The Convocation of the University of London came on Tues-
day, by a majority of 83 against 65, to an important decision, — that the degrees of the University ought to be thrown open to -women. The debate has hardly been more than mentioned in the papers, but the discussion turned, first, on the physical capa- city of women for entering the field with men, and next, on the difference between the true ideal of a woman's education and the true ideal of a man's. Dr. Quoin was lively in the old vein of jocose allusion to women's physical liabilities, and Dr. Silicon was eloquent on the danger to their health of raising too hastily the intellectual standard at which women should be encou- raged to aim ; but to the former class of reflections, it was sufficient to reply that already women, in spite of their physical liabilities, are allowed to take all the night-nursing, —by far the most exhausting of medical duties,—and to the latter, that it is quite competent to the University to fix a much higher minimum age for women before they can be admitted to the examinations, than is fixed for men. We can only hope that the governing body of the University may be willing to carry out soon the policy thus approved by• Convocation. But there is plenty of room for doubt. Medical science is just now in a state of very sensitive Conservatism, and medical science is very strongly represented on the Senate of the University of London. In Con- vocation, the majority of medical degrees was certainly against the proposal.
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