d anthropology, sociology
and ethics and history--comes to the conclusion that life exists for the
development of mind. And mind is not merely intellect, but the only
gateway we know to character, to soul. The deepest students of human
science see no reason for life except as it "evolves" a perfect
mind--man's goal, his ideal. And this visioned perfect mind is one
which adjusts itself without friction to the body, making it fulfil the
laws of health that it may help and not hinder mind's progress; one
which adjusts itself to people and things, co-operating with other minds
to develop manners and customs and laws of the most satisfactory
community living; one which forces things to be servants of its will;
one which makes harmony of life by fulfilling the laws of the soul as
well as of the intellect and of the body.

If we believe that life exists for the development of mind into a force
of intellect and character and soul, then we need not ask why a nurse
should know something of the laws of mind. She does not ask why she
should know anatomy or pathology. Her work is dependent upon such
knowledge. But if the center of life, the thing which makes the body a
living, moving, acting agent instead of a clod, is mind; if the one
thing which makes a difference between animal life and mineral and
vegetable life is consciousness, _i. e._, mind; and if everything that
affects that body, its organ, affects mind also--then surely no nurse
can afford to learn only the rules of repair or of keeping in order the
instrument of consciousness, without knowing what effect her efforts
have on the mind itself. It is as though an ignorant maid accepted a
piano as merely a piece of furniture to be kept clean and shining, and
in her zeal to that end scrubbed the keyboard with soap and water which,
dripping down into the body of the instrument, swells and damages its
felts, rusts and corrodes its keys, and ruins its notes. When she knows
that she may thus make impossible the beautiful sounds she has heard it
give, and that the more carefully the keyboard is handled the more sure
is the beauty resulting, her care is to keep it as free as possible of
dust, to see that the top is down and the keyboard covered when she
sweeps--and to clean it hereafter in such a way as to never injure its
tone.

The nurse has a much greater function than merely to help in saving the
body and keeping its machinery in order. If the aim of life is the
strengthening