MODERN NURSING. 781 



woman lawyer in a Western town. At all events, the opposition to the 

 attempt at widening woman's sphere, or spheres, has ceased, and the 

 recognition of the principles of equal rights, no matter for what color 

 or sex, or previous servitude, is all but universal. 



You will not care to go into the question now, whether law or 

 medicine will ever he resorted to by women to any great extent. The 

 entire liberty given them has proved already, will prove more in fu- 

 ture, that neither law nor medicine is an appropriate vocation for any 

 but an exceptional class of women, and that the opposition to women 

 practitioners of law and medicine will come less from the professions 

 than from the public. For the public will never admit that a person 

 in the practice of a profession should not give his or her entire atten- 

 tion and strength to it, and the women of the country will never admit 

 that the superintendence of a home and the proper raising of a family 

 are not sufficient employments of all the time and all the powers of 

 the most gifted woman. The amateurs are losing ground. Thus it is 

 that the professions will never be overrun, and the fear of undue 

 competition has long died out, even among the most chicken-hearted 

 braves of the professions. But the question is not how many women 

 will avail themselves of the opportunities granted, but whether they 

 shall have those opportunities, and whether these shall be given the 

 women of all walks of life, of all standards of intellect. And the 

 question has generally been answered affirmatively, to such an extent 

 that it is considered self -understood that, while the mediaeval ages at- 

 tempted to help them as much as possible, modern times prefer to give 

 them the power to help themselves. In regard to nursing, attention 

 was called early to the unmarried and poor among the women. The 

 statistics of Berlin, of the year 1872, proved that every third woman 

 had to provide for herself. It was remarked with surprise that, of 

 407 such helpless and breadless creatures, but a single one went into 

 nursing as a business. In other Continental cities it was still worse. 

 In Vienna the shiftlessness of women was still greater ; misery and 

 poverty reigned supreme, as must be expected when you learn that a 

 woman who took the making of her own clothing, even with the aid 

 of a professional seamstress, into her own hands was punishable under 

 the law. 



The proportion of but one nurse to 407 women, who had to work for 

 a living, is remarkable, it is true. For are not nursing, and caring, and 

 attending implanted in woman's nature ? What is the reason that 

 so few went into nursing as a business, if not a vocation ? Probably, 

 because the women felt, or the public made them feel, that without 

 careful preparation no nurse, or soi-disant nurse, can be efficient. 

 We have still the remnants, I fear numerous ones, of that self-made 

 class of nurses among us. In my own recollection of far-away years 

 I remember a great many, and a great many, I was told but lately, 

 remember me also, perhaps too well. Some of you may have seen 



