Hurrah for A Hundred Years

By Margaret Gillett

A hundred years ago from this writing, a group of brilliant young women had just passed the Provincial examinations that would have admitted their brothers to either McGill or Bishop's, the English-language colleges of Quebec. Two of these brilliant young women, Rosalie McLea and Octavia Grace Ritchie had scored the highest marks ever recorded on the examination and they placed first and second respectively. However, their prospects of being accepted by McGill were, to say the least, dim - even though they were eager to continue their education and their parents were supportive.

One Montreal matron (Helen Reid's mother) called them together for a council of war, advising and encouraging them to approach the Principal of McGill directly. Their problem, of course, was their gender. Brains, ability, interest, enthusiasm, aspirations had nothing to do with their rejection. Principal J. William Dawson acknowledged that he was impressed by their scholastic achievements, but he professed himself unable to permit them to enter McGill because the university was a man's world this was both unnecessary and unsuitable for ladies - even though women were already attending classes in such universities as Oxford and Cambridge and were enrolled in many American colleges.

Yet it is amazing how points of view can change and, verily, it is wonderful what money can do. Late in the summer of 1884, an unexpected benefactor, Donald A. Smith (later to be Lord Strathcona) suddenly appeared at McGill. On what impulse or at whose instigation he acted we do not really know, but the important fact of the matter is that Donald Smith offered William Dawson $50,00 for the higher education of women. Within a month of that generous offer, more than twenty women were registered in a special Department of the Faculty of Arts of McGill College and the regular McGill professors were willing to teach them. The gates were open.

Admittedly, problems remained - the question of separate or coeducation, the struggle for acceptance into medicine and the other professional faculties, the battle for equal opportunities for female academics but the crucial point is that the women were in. Rejoice!

There seem to have been five factors at work here: first, the historical moment - the time was right, for the higher education of women was an idea whose time had come in most countries of the Western world; second, there was a group of extremely able and dedicated women ready to act, to break with the old tradition of "The Lady"; third, these enterprising pioneers had the support of a network of other women, including their mothers and friends; four, they had crucial help from sympathetic men in high places; five, money was found to support their cause. All five factors came together in the fall of 1884.

Now, at the time of this writing, Canada has just installed a new Governor General, who by tradition and charter is also the Visitor of McGill. Thus, in the fall of 1984, her Excellency, the Rt. Honorable Jeanne Sauvé becomes our first woman Visitor. At this time, we also have a student body which is approximately 50% female; we have had a woman as Head of the McGill University Libraries (the equivalent in rank to a Dean); we have about 18 percent of the academic staff who are women; we have women in all ranks, from full professors with named chairs down to sessional lecturers. Still, problems remain.

A hundred years after this time of writing, dare we hope that the five factors that worked so well at the end of the 19th century will still be operative, that by then we may have had a woman Chancellor? a woman Principal? women Vice-Principals? women Deans? women as 50 percent of the academic staff equally distributed throughout the Faculties and areas of specialization with equal salaries, benefits and rates of promotion?

Whether or not these are the specific objectives to be attained in the next hundred years may be matters for some individual interpretation, but it seems clear to me that we simply must keep aspiring to new goals. We can not be satisfied with the achievements of others, no matter how great they were. It is also apparent that one of the greatest present dangers is an insidiously comfortable feeling that we really have "made it", we have arrived, the struggle is over. Foremost among the problems that still remain is this risk of complacency, for, if we do not keep actively building on the gains of the past, we will inexorably regress toward the old status quo.

Even as we heed this warning, we gladly celebrate the centenary of the major breakthrough, the admission of women to McGill; we salute the first hundred years of scholarly accomplishments; and we are ready to take on the challenges of our second century in higher education.

Margaret Gillett, who is Macdonald Professor of Education at McGill, is author of We Walked Very Warily: A History of Women at McGill (1981) and coeditor of A Fair Shake: Autobiographical by Some Women of McGill (1984).