od
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
disagreeableness of such heroines of romance as flourished in the press
seven years ago,--young ladies disappointed in love, who went out to
the East, found their lovers in hospital, and went off with them, to
be happy ever after, without any anxiety or shame at deserting their
patients in the wards without leave or notice. Not of this order was
Florence Nightingale, whose practical hard work, personal reserve, and
singular administrative power have placed her as high above impeachment
for feminine weaknesses as above the ridicule which commonly attends the
striking out of a new course by man or woman. Those who most honor her,
and most desire to follow her example, are those who most steadily bring
their understandings and their hearts to bear upon the work which
she began. Her ill-health has withdrawn her from active nursing and
administration; but she has probably done more towards the saving of
life by working in connection with the War-Office in private than by her
best-known deeds in her days of health. Through her, mainly, it is that
every nation has already studied with some success the all-important
subject of Health in the Camp and in