NURSES WIN DIPLOMAS.
In spotless white and amid a bower of flowers, 16 pretty young women were handed their diplomas yesterday as graduates of the University Hospital School for Nurses by the Dean, Prof. R. Dorsey Coale. There were 17 nurses to graduate this year, but one of them, Miss Catherine M. Dukes, is seriously ill and could not attend.
After the conferring of degrees Dr. Arthur M. Shipley gave the young nurses advice as to their future. The opening prayer was delivered by Rev. Edwin B. Niver, rector of Christ Protestant Episcopal Church, and benediction was pronounced by Rev. Dr. Hemsley, of Oakland, Md.
The hall of the University was crowded with friends and relatives of the graduates. It was decorated with carnations and potted palms, and around the pillars was twined black and red bunting, the University colors. The nurses, preceded by Professor Coale and Dr. Shipley, entered the hall in pairs, carrying bouquets of Marguerites.
Dr. Shipley said that much of the nurses' training had been under his supervision, and he felt a personal interest in them. Women, he said, invariably scared him, but someone informed the physician that was not always so, for Dr. Shipley is to become a benedict today.
“You have chosen a work that is second to none in the world,” said Dr. Shipley. “You have before you possibilities that are almost limitless. You are on the threshold of a life that is to be of your own making, for the chief danger of the individual nurse is drifting. It is so easy to forget the old-time standards and call them old-fashioned. Old-fashioned they may be, but they have stood the test of generations of correct living and thinking.”
At night the graduates were given a farewell reception and dance by the undergraduates.