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All the world pays homage to the nurse—poets, warriors, statesmen, kings, and the numberless multitudes of human sufferers....Eugene Underhill, M.D., author of “Nursing—The Heart of the Art.”

Efficient nurses are the most difficult to obtain of all aid in Red Cross work.Clara Barton.

I never claimed to be a nurse. There are hundreds of women who could nurse as well as I, if not better, than I could.

Clara Barton.

Clara Barton.

Clara Barton.

Clara Barton.

Time is the great physician.Disraeli.

Physicians mend or end us.Lord Byron.

Send for a physician;—but the sick man answered, “It is no matter for, if I die, I’ll die at leisure.”Lord Bacon.

For the woman has a friendWho will keep her to the end.Ironquill.

For the woman has a friendWho will keep her to the end.Ironquill.

For the woman has a friendWho will keep her to the end.Ironquill.

For the woman has a friend

Who will keep her to the end.Ironquill.

Was Clara Barton a nurse? Yes, and Florence Nightingale said that nursing is a fine art; and to succeed requires greater devotion than that in the art of painting or sculpture, for nursing has to do with “the living body, the temple of God’s spirit.” It’s probably the finest of the fine arts. Clara Barton did not assumethe rôle of an art-nurse; she said others could surpass her in this art.

Miss Barton in her passion for service claimed to be only a “working-woman.” Work did not undignify her; instead, she seemed to dignify work—she surely made nursing popular. Work was a part of the best religion she ever had. With her

Human hopes and human creedsHave their seat in human needs.

Human hopes and human creedsHave their seat in human needs.

Human hopes and human creedsHave their seat in human needs.

Human hopes and human creeds

Have their seat in human needs.

The day preceding the delivery of her public address she spent washing the clothes of the family and the linen of the household. Such exercise, more useful than golf and serving like purpose, strengthened the muscles, increased the blood circulation, made the brain active.

Commenting on the “wash-tub custom” her old physician said as she became so very tired after a hard day’s washing at first he used to protest, then facetiously remarked,

But her spirits always roseLike the bubbles in the clothes;

But her spirits always roseLike the bubbles in the clothes;

But her spirits always roseLike the bubbles in the clothes;

But her spirits always rose

Like the bubbles in the clothes;

and therefore he concluded that Miss Barton knew better than he did what was good for her.

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