FOOTNOTES:

So kind, so duteous, diligent,So tender over his occasions, true,So feat.)

I must be thorough—a work, not a word—a Nurse, not a book, not an answer, not a certificate, not a mechanism, a mere piece of a mechanism or Association.

At the same time, in as far as Associations really give help and pledges for progress, are not mere crutches, stereotypes for standing still, let us bid them “God speed” with our whole hearts.

We all know what “parasites” are, plants or animals which live upon others and don’t work for their own food, and so degenerate. For the work to get food is quite as necessary as the food itself for healthy active life and development.

Now, there is a danger in the air of becoming Parasites in Nursing (and also Midwifery)—of our becoming Nurses (and Midwives) by deputy, a danger now when there is so great an inclination to make school and college education, all sorts ofSciences and Arts, even Nursing and Midwifery, a book and examination business, a profession in the low, not in the high sense of the word. And the danger is that we shall be content to let the book and the theory and the words do for us. One of the most religious of men says that we let the going to Church and the clergyman do for usinstead ofthe learning and the practice, if we have the Parasite tendency, and that even the better the service and the better the sermon and the theory and the teaching, the more danger there is that we may let it do. He says that we may become satisfied to be prayed for instead of praying—to have our work for Christ done by a paid deputy—to be fed by a deputy who gives us our supply for a week—to substitute for thought what is meant as a stimulus to thought and practice. This is the parasite of the pew he says (as the literary parasite thinks he knows everything because he has a “good library”). He enjoys his weekly, perhaps his daily worship, while character and life, will and practice are not only not making progress, but are actually deteriorating.

Do you remember Tennyson’s farmer, who says of the clergyman:

I ’eärd ’um a bummin’ awaäy ... ower my ’eäd, ...An’ I thowt a said whot a owt to ’a said an’ I coom’d awaäy.

We laugh at that. But is the Parasite much better than that?

Now the Ambulance Classes, the Registration, the Certificates of Nursing and of Nurses (and of midwifery), especially any which may demand the minimum ofpractice, which maysubstituteforpersonalprogress in active proficiency, mere literary or word progress, instead of making it the material for growth in correct knowledge and practice, all such like things may tend this way.

It is not the certificate which makes the Nurse or the Midwife. It mayun-makeher. The danger is lest she let the certificate beinstead ofherself,instead ofher own never ceasing going up higher as a woman and a Nurse.

This is the “day” of Examinations in the turn that Education—Elementary, the Higher Education, Professional Education—seems taking. And it is a great step which has substituted this for what used to be called “interest.” Only let us never allow it to encroach upon what cannot be tested by examinations. Only let the “day” ofPractice, the development of each individual’s thought and practice, character and dutifulness,keep up, through the materials given us for growth and for correct knowledge, with the “day of examinations” in the Nurse’s life, which is above all a moral and practical life, a life not of show, but of faithful action.

But above all, dear comrades, let each one of us, each individual of us, not only bid “God speed” in her heart to this, our own School (or Association—call it so if you will), butstrivetospeedit with all the best that is in her, even as your “Association” and its dear heads strive to speed each one of you.

Let each one of us take the abundant and excellent food for the mind which is offered us, in our training, our classes, our lectures, our examinations and reading—not as “Parasites,” no, none of you will ever do that—but as bright and vigorous fellow-workers, working out the better way every day to the end of life.

Once more, my heartiest sympathy, my dearest love to each and to all of you,

from your ever faithful old comrade,

Florence Nightingale.

Printed byR. & R. Clark, Limited,Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES:[1]The beginning of the first address will suggest a reason for this turn of phrase. A nurse who had been through training might not always be “worthy of the name of ‘Trained Nurse’ ” (Address of 1876).[2]There is a well-known Society abroad (for charitable works) of which the Members go through a two years’ probation on their first entering, but after ten years they return and go through a second probation of one year. This is one of the most striking recognitions I know of the fact that progress is always to be made: that grown-up people, even of middle-age, ought always to have their education going on. But only thosecanlearnaftermiddle age who have gone on learning up to middle age.[3]The Madre Santa Colomba, of the Convent of the Trinità dei Monti in Rome.—Editor’s Note.[4]There is a most suggestive story told of one, some 300 years ago, an able and learned man, who presented himself for admission into a Society for Preaching and Charitable Works. He was kept for many months on this query:Are you a Christian?by his “Master of Probationers.” He took kindly and heartily to it; went with his whole soul and mind into this little momentous question, and solved it victoriously in his own course, and in his after course of usefulness for others. Am I a Christian? is most certainly the first and most important question for each one of us Nurses. Let us ask it, each of herself, every day.[5]Nightingale Nurse and Lady Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. Pioneer of Workhouse Nursing. After her early death in 1868 Miss Nightingale wrote inGood Wordsan article, “Una and the Lion,” on her life and work.—Editor’s Note.[6]Madame Caroline Werckner, an Englishwoman.—Editor’s Note.[7]Do you remember the word of one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages?The soulWhich o’er the body keeps a holy ward,Placed there by God, yielding alone to HimThe trust He gave.

[1]The beginning of the first address will suggest a reason for this turn of phrase. A nurse who had been through training might not always be “worthy of the name of ‘Trained Nurse’ ” (Address of 1876).

[2]There is a well-known Society abroad (for charitable works) of which the Members go through a two years’ probation on their first entering, but after ten years they return and go through a second probation of one year. This is one of the most striking recognitions I know of the fact that progress is always to be made: that grown-up people, even of middle-age, ought always to have their education going on. But only thosecanlearnaftermiddle age who have gone on learning up to middle age.

[3]The Madre Santa Colomba, of the Convent of the Trinità dei Monti in Rome.—Editor’s Note.

[4]There is a most suggestive story told of one, some 300 years ago, an able and learned man, who presented himself for admission into a Society for Preaching and Charitable Works. He was kept for many months on this query:Are you a Christian?by his “Master of Probationers.” He took kindly and heartily to it; went with his whole soul and mind into this little momentous question, and solved it victoriously in his own course, and in his after course of usefulness for others. Am I a Christian? is most certainly the first and most important question for each one of us Nurses. Let us ask it, each of herself, every day.

[5]Nightingale Nurse and Lady Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. Pioneer of Workhouse Nursing. After her early death in 1868 Miss Nightingale wrote inGood Wordsan article, “Una and the Lion,” on her life and work.—Editor’s Note.

[6]Madame Caroline Werckner, an Englishwoman.—Editor’s Note.

[7]Do you remember the word of one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages?The soulWhich o’er the body keeps a holy ward,Placed there by God, yielding alone to HimThe trust He gave.

[7]Do you remember the word of one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages?

The soulWhich o’er the body keeps a holy ward,Placed there by God, yielding alone to HimThe trust He gave.

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