
American woman in China. This heroic
female person has penetrated the secular
secrets of Cathay, and at the date of her
letter was comfortably sojourning in the town
of Chefoo, engaged in what has hitherto been
considered the exclusively masculine function
of buying tea, rather than the chiefly femi-
nine function of imbibing it. Whether the
aspect of this American lady, who has ira
Versed the flowery Kingdom not only with
out molestation, but, according to her own
| account, with great profit and satisfaction, is
as alluring to the Chinese as that of the ven-
| turesome virgin who traditionally traversed
the Emerald Isle was to the Hibernian eye,
we have no means of knowing, any more
! than we have whether 'rich and rare were
the gems she wore," or whether she preferred
to carry her valuables in the shape of the un-
obtrusiye bill of exchange. In either case
she is there buying tea, and fearing not the
face of man, and it is to be hoped she may
prosper And we are not aware that before
setting out she wished the advice of any
male person or set OF male persons as TO the
propriety of the course she was about to
pursue.
The moral to be drawn from a comparison
of these two cases is that the sphere OF
women is to be ascertained not by argument
but by trial The Scottish women ask the
acquience of the faculty in their studying
medicine. The American woman does moi
ask the acquiescence of anybody in her buy
ing tea. When the pupil of Squeers had at
tanned theoretical knowledge of plaats ou'
of books, that prudent pedagogue sent him
Squeers himself condescendei to explain, she
goes ana knows en-" When Miss King ha'
settled in her own mind the probable prohta
bleness of buying tea, she goes and buys it
When, on the other hand, young womeI
yearn to know medicine, they write article
in newspapers and deliver lectures upon plat
forms, and berate hidebound institutions o