II

And now I have a word for the Ladies, and a word for the Nurse-Probationers. Which shall come first?

Do the ladies follow up their intellectual privileges? Or, are they lazy in their hours of study? Do they cultivate their powers of expression in answering Mr. Croft’s examinations?

Ought they not to look upon themselves as future leaders—as those who will have to train others? And to bear this in mind during the whole of their year’s training, so as to qualify themselves for being so? It is not just getting through the year anyhow, without being blamed. For the year leaves a stamp on everybody—this for the Nurses as well as the Ladies—and once gone can never be regained.

To the Special Probationers may I say one more word?

Do we look enough into the importance of giving ourselves thoroughly to study in the hours of study, of keeping careful Notes of Lectures, of keeping notes of all type cases, and of cases interesting from not being type cases, so as to improve our powers of observation—all essential if we are in future to have charge? Do we keep in view the importance of helping ourselves to understand these cases by reading at the time books where we can find them described, and by listening to the remarks made by Physicians and Surgeons in going round with their Students? (Take a sly note afterwards, when nobody sees, in order to have a correct remembrance.)

So shall we do everything in our power to become proficient, not only in knowing the symptoms and what is to be done, but in knowing the “Reason Why” of such symptoms, and why such and such a thing is done; and so on, till we can some day TRAIN OTHERS to know the “reason why.”

Many say: “We have no time; the Ward work gives us no time.”

But it is so easy to degenerate into a mere drudgery about the Wards, when we have goodwill to do it, and are fonder of practical work than of giving ourselves the trouble of learning the “reason why.” Take care, or the Nurses, some of them, will catch you up.

Take ten minutes a day in the Ward to jot down things, and write them out afterwards: come punctually from your Ward to have time for doing so. It is far better to take these ten minutes to write your cases or to jot down your recollections in the Ward than to give the same ten minutes to bustling about. I am sure the Sisters would help you to get this time if you asked them: and also to leave the Ward punctually.

And do you not think this a religious duty?

Such observations are a religious meditation: for is it not the best part of religion to imitate the benevolence of God to man? And how can you do this—in this your calling especially—if you do not thoroughly understand your calling? And is not every study to do this a religious contemplation?

Without it, May you not potter and cobble about the patients without ever once learning the reason of what you do, so as to be able to train others?

(I do not say anything about the “cards,” for I take it for granted that you can read them easily.)

Our dear Matron, who is always thinking of arranging for us, is going to have a case-paper with printed headings given to you, and to keep this correctly ought to be a mere every-day necessity, and a very easy one, for you.

2. And for the Nurses:

They are placed, perhaps here only, on a footing of equality with educated gentlewomen. Do they show their appreciation of this by thinking, “We are as good as they”? Or, by obedience and respect, and trying to profit by the superior education of the gentlewomen?

Both we have known; we have known Nurse-Probationers who took the Ladies “under their protection” in saving them the harder work, and the Ladies have given them the full return back in helping them in their education.

And we have known—very much the reverse.

Also, do the Nurse-Probationers take advantage of their opportunities, in the excellent classes given them by the Home Sister, in keeping diaries and some cases?

Very few of the Nurse-Probationers have taken notes of Mr. Croft’s Lectures at all; it is not fair to Mr. Croft to give him people who do not benefit by his instruction.

3. And I have another word to say:

Are there parties in our Home?

Could we but be not so tenacious of our own interests, but look at the thing in a larger way!

Is there a great deal of canvassing and misinterpreting Sisters and Matron and other authorities? every little saying and doing of theirs? talking among one another about the superiors (and then finding we were all wrong when we came to know them better)?

We must all of us know, without being told, that we cannot be trained at all, if in training this will of our own is not kept under.

Do not question so much. Does not a spirit of criticism go with ignorance? Are some of you in all the “opposition of irresponsibility”? Some day, when you are yourselves responsible, you will know what I mean.

Now could not the Ladies help the Nurse-Probationers in this: (1) in never themselves criticising; and (2) in saying a kindly word to check it when it is done?

Let me tell you a true story about this.

In a large college, questions—about things which the students could but imperfectly understand in the conduct of the college—had become too warm. The superintendent went into the hall one morning, and after complimenting the young men on their studies, he said: “This morning I heard two of the porters, while at their work, take up a Greek book lying on my table; one tried to read it, and the other declared it ought to be held upside down to be read. Neither could agree which was upside down, but both thought themselves quite capable of arguing about Greek, though neither could read it. They were just coming to fisticuffs, when I sent the two on different errands.”

Not a word was added: the students laughed and retired, but they understood the moral well enough, and from that day there were few questions or disputes about the plans and superiors of the college, or about their own obedience to rules and discipline.

Do let us think of the two porters squabbling whether the Greek book was to be read upside down, when we feel inclined to be questioning about “things too high for us.”

We are constantly making mistakes in our judgment of our little world. We fancy that we have been harshly treated or misunderstood. Or we cannot bear our fellow-Probationers to laugh at us.

Believe me, there will come a time when all such troubles will simply seem ridiculous to us, and we shall be unable to imagine how we could ever have been the victims of them. (One of your number told me this herself. She has left St. Thomas’ for another post.) Let us not brood or sentimentalise over them. They should be met in a common-sense way. How much of our time has been spent in grieving over these trifles, how little in the real sorrow for sin, the real struggle for improvement.

4. As for obedience to rules and our superiors: “True obedience,” said one of the most efficient people who ever lived, “obeys not only the command, but also the intention” of those who have a right to command us. Of course, this is a truism: the thing is, how to do it. As it is a struggle, it requires a brave and intrepid spirit, which helps us to rise above trifles and look to God, and His leadings for us. Oh, when death comes, how sorry we shall be to have watched others so much and ourselves so little; to have dug so much in the field of others’ consciences and left our own fallow! What should we say of a “Leopold” Nurse who should try to nurse in “Edward” Ward, and neglect her own “Leopold”? Well, that is what we do. Or who should wash her patients’ hands and not her own?

It is of ourselves and not of others that we must give an account. Let us look to our own consciences as we do to our own hands, to see if they are dirty.

We take care of our dress, but do we take care of our words?

It is a very good rule to say and do nothing but what we can offer to God. Now we cannot offer Him backbiting, petty scandal, misrepresentation, flirtation, injustice, bad temper, bad thoughts, jealousy, murmuring, complaining. Do we ever think that we bear the responsibility of all the harm we do in this way?

Look at that busybody who fidgets, gossips, makes a bustle, always wanting to domineer, always thinking of herself, as if she wanted to tell the sun to get out of her way and let her light the world in its place, as the proverb says.

And when we might do all our actions and say all our words as unto God!

So many imperfections; so many thoughts of self-love; so many selfish satisfactions that we mix with our best actions! And when we might offer them all to God. What a pity!

5. One word more for the Ladies, or those who will have to train and look after others.

What must she be who is to be a Ward or “Home” Sister?

We see her in her nobleness and simplicity: being, not seeming: without name or reward in this world: “clothed” in her “righteousness” merely, as the Psalms would say, not in her dignity: often having no gifts of money, speech, or strength: but never preferring seeming to being.

And if she rises still higher, she will find herself, in some measure, like the Great Example in Isaiah 1iii., bearing the sins and sorrows of others as if they were her own: her counsels often “despised and rejected,” yet “opening not her mouth” to be angry: “led as a lamb to the slaughter.”

She who rules best is she who loves best: and shows her love not by foolish indulgence to those of whom she is in charge, but by taking a real interest in them for their own sakes, and in their highest interests.

Her firmness must never degenerate into nervous irritability. And for this end let me advise you when you become Sisters, always to take your exercise time out of doors, your monthly day out, and your annual holiday.

Be a judge of the work of others of whom you are in charge, not a detective: your mere detective “is wonderful at suspicion and discovery,” but is often at fault, foolishly imagining that every one is bad.

The Head-Nurse must have been tested in the refiner’s fire, as the prophets would say: have been tried by many tests: and have come out of them stainless, in full command of herself and her principles: never losing her temper.

She never nurses well till she ceases to command for the sake of commanding, or for her own sake at all: till she nurses only for the sakes of those who are nursed. This is the highest exercise of self-denial; but without it the ruin of the nursing, of the charge, is sure to come.

Have we ever known such a Nurse?

She must be just, not unjust.

Now justice is the perfect order by which every woman does her own business, and injustice is where every woman is doing another’s business. This is the most obvious of all things: and for that very reason has never been found out. Injustice is the habit of being a busybody and doing another woman’s business, which tries to rule and ought to serve: this is the unjust Nurse.

Prudence is doing your nursing most perfectly: aiming at the perfect in everything: this is the “seeking God and His righteousness” of the Scriptures.

And must not each of us be a Saviour, rather than a ruler: each in our poor measure? Did the Son of God try to rule? Oh, my friends, do not scold at women: they will be of another mind if they are “gently entreated” and learn to know you. Who can hate a woman who loves them? Or be jealous of one who has no jealousy? Who can squabble with one who never squabbles? It is example which converts your patients, your ward-maids, your fellow-Nurses or charges: it is example which converts the world.

And is not the Head-Nurse or Sister there, not that she may do as she likes, but that she should serve all for the common good of all? The one worst maxim of all for a future Matron, Sister, or Nurse is “to do as I like”: that is disorder, not rule. It is giving power to evil.

Those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule.

She who is best fitted is often the least inclined to rule: but if the necessity is laid upon her, she takes it up as a message from God. And she must no longer live in her own thoughts, making a heaven or hell of her own. For if she does not make a heaven for others, her charge will soon become something else.

She must never become excited: and therefore I do impress upon you regularity and punctuality, and never to get hurried. Those often get most excited who are least in earnest. She who is fierce with her Nurses, her patients, or her ward-maid, is not truly above them: she is below them: and, although a harsh ward-mistress to her patients or Nurses, has no real superiority over them.

There is no impudence like that of ignorance. Each night let us come to a knowledge of ourselves before going to rest: as the Psalm says: “Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” Is it possible that we who live among the sick and dying can be satisfied not to make friends with God each night?

The future Sister should be neither mistress nor servant, but the friend of every woman under her. If she is mistress of others when she is not mistress of herself, her jealous, faithless temper grows worse with command (oh, let not this be the case with any of us!)—wanting everything of everybody, yet not knowing how to get it of anybody. Always in fear, confusion, suspicion, and distraction, she becomes more and more faithless, envious, unrighteous, the cause of wretchedness to herself and others. She who has no control over herself, who cannot master her own temper, how can she be placed over others, to control them through the better principle? But she who is the most royal mistress of herself is the only woman fit to be in charge.

For this is the whole intention of training, education, supervision, superintendence: to give self-control, to train or nurse up in us a higher principle; and when this is attained, you may go your ways safely into the world.

But she who nurses, and does not nurse up in herself the “infant Christ,” who should be born again in us every day, is like an empty syringe—it pumps in only wind.

The future Sister must be not of the governessing but of the Saviour turn of mind.

Let her reason with the unjust woman who is not intentionally in error. She must know how to give good counsel, which will advise what is best under the circumstances; not making a lament, but finding a cure; regarding that only as “bettering” their situation which makes them better. She must know and teach “how to refuse the evil and choose the good,” as Isaiah says.

She must have an iron sense of truth and right for herself and others, and a golden sense of love and charity for them.

When a future Sister unites the power of command with the power of thought and love, when she can raise herself and others above the commonplaces of a common self without disregarding any of our common feelings, when she can plan and effect any reforms wanted step by step, without trying to precipitate them into a single year or month, neither hasting nor delaying: that is indeed a “Sister.”

The future Sister or Head must not see only a little corner of things, her own petty likes and dislikes; she must “lift up her eyes to the hills,” as David says. She must know that there is a greater and more real world than her own littlenesses and meannesses. And she must be not only the friend of her Nurses, but also, in her measure, the angel whose mission is to reconcile her Nurses to themselves, to each other, and to God.