SOMERVILLE HALL. um THE EDITOR Or THE! " SPECTATOR."3 SIR,—MisO
Cobbe has vigorously attacked the Council of Somerville Hall in your columns. Our reply to that attack she has consigned to the columns of a future number of the Zoophilist. I must therefore ask you to be good enough to publish the enclosed letter, which was sent to her on December 4th. It will, I hope, be sufficient to show the wholly un-
founded nature of the charge which she has made. I will only add that in the Museum laboratories, which are, by the
courtesy of the Professors, opened to all female students, whether belonging to Somerville Hall or not, no vivisection is allowed, nor are those students brought into any sort of contact with it, either in lectures or in practical work.—I am, Sir, Ste., Oxford, December 29th, 1890. HENRY PELHAM.
[COPT or LETTER.]
"DEAR MADAN,—As Chairman of the General Meeting of Members of Somerville Hall, held to-day at the Hall, I have been requested by the Council to inform you at once of what took place.
"Your letter protesting against the election of Mrs. Burden Sanderson to the Council was road to the Council, and was carefully considered. The Council were of opinion that the facts of the case were not fully in your possession when you wrote. They are as anxious as you can be that Somerville Hall should adhere to a
strictly neutral attitude 'on the question of vivisection (a question on which I believe that opinions are divided in the Council itself). They are no less anxious to avoid giving unnecessary pain or annoyance to those who, like yourself, are ad and tried friends of female education generally, and of Somerville Hall in particular.
"But they cannot imagine that the election of Mrs. Burden Sanderson can by any possibility be interpreted as indicating any change of attitude on the part of the Council, or any new departure in the methods of study pursued by students at the Hall. "They would respectfully ask you to bear in mind,—
" (1.) That for several years past, those female students who take up physiology, whether belonging to Somerville or to Lady Margaret Hall, or resident elsewhere in Oxford, have, under arrangements made by the Central Association, been able to use the Physiological Laboratory at the Museum. These arrangements have worked well in the opinion of anti-vivisectionists and others. Though not made by our Council, they have been im- plicitly sanctioned by them, and have been set forth year after year in the Annual Reports without eliciting any unfavourable comment. No change in them is contemplated, nor could a change be made by any authority but that of the Central Association.
"(2.) 'Vivisectional demonstrations' are absolutely prohibited by.the regulations of the University, in the case of male as well as female students, and vivisection has no place whatever in the teaching and work of the Physiological Laboratory.
"(3.) Mrs. Burden Sanderson will not, as a member of the Council, have any share in the organisation and direction of the studies pursued by the students. "(4.) She was selected for the vacant seat, as for many other posts in Oxford, as a lady possessing capacity for business, a strong interest in female education, and, lastly, leisure. It seems equally unreasonable to assume that she would endeavour to create a bias in favour of vivisection, or that she could do so if she would. "In brief, the Council decided to adhere to their proposal, in the conviction that no one knowing the facts stated above, could pos- sibly misinterpret their action, and that no amount of ingenuity could succeed in establishing any connection, direct or indirect, between this election and the views of the Council as a whole, or of its individual members, on the desirability of vivisection, or
justify any inferences as to a change of policy in the conduct of' the Hall.
"I earnestly hope that this statement may allay the apprehen- sions which you have felt, and which we all heartily acknowledge, to be due only to your conscientious abhorrence of a .practice, which you are not alone in denouncing.—I am, yours faithfully,
"HENRY PELHAM."
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