After the gift of the Women’s Medical School Fund, the Trustees
were to find the additional money needed to complete the endowment, estimated
at $221,219.58 at the time of the contribution. The women gave them until
February 1, 1892 to obtain this amount before they would withdraw their
subscriptions.1 However, by December these funds had not been raised,
and the estimated sum had been increased to $306,977.
On December 22, Mary Elizabeth wrote to the Board of Trustees announcing
her intention to complete the Medical School Endowment. On Christmas
Eve, the Trustees gathered at the home of C. J. M. Gwinn and voted to
accept her offer. Her gift, to the chagrin of some at Johns Hopkins,
included more stringent conditions than the original gift of the Women’s
Medical Fund.
Over the following six weeks, intense negotiations over the terms of
Garrett’s gift ensued. In addition
to reiterating the importance of admitting women on the same terms as
men, Mary Elizabeth Garrett set further conditions to ensure that the
Medical School would be only a graduate school and that it would observe
high admission standards. She declared that “all the instructions
given in the School shall pre-suppose the knowledge at present required
for matriculation in your University and the knowledge imparted in the
Preliminary Medical Course.”2 She also designed “a committee
of six women, to whom the women studying in the Medical School may apply
for advice . . . and that all questions concerning the personal character
of women . . . shall be referred to this Committee.”3 Her final
stipulation warned the Board that “in the event of any violation
of any or all of the aforesaid stipulations, the said sum of $306,977
shall revert to [her].”4
Negotiations
Mary Elizabeth Garrett was not the only person concerned with the state
of medical education. Rather, the faculty and Trustees had also expressed
their desire to make Hopkins an American example of the excellent European
medical education. However, when presented with the obligation to practice
these ideas, some of the faculty balked. According to Dr. Welch, Garrett
had assumed that the idea expressed about improving medical education
was exactly what we wanted. It is one thing to build an educational castle
in the air at your library table, and another to face its actual
appearance under the existing circumstance. We were alarmed, and wondered
if any students would come or could meet the conditions...5
In fact, William Osler once commented to William Welch that they were
lucky to be professors, for they surely could not be admitted as students.6
Gilman was concerned not only that few students would meet Garrett’s
qualifications, but that the Trustees would be bound to adhere to the
current curriculum of the college’s preliminary medical program
and unable to effect changes as the medical sciences advanced. In his
letter, he pointed out that “the phrases ‘Chemical-Biological,’ ‘Group
iii’ and ‘Preliminary Medical’ employed in our Register
are not elsewhere in vogue, [so] they may not be generally understood."7
Furthermore, Gilman argued that the matriculation examinations and course
of studies
prescribed in 1892 were likely to change as knowledge and educational
methods improved. It was therefore important that the terms of Garrett’s
gift not restrict future Trustees from making adjustments. Gilman worried
that “by the phraseology now employed [the Trustees] may be exposed
to embarrassing controversies, if not to annoying litigation, in the
future."8
Despite his concerns, William Welch wrote in support of the strict admission
requirements. He made the case that we can take the lead in a great reform
of medical education, not only in this country but in others, by insisting
upon this thorough preliminary training in certain natural and physical
sciences which lie at the foundation of medical science. The number of
students will not be large at first, if we insist upon this training,
but in the end I think this policy will greatly increase not only the
reputation, but the prosperity of the medical school . . . As
we shall hardly be supplied during our first year or two with the full
equipment in buildings and teaching staff which we shall soon require,
it will not be disadvantageous to being with a small number of students.9
The issue, then, became the
clarification of language used in the terms of Garrett’s gift.
The Trustees commissioned Welch to ask Garrett to modify her standards,
which she refused to do.
In response to the fears expressed by the Hopkins faculty, Garrett wrote
them a letter explaining the reasons for defining the admissions requirements
as she had. She explained that she specified the Chemical-Biological
course because she had reason to suppose, from its frequent publication
during
the past
eleven years in the University circulars that it met with the entire
approval of your Board and the Faculty of the university. It also recommended
itself to my judgment because upon examination I found the standard thus
set by you was closely
analogous to that created in foreign Universities most distinguished
for advanced systems of medical education.10
Thus Garrett held the Trustees accountable for their own vows to model
the school on the best foreign universities. She goes on to assuage their
concerns about autonomy, asserting that “No attempt has been made
in my letter to confine you for all time to the matriculation requirements
and the preliminary medical course now indicated in your register. By
that letter you were on the contrary, expressly left at liberty to change
those requirements from time to time."11 Garrett
refused to relent on her high standards, ending the letter by commanding
that “the
proficiency now required in modern languages other than English and in
the purely natural sciences that form part of a liberal education shall
not be lessened."12
After this clarification, Welch wrote a draft of the requirements for
admission to the Medical School, which were adopted by the Medical Faculty
on 4 February 1893. These
were sent to Garrett for her approval. The legalistic nature of her response
suggests that she was counseled, probably by C. J. M. Gwinn, and that
neither she nor the Trustees were willing to leave the interpretation
of her conditions to chance. She expressed her consent for the draft,
on the condition that the term “approved” (as in “requirements
approved by the Medical Faculty”) be understood as “those
colleges or scientific schools only whose requirements for matriculation
and whose requirements for graduation, taken together, shall be held
by the university to be equivalent in standard and in general training
to the requirements for its BA degree”13
By this time, tensions must have been high. Gilman wrote two days later
to C. Morton Stewart that [t]he affair seems to me so entangled that
the only relief will be in a distant recognition by all parties of this
fundamental principle, namely: The univ. reserves to itself the exclusive
right to determine on what conditions
students may be admitted, discharged, & graduated. I do not know
any institution of good standing in which this principle is not established.14
Others must also have felt this hesitancy. Both the Medical Faculty
and Academic Council resolved that “this university should reserve
to itself the exclusive right to determine on what conditions students
shall be admitted to or graduated in . . . and the right to change these
conditions from time to time."15
On 15 February, Garrett sent another letter, further modifying the terms
of her gift. The modifications emphasized that the terms of her gift
would not interfere with the operation of the University. She granted
the right to the University “to make such changes in the requirements
for admission . . . or to accept such equivalents . . . as shall not
lower the standard of admission.”16 An additional paragraph was added,
stating that “it will be observed that by the tenor of these terms
no university course will be in any way modified by any conditions attached
to my gift.”17
The close familial and social connections between the women and the
Board of Trustees are evidenced again by Garrett’s signature on
this letter. Rather than actually signing it, she sent a telegram to
C. J. M. Gwinn, essentially authorizing him to sign a letter to himself.18
Finally, on 20 February, Garrett signed the Requirements for Admission.
She struck only the word “now,” and signed “the aforegoing
statement and terms are fully approved by me, Mary E. Garrett. Feb. 20,
1893. 9:30 am.” Gwinn also signed as witness.19
It is interesting to note that the question of admitting women was not
discussed during the negotiations. Participants seem to have accepted
the prior decision in regard to the Women’s Medical Fund gift,
and did not try to challenge it again.
Terms Of Miss Garrett's Gift. The Johns Hopkins Medical School Announcement
for 1893-94. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1894. Page
one, page
two, page three.
Medical Education