The Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, started as a single-bed clinic, by Dr. Ida Sophia Scudder who served as a missionary for 50 years. Today, it is one of the top-ranked educational, healthcare and research institutes in the country.
The first class of 14 women—taught by Dr. Ida and a few of her associates, with only one microscope, one skeleton, and few textbooks—faced regional end-of-first-year examinations along with men from established government-run medical schools. Dr. Ida tried to encourage the girls:
“All anybody can expect of you is to do your best.”
The girls were not deceived. “Best” to Dr. Ida meant nothing short of 90 percent. They huddled on the long, hard seats staring at each other in terrified silence…Examinations according to the British system were matters of educational life or death.
Ida, herself one of the examiners, met Colonel Bryson in the hall…
“Ah, Dr. Scudder! So you’ve brought up your first class for examination?”“Yes.” Ida smiled at him brightly.
From Dr. Ida, The inspiring story of Dr. Ida Scudder, fifty years a medical missionary in India bu Dorothy Clarke Wilson.
His face clouded with sympathetic concern. “My dear doctor, please don’t be discouraged if none of your students makes the grade this first time.”
“None of them?” echoed Ida bleakly.
“”It wouldn’t be surprising…only a small percentage of men pass it. Naturally we couldn’t expect too much of such a young project, especially all women. But they can always try again. Promise me you won’t give up, whatever happens.”
“I promise,” said Ida. She went on, head held high but heart sinking to the region of her shoes.
The grim days passed. Huddled in a tight, silent group in the mission bungalow in Madras where they were housed, the girls waited to hear the results. Lists from various men’s college were posted and read with dismay. Only about 20 percent—one in five—was passing!
“And we’re only women!” wailed one of the fourteen in anguish.
In a note from the considerate Colonel Bryson, Ida learned the results before they were posted. The distance from college to mission bungalow seemed interminable. She wished it were a tennis court or a racetrack so she could run at top speed and still be considered proper. But she reached it finally, stood in the doorway of the room where they were waiting. They read the answer in her radiant face.
“Lambs!” She held out her arms to them. “You did it! Passed. Every single one of you. And four of you in the first class. And—can you believe it? This places our school at the head of all the medical schools in the presidency!” …
The next time she met Colonel Bryson, he shook his head. “I’m afraid, Doctor,” he said sheepishly, “that your girls are setting too high a standard for our men to live up to.”
Ida only smiled.
I’ve read a couple of Wilson’s other books–I’d like to own every one of them.