A very odd and very gross injustice appears to have
been attempted in the University of Edinburgh. In that University the medical lady students are taught in a separate class,—not from any wish of their own, but through the delicacy of the professors. In the chemical class, Miss Edith Pechey gained the third place, and was first of the first year's students, the two men who sur- passed her having attended the class before. The four students who got the highest marks receive four Hope scholarships,— scholarships founded by Dr. Hope some years ago out of the proceeds of a very popular ladies' class of chemistry, with the success of which he had been much gratified. Yet Miss Edith Pechey was held by the professor not to be entitled to the third scholarship, and omitting her name, he included two men whom she had beaten, and who stood fourth and fifth in the examination ; his excuse being that the women are not part of the University class, because they are separately taught. Yet Dr. Crum Brown awards Miss Pechey a bronze medal to which only members of the University class are said to be entitled! It is quite clear that such a decision cannot stand. To make the women attend a separate class, for which they have to pay, we believe, much higher fees than usual, and then argue that they are out of the pale of competition because they do so, is, indeed, too like the conduct of the captious schoolmaster, who first sent a boy into the corner and then whipped him for not being in his seat.
Previous page
