Seeing I was many years younger than the youngest worker, my feelings can better be imagined than explained. My own experience is that the best workers range from twenty-five to forty, and over that age no woman should be allowed in the war zone. There is no room in the system of "scrap and discard" for those who are easily fatigued; and women unaccustomed to manual work, however enthusiastic they may be, are unable to acclimatise themselves to it as they get on in years.
For endurance, too, younger women are needed. As a subaltern, invalided down with nerves after seventeen months' fighting, said to me recently:
"It's all a matter of time—the only difference is, we younger ones can stand it longer."
The same holds good for women's work. Spurts of energy followed by collapse are useless. It is the power of steady endurance that is required, and found most often in younger women.
Nor is there any room for the caprices of the dangerous age. The past generation was not brought up with the public school esprit de corps which characterises the modern girls, and which has taught them to play for their side or institution, and not for their own ends.
But to get back to the committee meeting, and to do justice to its evolution, I must state that after all these months, during which we have combated for automatic rising as recognition of work for the Reward of Service, it has adopted the broader view that not personal acquaintances but proved workers are most deserving of responsibility, whether old or young.
February 10th. My final impression of the place was a beautiful one. An extemporary concert, with many choruses, a packed house, an enthusiastic, cheering audience. It is like a very beautiful dream that we had dreamed true, this place; and, now that it is sufficiently perfect, other and fresher hands than ours must take it over—fresher, but not more loving.
"THE CITY OF LITTLE WHITE CROSSES"