Next, in order to give more time and leisure to less tired bodies, the Special Probationers have two afternoons in the week off duty for the course of reading which our able Medical Instructor has laid down. And the Nurse-Probationers have all one morning and one afternoon in the week to improve themselves, in which our kind Home Sister assists them by classes. And, again, I need not say how important it is to take the utmost advantage of this. Do not let the world move on and leave us in the wrong. Now that, by the law of the land, every child between five and thirteen must be at school, it will be a poor tale, indeed, in their after life for Nurses who cannot read, write, spell, and cypher well and correctly, and read aloud easily, and take notes of the temperature of cases, and the like. Only this last week, I was told by one of our own Matrons of an excellent Nurse of her own to whom she would have given a good place, only that she could neither read nor write well enough for it.
And may I tell you, not for envy, but for a generous rivalry, that you will have to work hard if you wish St. Thomas’ Training School to hold its own with other Schools rising up.
Let us be on our guard against the danger, not exactly of thinking too well of ourselves (for no one consciously does this), but of isolating ourselves, of falling into party spirit—always remembering that, if we can do any good to others, we must draw others to us by the influence of our characters, and not by any profession of what we are—least of all, by a profession of Religion.
And this, by the way, applies peculiarly to what we are with our patients. Least of all should a woman try to exercise religious influence with her patients, as it were, by a ministry, a chaplaincy. We are not chaplains. It is what she is in herself, and what comes out of herself, out of what she is—that exercise a moral or religious influence over her patients. No set form of words is of any use. And patients are so quick to see whether a Nurse is consistent always in herself—whether she is what she says to them. And if she is not, it is no use. If she is, of how much use, unawares to herself, may the simplest word of soothing, of comfort, or even of reproof—especially in the quiet night—be to the roughest patient, who is there from drink, or to the still innocent child, or to the anxious toil-worn mother or husband! But if she wishes to do this, she must keep up a sort of divine calm and high sense of duty in her own mind. Christ was alone, from time to time, in the wilderness or on mountains. If He needed this, how much more must we?
Quiet in our own rooms (and a room of your own is specially provided for each one here); a few minutes of calm thought to offer up the day to God: how indispensable it is, in this ever increasing hurry of life! When we live “so fast,” do we not require a breathing time, a moment or two daily, to think where we are going? At this time, especially, when we are laying the foundation of our after life, in reality the most important time of all.
And I am not at all saying that our patients have everything to learn from us. On the contrary, we can, many a time, learn from them, in patience, in true religious feeling and hope. One of our Sisters told me that she had often learnt more from her patients than from any one else. And I am sure I can say the same for myself. The poorest, the meanest, the humblest patient may enter into the kingdom of Heaven before the cleverest of us, or the most conceited. For, in another world, many, many of the conditions of this world must be changed. Do we think of this?
We have been, almost all of us, taught to pray in the days of our childhood. Is there not something sad and strange in our throwing this aside when most required by us, on the threshold of our active lives? Life is a shallow thing, and more especially Hospital life, without any depth of religion. For it is a matter of simple experience that the best things, the things which seem as if they most would make us feel, become the most hardening if not rightly used.
And may I say a thing from my own experience? No training is of any use, unless one can learn (1) to feel, and (2) to think out things for oneself. And if we have not true religious feeling and purpose, Hospital life—the highest of all things with these—without them becomes a mere routine and bustle, and a very hardening routine and bustle.
One of our past Probationers said: “Our work must be the first thing, but God must be in it.” “And He is not in it,” she added. But let us hope that this is not so. I am sure it was not so with her. Let us try to make it not so with any of us.
There are three things which one must have to prevent this degeneration in oneself. And let each one of us, from time to time, tell, not any one else, but herself, whether she has these less or more than when she began her training here.