many lives would be lost and the effect of such
want of management would be terrible and patent, there is less of it
than in the private house.[4]

But in both, let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her
head (_not,_ how can I always do this right thing myself, but) how can I
provide for this right thing to be always done?

Then, when anything wrong has actually happened in consequence of her
absence, which absence we will suppose to have been quite right, let her
question still be (_not,_ how can I provide against any more of such
absences? which is neither possible nor desirable, but) how can I
provide against anything wrong arising out of my absence?

[Sidenote: What it is to be "in charge."]

How few men, or even women, understand, either in great or in little
things, what it is the being "in charge"--I mean, know how to carry out
a "charge." From the most colossal calamities, down to the most trifling
accidents, results are often traced (or rather _not_ traced) to such
want of some one "in charge" or of his knowing how to be "in charge." A
short time ago the bursting of a funnel-casing on board the finest and
strongest ship that ever was built, on her trial trip, destroyed several
lives and put several hundreds in jeopardy--not from any undetected flaw
in her new and untried works--but from a tap being closed which ought
not to have been closed--from what every child knows would make its
mother's tea-kettle burst. And this simply because no one seemed to know
what it is to be "in charge," or _who_ was in charge. Nay more, the jury
at the inquest actually altogether ignored the same, and apparently
considered the tap "in charge," for they gave as a verdict "accidental
death."

This is the meaning of the word, on a large scale. On a much smaller
scale, it happened, a short time ago, that an insane person burned
herself slowly and intentionally to death, while in her doctor's charge
and almost in her nurse's presence. Yet neither was considered "at all
to blame." The very fact of the accident happening proves its own case.
There is nothing more to be said. Either they did not know their
business or they did not know how to perform it.

To be "in charge" is certainly not only to carry out the proper
measures yourself but to see that every one else does so too; to see
that no one either wilfully or ignorantly thwarts or prevents such
measures. It is neither to do everything yourself nor to appoint