have a great effect upon her character.

A girl must be twenty, in some hospitals twenty-five, years of age before
she is accepted by a training school of good standing. If she prefers to
enter a school connected with a children's hospital, she may be accepted
when she is twenty. The work of a nurse calls for physical strength and
endurance, and it has been found that girls under twenty or even under
twenty-five are not strong enough to stand the strain of hospital work.
A very strong healthy girl under twenty may say, "Oh, but I am strong
enough to stand the strain." She is mistaken. It is not only physical
strength which is required, but physical endurance, and these extra years
are needed to develop this endurance. If a girl who hopes to be a nurse
leaves school when she is seventeen or eighteen, the best work she can
undertake in order to prepare for nursing is work in her own home.
Another way in which she may spend part of her time profitably is in the
reading of good books, so that she may store her mind with thoughts and
information which will be helpful to her in dealing with her patients.
No woman who is a nurse can be too well read, or too well informed in art,
music, biography, history, and the public affairs of the day. If a girl,
who feels that nursing is her real work, prefers to earn her living between
the time when she leaves school and the day that she is accepted as a
probationer, she may enter some other calling, and meanwhile may add to her
useful knowledge both of people and of work. She should also save some
money, for while the training of a nurse is not expensive, still as
probationer and, later, as nurse-in-training, she will need money for
necessary expenses.

The intending nurse should make a few financial calculations before
she begins her course of training. The hospital will give her exact
directions as to the clothes she will need for her work while she is a
probationer. She will require some spending money, and she should be
provided with a good stock of clothes, especially underwear, shoes, and
stockings. When she is accepted as a nurse-in-training, she may be given
by the hospital a monthly allowance which is supposed to provide her with
clothes and the books required for her studies. This sum varies in
different hospitals. Generally speaking, it is fifteen or twenty dollars
a month. In any case, the sum will be hardly sufficient to cover all her
expenses, although it is wonderful on