href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49732@[email protected]#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[5] which she had just read, that she asks about the progress of our work, supposing that we have many more Unas. They wish to “organise a similar movement” in America—a “movement” of Unas—what a great thing that would be! Shall we all try to be Unas?

She ends, as I wish to end,—“Yours, in the dear name that is above every other,”

Florence Nightingale.

II

May 23, 1873.

My dear Friends,—Another year has passed over us. Nearly though not quite all of us who were here at this time last year have gone their several ways, to their several posts; some at St. Thomas’, some to Edinburgh, some to Highgate. Nearly all are, I am thankful to say, well, and I hope we may say happy. Some are gone altogether.

May this year have set us all one step farther, one year on our way to becoming “perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect,” as it ought to have done.

Some differences have been made in the School by our good Matron, who toils for us early and late—to bring us on the way, we hope, towards becoming “perfect.”

These differences—I leave it to you to say, improvements—are as you see: our new Medical Instructor having vigorously taken us in hand and giving us his invaluable teaching (1) in Medical and Surgical Nursing, (2) in the elements of Anatomy. I need not say: Let us profit.

Next, in order to give more time and leisure to less tired bodies, the Special Probationers have two afternoons in the week off duty for the course of reading which our able Medical Instructor has laid down. And the Nurse-Probationers have all one morning and one afternoon in the week to improve themselves, in which our kind Home Sister assists them by classes. And, again, I need not say how important it is to take the utmost advantage of this. Do not let the world move on and leave us in the wrong. Now that, by the law of the land, every child between five and thirteen must be at school, it will be a poor tale, indeed, in their after life for Nurses who cannot read, write, spell, and cypher well and correctly, and read aloud easily, and take notes of the temperature of cases, and the like. Only this last week, I was told by one of our own Matrons of an excellent Nurse of her own to whom she would have given a good place, only that she could neither read nor write well enough for it.

And may I tell you, not for envy, but for a generous rivalry, that you will have to work hard if you wish St. Thomas’ Training School to hold its own with other Schools rising up.

Let us be on our guard against the danger, not exactly of thinking too well of ourselves (for no one consciously does this), but of isolating ourselves, of falling into party spirit—always remembering that, if we can do any good to others, we must draw others to us by the influence of our characters, and not by any profession of what we are—least of all, by a profession of Religion.

And this, by the way, applies peculiarly to what we are with our patients. Least of all should a woman try to exercise religious influence with her patients, as it were, by a ministry, a chaplaincy. We are not chaplains. It is what she is in herself, and what comes out of herself, out of what she is—that exercise a moral or religious influence over her patients. No set form of words is of any use. And patients are so quick to see whether a Nurse is consistent always in herself—whether she is what she says to them. And if she is not, it is no use. If she is, of how much use, unawares to herself, may the simplest word of soothing, of comfort, or even of reproof—especially in the quiet night—be to the roughest patient, who is there from drink, or to the still innocent child, or to the anxious toil-worn mother or husband! But if she wishes to do this, she must keep up a sort of divine calm and high sense of duty in her own mind. Christ was alone, from time to time, in the wilderness or on mountains. If He needed this, how much more must we?

Quiet in our own rooms (and a room of your own is specially provided for each one here); a few minutes of calm thought to offer up the day to God: how indispensable it is, in this ever increasing hurry of life! When we live “so fast,” do we not require a breathing time, a moment or two daily, to think where we are going? At this time, especially, when we are laying the foundation of our after life, in reality the most important time of all.

And I am not at all saying that our patients have everything to learn from us. On the contrary, we can, many a time, learn from them, in patience, in true religious feeling and hope. One of our Sisters told me that she had often learnt more from her patients than from any one else. And I am sure I can say the same for myself. The poorest, the meanest, the humblest patient may enter into the kingdom of Heaven before the cleverest of us, or the most conceited. For, in another world, many, many of the conditions of this world must be changed. Do we think of this?

We have been, almost all of us, taught to pray in the days of our childhood. Is there not something sad and strange in our throwing this aside when most required by us, on the threshold of our active lives? Life is a shallow thing, and more especially Hospital life, without any depth of religion. For it is a matter of simple experience that the best things, the things which seem as if they most would make us feel, become the most hardening if not rightly used.

And may I say a thing from my own experience? No training is of any use, unless one can learn (1) to feel, and (2) to think out things for oneself. And if we have not true religious feeling and purpose, Hospital life—the highest of all things with these—without them becomes a mere routine and bustle, and a very hardening routine and bustle.

One of our past Probationers said: “Our work must be the first thing, but God must be in it.” “And He is not in it,” she added. But let us hope that this is not so. I am sure it was not so with her. Let us try to make it not so with any of us.

There are three things which one must have to prevent this degeneration in oneself. And let each one of us, from time to time, tell, not any one else, but herself, whether she has these less or more than when she began her training here.

One is the real, deep, religious feeling and strong, personal, motherly interest for each one of our patients. And you can see this motherly interest in girls of twenty-one—we have had Sisters of not more than that age who had it—and not see it in women of forty.

The second is a strong practical (intellectual, if you will) interest in the case, how it is going on. This is what makes the true Nurse. Otherwise the patients might as well be pieces of furniture, and we the housemaids, unless we see how interesting a thing Nursing is. This is what makes us urge you to begin to observe the very first case you see.

The third is the pleasures of administration, which, though a fine word, means only learning to manage a Ward well: to keep it fresh, clean, tidy; to keep up its good order, punctuality; to report your cases with absolute accuracy to the Surgeon or Physician, and first to report them to the Sister; and to do all that is contained in the one word, Ward-management: to keep wine-lists, diet-lists, washing-lists—that is Sister’s work—and to do all the things no less important which constitute Nurse’s work.

But it would take a whole book for me to count up these; and I am going back to the