As early as June, 1866, she had written to Dr. Sewall:—“I am glad you are pleased with prospects as to the College; but, however good you may get it to be, take notice (if I study at all) I don’t mean to graduate at any Woman’s College,—on principle,—or else for vanity and ambition sake,—which is it?” Whichever it was, there can be no doubt as to the soundness of the decision, but she little guessed what that decision was to cost.
Why should not women be admitted to Harvard?
In April, 1867, the following correspondence was published in _The Boston Daily Advertiser_:
Finding it impossible to obtain elsewhere in New England a thoroughly competent medical education, we hereby request permission to enter the Harvard Medical School on the same terms and under the same conditions as other students, there being, as we understand, no university statute to the contrary.
On applying for tickets for the course, we were informed by the Dean of the Medical Faculty that he and his coadjutors were unable to grant them to us in consequence of some previous action taken by the corporation, to whom now therefore we make request to remove any such existing disability. In full faith in the words recently spoken with reference to the University of Harvard,—‘American colleges are not cloisters for the education of a few persons, but seats of learning whose hospitable doors should be always open to every seeker after knowledge’—we place our petition in your hands and subscribe ourselves,
Your obedient servants, SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE. SUSAN DIMOCK.[44]
To the President and Fellows of the University of Harvard.”
Miss Susan Dimock was a student of great promise who afterwards completed her education at Zurich. She was lost at sea in the wreck of the steamer _Schiller_ in May 1875.
After consultation with the faculty of the Medical College, the corporation direct me to inform you and Miss Dimock that there is no provision for the education of women in any department of this university.
Neither the corporation nor the faculty wish to express any opinion as to the right or expediency of the medical education of women, but simply to state the fact that in our school no provision for that purpose has been made, or is at present contemplated.