Thus, writing of the opening of the New York Infirmary on May 1, 1857, she says:
We kept true to our promise to begin at once a system for training nurses although the time specified for that purpose was only six months.
She began with two nurses, one of whom remained for several years, becoming invaluable as head nurse. But she was evidently not satisfied with the success of this first system for, eight months later, she says:
We now began to make more positive plans for the education and training of nurses. The first two who presented herself and who after four months’ superior women, one a German, the other an American, but neither was willing to give a longer time than four months. During this time they received no compensation except their keeping and one weekly lesson from me on the different branches of nursing.
After these left, it was again a German woman who presented herself and who after four months’ training remained for several years. The second pupil nurse was sometimes of American, sometimes of Irish, descent and nothing remarkable.
When she removed to Boston and opened the hospital (Clinical Department) in connection with the New England Female Medical College, she there also attempted to carry into execution her conviction of the necessity for training nurses. But in Boston as in New York, women who wished to be nurses were unwilling to give time for training, and applications were few. Nevertheless, she succeeded in training six nurses.
When she founded the New England Hospital, the act of incorporation expressly stated that the training of nurses was one of the fundamental purposes of the new institution. And the first annual report says:
We offer peculiar advantages for training nurses for their important duties, under the superintendence of a physician.
In 1865, the term of six months is again emphasized. In 1868, it is stated that the Hospital offers to candidates board, washing and low wages after the first month of probation but it insists on an attendance of six months. And it adds that few women are willing to give the requisite time.
But now, at last, she found the desired opportunities opening before her. Aside from the influence of European experience, and especially that of Florence Nightingale and of the subsequent writings and utterances of the latter, undoubtedly the agitation which demonstrated the necessity for practical hospital training for the medical profession, had its effect in preparing the minds of both men and women for the realization of the fact that the same necessity existed for the training of members of the sister profession of nursing.
And the lectures to the New England Hospital nurses (which, under certain conditions, were open to women from outside) were steadily attracting women who were better and better prepared to study a profession rather than merely to practice an art.