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be admitted,--because that very qualification shows that they do not understand the business of nursing: that everything that can be as well done by men should be done by trained orderlies: that convalescents should, generally speaking, be attended on by men,--and if not, that each female nurse of convalescents should have a hundred or so in her charge, whereas of the graver cases forty or fifty are as many as one nurse can manage, with any amount of help from orderlies. These proposals give some idea of what is contemplated with regard to the ordinary nurses in a General Military Hospital. The superintendent of the nurses in each institution must be a woman of high quality and large experience. And she will show her good sense, in the first place, by insisting on a precise definition of her province, that there maybe no avoidable ill-will on the part of the medical officers, and no cause of contention with the captain of service, or whatever the administrator of the interior may be called. She must have a decisive voice in the choice of her nurses; and she will choose them for their qualifications as nurses only, after being satisfied as to their character, health, and temper.
No good nurse can endure any fuss about her work and her merits. Enthusiasts and devotees find immediately that they are altogether out of place in a hospital,--or, as we may now say, they would find this, if they were ever to enter a hospital: for, in fact, they never now arrive there. The preparation brings them to a knowledge of themselves; and the two sorts of women who really and permanently become nurses are those who desire to make a living by a useful and valued and well-paid occupation, and those who benevolently desire to save life and mitigate suffering, with such a temper of sobriety and moderation as causes them to endure hardship and ill-usage with firmness, and to dislike praise and celebrity at least as much as hostility and evil construction. The best nurses are foremost in perceiving the absurdity and disagreeable