a
number of people to each duty, but to ensure that each does that duty to
which he is appointed. This is the meaning which must be attached to the
word by (above all) those "in charge" of sick, whether of numbers or of
individuals, (and indeed I think it is with individual sick that it is
least understood. One sick person is often waited on by four with less
precision, and is really less cared for than ten who are waited on by
one; or at least than 40 who are waited on by 4; and all for want of
this one person "in charge.")

It is often said that there are few good servants now; I say there are
few good mistresses now. As the jury seems to have thought the tap was
in charge of the ship's safety, so mistresses now seem to think the
house is in charge of itself. They neither know how to give orders, nor
how to teach their servants to obey orders--_i.e._, to obey
intelligently, which is the real meaning of all discipline.

Again, people who are in charge often seem to have a pride in feeling
that they will be "missed," that no one can understand or carry on their
arrangements, their system, books, accounts, &c., but themselves. It
seems to me that the pride is rather in carrying on a system, in keeping
stores, closets, books, accounts, &c., so that any body can understand
and carry them on--so that, in case of absence or illness, one can
deliver every thing up to others and know that all will go on as usual,
and that one shall never be missed.

[Sidenote: Why hired nurses give so much trouble.]

NOTE.--It is often complained, that professional nurses, brought into
private families, in case of sickness, make themselves intolerable by
"ordering about" the other servants, under plea of not neglecting the
patient. Both things are true; the patient is often neglected, and the
servants are often unfairly "put upon." But the fault is generally in
the want of management of the head in charge. It is surely for her to
arrange both that the nurse's place is, when necessary, supplemented,
and that the patient is never neglected--things with a little
management quite compatible, and indeed only attainable together. It is
certainly not for the nurse to "order about" the servants.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]
[Sidenote: Lingering smell of paint a want of care.]

That excellent paper, the _Builder_, mentions the lingering of the smell
of paint for a month about a house as a proof of want of ventilation.
Certainly--and, where there are