HEALTH 301 



surprised and grumble at their inevitable consequences. 

 It is not so much a question of morality as of mere 

 worldly common-sense and expediency. The laws which 

 should regulate such a new departure are not yet formed — 

 nursing, according to our modern ideas, being scarcely a 

 quarter of a century old. As long as the world lasts and 

 women are women, give them certain circumstances and 

 a sufficient temptation, and nothing will keep them 

 straight. Some women, too, take to nursing because 

 early trouble has made other openings difficult for them. 

 Under those circumstances we meet the most dangerous 

 type of woman that exists ; the world has turned against 

 her, and thereby caused her to become hard and bad, and 

 the enemy of society — the type that crushes, by aU 

 the means in her power, any other woman who con- 

 sciously or unconsciously crosses the path of her conquest. 

 Eew people seem to consider that the training of a nurse 

 is more hardening, and more likely to unsex a woman, 

 than the training of an actress. At any rate, it is im- 

 possible to go through it without becoming very much 

 better or very much worse than the ordinary woman. In 

 Prance they understand human nature better than we 

 do, and would never dream of allowing our system of 

 nursing. Nurses in Paris are, I believe, most difficult to 

 get. We want more regulations and more judicious 

 assistance from public opinion. The French want an 

 increased staff of nurses who are well conducted and not 

 too young, to supplement the devoted, high-minded, deeply 

 religious class of women who can alone join the Sister- 

 hoods, as they apparently are insufficient in number. 

 Time, the greatest adjuster of all human difficulties, will 

 settle these matters. What concerns us is that no turn 

 of fortune's wheel should crush and injure ourselves or 

 those belonging to us; and what matters now is that 

 ordinary knowledge and common-sense on the subject of 



