The Pioneer Who Paved the Way to Higher Studies for Girls

Did the University of Edinburgh know what the hand of destiny had hidden in store for it when the feet of Sophia Jex-Blake crossed its threshold — the young woman who opened the road to higher studies for the daughters of her sex? Sophia applied for admission to the university to study medicine, having previously knocked at the doors of the University of London; at that time girls were not permitted to study medicine. One of the professors of Cambridge University wrote to her, saying that a stretch of time would have to pass before girls were allowed to obtain medical degrees from that university. So this ambitious young woman looked toward Edinburgh, and set her face toward that metropolis, hoping she might succeed in her endeavor and open the road for the many girls who wished to pursue their higher studies and enter the universities.

How often her contemporaries saw her press on with her asking and knock at every door. She would meet the professors one by one, and send in applications one after another. Yet all her attempts ended in failure, and everywhere she met opposition and refusal. In the end, however, she was permitted to attend the lectures at the University of Edinburgh. She said to herself: this is the beginning of good things. But her admission to the university did not sit well in the eyes of the students, who raised a protest to the university senate demanding that women not be allowed to enter the university. The senate, however, managed to arrive at a temporary compromise, permitting this young woman, by way of exception, to attend the lectures.

After a period of time, applications arrived from other girls seeking admission to the university. After correspondence and petitions, five girls were allowed to enter the university, having passed the matriculation examination. One of the girls earned a scholarship for her excellence in chemistry, but the regulations did not allow the scholarship to be given to a girl, so it was given to the man who came after her in rank. When people learned of this injustice they protested and raised an uproar, which compelled the university senate to take a decision forbidding the women students who had been admitted to the university from enjoying all the rights that men had.

After efforts were made, the university accepted the girls as auditors in the lecture halls. But the intractable problem lay in permitting the girls to train in the hospitals, for the students opposed the girls' working in the hospitals, and their very presence in the university's halls was an occasion for laughter and mockery. The students' campaign against them grew fiercer, but public opinion was on their side. The crowds massed before the gates of the university, crying: It is a disgrace to deprive these girls of continuing their higher studies! And the girls made their way through amid the cheering and enthusiasm of the crowds; Sophia was always in the vanguard, the pioneer in this field, and the leader of this women's movement demanding that higher study be made easy for women.

The girls entered the lecture rooms by force, and the protests of the students rose until the lecturer's words could scarcely be heard. At the end of the lecture, some policemen came to escort the women students to their homes for fear they might be assaulted. Thus the atmosphere grew tense and the situation critical in the city of Edinburgh. Yet in spite of all this, you would see Sophia keeping vigil with resolve, overcoming every difficulty. She meant to be a doctor whatever the circumstances, and she wished to open the road for the rest of the women students. Letters poured in upon the university administration from every quarter, their writers asking that women medical students be allowed to enter the hospitals. Contributions came from all over the United Kingdom to strengthen this idea, and letters of encouragement multiplied, sent from every direction.

As for the university officials, they began to tighten the noose around the women's movement, with the intent of killing the movement in its cradle. But Sophia, the leader of this movement, did not soften, nor did difficulties and obstacles turn her back from realizing her hopes. It appears that people did not know the secret of Sophia's greatness, for the key to her success lay in carrying out the will of God. She never once doubted that her calling was from God. And so, after three years of continuous struggle, the British Parliament passed a law permitting twenty universities to accept women students for university studies. This decision came as the fulfillment of Sophia's hopes, for we hear, after the passage of fifteen years, that she obtained her medical degree and was appointed a member of the senate of the University of Edinburgh.

Sophia went on working as a physician and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh for twenty-one years, until she retired from service and went to the county of Sussex to spend the last of her days in her country house. Death overtook her at the age of seventy-two. When she died, one of the famous magazines wrote: Sophia Jex-Blake is the young woman who forced the universities to open their doors to women medical students. She is an example of the person who never loses faith or lets her resolve weaken; she went on striving and struggling until her hope was realized and her efforts were crowned with success and prosperity.

And we, in our Arab East, stand in want of the likes of these pioneering young women, who can open the closed paths before the Arab woman, paving the way to win her her full rights and to place her on a footing of equality with man.