Miss Nightingale had been watching with the closest attention the Bombay Village Sanitation Bill, a measure first projected in 1887. She analysed and criticized it, and sent her views to Lord Cross at the India Office, and to Lord Lansdowne and Lord Reay in India. Her main objection was to the exclusion from the scope of the Bill of the smaller villages, an exclusion which did not figure in the revised draft of 1889. She wrote letters for circulation in India to Native Associations in explanation and support of Village Sanitation.[231] There was some slight stirring of Indian opinion, and Miss Nightingale's next concern was to give to it articulate expression in London. The holding of an International Congress of Hygiene and Demography in the autumn of 1891 furnished an opportunity. Sir Douglas Galton was Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Congress, so that there was no difficulty in arranging for an Indian section. Miss Nightingale then circularized the Native Association in Bombay, begging that representatives might be sent to the Congress, and papers be contributed by Indian gentlemen. This was done, and Miss Nightingale interested herself greatly in the Congress. “Sir Harry Verney,” she wrote to Sir Douglas Galton (Aug. 1, 1891), “renews his invitations to Claydon to the native Indian delegates, ‘three or four at a time.’ I have seen Mr. Bhownaggree, who seems to be acting for the other native gentlemen, not yet come, and asked him to manage this, as is most suitable to these gentlemen. I may hope to see them one by one, if I am able to be there. I have also seen (of Delegates) Sir William Moore and Dr. Payne and Sir W. Wedderburn. Mr. Digby seems to be doing a great work.[232] Do you remember that it is 30 years to-morrow since Sidney Herbert died?” The Congress was opened by the Prince of Wales (Aug. 10), whose speech on the occasion formed the text of many leading articles in the press. People talked, he said, of “preventable diseases”; but “if preventable, why not prevented?” It was, however, in the Indian section that Miss Nightingale was most interested, and she used it to promote her schemes. The Bombay Village Sanitation Act was failing to produce the desired results because there were no funds definitely allocated to sanitation. Sanitary education was making some little progress, but not enough, in view of the poverty of Indian villages, to make it likely that additional taxation would be borne. In these circumstances might not some portion of the existing taxation (the village “cesses”) be appropriated to sanitation as a first charge? “Until the minimum of sanitation is completed, until the cess of a particular village has been appropriated to it, while typhoidal or choleraic disease is still prevalent, should not the claims for any general purposes be postponed?” Such was Miss Nightingale's case. She had a memorandum drawn up embodying it in short form, and canvassed for signatures to it among members of the Indian section of the Congress. Sir Douglas Galton, Sir George Birdwood, Sir William Guyer Hunter, Sir William Wedderburn, Dr. Corfield, and Dr. Poore were among those who signed it. Miss Nightingale then forwarded the Memorandum, with a covering letter going more fully into the case, to the Secretary of State. She wrote at the same time to the Governor-General and to the Governor of Bombay. Lord Cross received the communication very sympathetically, and forwarded it at once (April 1892) to the Government of India. Lord Lansdowne then circulated Miss Nightingale's dispatch among the Local Governments, and during following years a formidable mass of printed Papers accumulated, “Reporting on the Proposals made by Miss Nightingale, relative to the Better Application of the Proceeds of Village Cesses to the purposes of Sanitation.” The official view, though not unsympathetic to Miss Nightingale's object, was opposed to her financial expedient; it was thought that other purposes, especially the improvement of roads, etc., had a claim prior to sanitation. “It seems clear,” wrote Sir William Wedderburn to her (July 7, 1893), “that you have most effectively drawn attention to the subject. The official replies are what we might naturally expect, but reading between the lines I think they admit the justice of our contention, and have been impressed by your action.” Perhaps this was to some extent the case. “You have most effectively drawn attention to the subject”; that was, perhaps, the main service which during these years Miss Nightingale rendered to the cause of Indian sanitation. Certainly she was importunate in asking successive Governors-General for reports of progress; her importunity often caused them to jog the elbows of Local Governments; and she may thus not unjustly be credited with such gradual progress as was made. The final reply to Miss Nightingale's immediate suggestion was sent in a dispatch to the Secretary of State (Mr. Fowler) from the Government of India in 1894 (March 28), enclosing letters on her Memorandum from the several Local Governments. The Government of India declined for various reasons to adopt her suggestion; but admitting that something ought to be done, considered that “sanitation in its simplest form of a pure water-supply and simple latrine arrangements should be regarded as having to some extent a claim on Provincial revenues,” and it promised “to press this claim upon Local Governments and Administrations as opportunity offers.” A covering letter to Miss Nightingale from the Secretary of State (May 9, 1894), while informing her that Mr. Fowler “is disposed to accept the view taken by the Government of India,” expressed the belief “that India will benefit by the renewed attention which your action has caused to be given to the important subject of rural sanitary reform.” There are passages in some of the replies from Local Governments, enclosed in the dispatch, which bear out this belief.
Miss Nightingale, on her own part, was diligent in appeals to Indian gentlemen to bestir themselves. She had an ally at this time in Sir William Wilson Hunter, who, in his fortnightly summary of “Indian Affairs” in the Times, sometimes enforced her points or called attention to her writings. She had urged her friend to write a detailed description of the actual working of Indian administration, and this he did in 1892.[233] The Preface to his book was a dedicatory letter to Miss Nightingale. In it he says that the book was written at her request, describes its scope, and thus concludes: “Now that the work is done, to whom can I more fitly dedicate it than to you, dear Miss Nightingale—to you whose life has been a long devotion to the stricken ones of the earth—to you whose deep sympathy with the peoples of India no years of suffering or of sickness are able to abate?” In her own pieces written at this date, Miss Nightingale preached more especially the gospel of Health Missionaries for Rural India.[234] Some reference to progress made in this respect will be found in a later chapter (p. [406]). She believed in State action, but no less in Self-help, and this point of view is emphasized in a retrospect of her work for India which she wrote, or partly wrote, probably as hints for some vernacular publication, in 1889.[235] Some passages from the document, here rearranged, may fitly close this account of her later Indian work.
“Miss Nightingale saw in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 a text and a living principle to fulfil. Every Englishman and Englishwoman interested in India were bound in duty and in honour to do their utmost to help British subjects to understand the principle and to practise the life. To this she has adhered through illness and overwork for thirty-one years. First attracted to India by the vital necessity of health for 200 or 250 millions, imperilled by sanitary ignorance, apathy, or neglect, she believed it to be a fact that since the world began, criminals have not destroyed more life and property than do epidemic diseases (the result of well-known insanitary conditions) every year in India. The protection of life and property from preventable epidemics ranks next to protection from criminals, as a responsibility of Government, if indeed it is not even higher in importance. The first thing was to awaken the Government. This was done by the Royal Commission upon the Sanitary State of the Army in India, which was the origin of practical action for the vast native population. But the difficulties were enormous. You must have the people on your side. And the people, alas, did not care. You cannot give health to the people against their wills, as you can lock up people against their wills. Impressed by these facts, Miss Nightingale saw the necessity of Sanitary Missionaries among the people—of sanitary manuals and primers in the schools (‘Give me the—schools—of a country and I care not who makes its laws’); of sanitary publications of all kinds, for man, woman, and child. The Sanitary Commissioner, in one instance at least,[236] has been a Sanitary Missionary, crying out, ‘Bestir yourselves, gentlemen, don't you see we are all dying?’ The people must be awakened, not to call on the Goddess of Epidemics, but to call upon the Sirkar to do its part, and also to bestir themselves to do theirs in the matter of cleanliness and pure water. Miss Nightingale found in Local Government the only remedy; in Local Government combined with Education.” The Paper touches also upon Miss Nightingale's interest in irrigation, land-tenure, usury, agriculture, and in all these matters connects State action with Self-help. “To the native gentlemen it is that Miss Nightingale appeals. She appeals to them also on the Sanitary point. And first of all it is for them to influence their ladies. Let them lead in their own families in domestic sanitation. Then, doubtless, the lady will lead in general sanitation in India as she does in England.” Another passage gives incidentally an autobiographical summary. “Miss Nightingale has deeply sympathized with the honourable efforts of the National Congress which has now held three Sessions, in which its temperate support of political reforms has been no less remarkable for wisdom than for loyalty. But her whole life has been given deliberately, not for political, but for social and administrative progress.”
VII
At the time when Miss Nightingale's Indian work was thus largely concentrated upon village sanitation, she was no less busily employed, though in a different way, upon work of a like kind at home. Her interest in local affairs at Claydon has already been touched upon, and this was much increased after the death of her sister in 1890. Lady Verney had been a sufferer for many years, but had borne her illness with unflagging spirit. In May 1890 she was in London, very ill, and was counting the hours to her removal to Claydon, but she would not give up a Sunday in town—a day which Florence now kept sacred for her sister. On Sunday May 4 Lady Verney was carried into Florence's room, and the sisters did not see each other again. On Monday Lady Verney was moved to Claydon, and there, a week later, on Florence's birthday, she died. “You contributed more than anyone,” wrote Sir Harry (May 15), “to what enjoyment of life was hers. I have no comfort so great as to hold intercourse with you. You and I were the objects of her tender love, and her love for you was intense. It was delightful to me to hear her speak of you, and to see her face, perhaps distorted with pain, look happy when she thought of you.” Miss Nightingale at once went to Claydon, where she remained for several months. Sir Harry, now in his 90th year, relied greatly upon his sister-in-law, and for the remainder of his life she devoted herself to him with constant solicitude. He was never happy if many days passed without sight of her or hearing from her. The butler always put Miss Nightingale's letter on the top of his master's morning pile, and no mouthful of breakfast was eaten till he had read it through. When he was in the country and she in London, he was always wanting to run up to town for the day—to buy a new waistcoat, or to consult his solicitor: any excuse would serve so that he could see his sister-in-law in South Street. They used to say at Claydon that there was a sure way of discovering whether Sir Harry found a new guest sympathetic or not: if he did, the conversation was invariably turned to Miss Nightingale. Upon the death of her sister, Claydon became Miss Nightingale's country-home, and she brought her managerial thoroughness into play there. She looked into Sir Harry's affairs, interested herself greatly in the estate, inquired into the conditions of surrounding village life, made acquaintance with local doctors. These interests brought home to her the conviction that village sanitation was necessary to civilize England hardly less than India, and she saw that as in India, so in England, education must be one at least of the civilizing agencies. She set herself to make a beginning where her lot now happened to be cast, in Buckinghamshire.
The time was favourable to a new experiment. County Councils had been established by the Act of 1888. In 1889 they were empowered to levy and expend money upon Technical Education. By the Local Taxation Act of 1890 they received a windfall for the same purpose from what was known as the “Whisky Money.” Funds were thus available, and the definition of “technical” education was wide. Why should not some of it be used for education in the science of “Health at Home”? Mr. Frederick Verney was chairman of the Technical Education Committee of North Bucks, and with Miss Nightingale, as he said, “to inspire, advise, and guide,” the thing was done. She was already, as we have heard, possessed by the idea of the district nurse as health missioner. It now occurred to her to institute an order of health-missioners as such. The Health Officer for the district (Dr. De'Ath was first employed to train ladies for the work by means of lectures and classes. The instruction was practical as well as theoretical, for the doctor took his pupils with him to some of the villages, introduced the ladies to the village mothers, and pointed out particular matters in which knowledge sympathetically given might be invaluable to the cottagers. An independent examination followed, and the ladies who passed it satisfactorily were, after a period of probation in practical work, granted certificates as Health Missioners, in which capacity some of them were engaged by the Technical Education Committee to visit and lecture in the country villages. The scheme, started in the spring of 1892, was a simple one, but it involved Miss Nightingale, as huge bundles of documents attest, in much labour for two or three years. She enlisted recruits; collected the best that was known and thought about simple sanitary instruction; considered syllabuses and examination papers; corresponded with other Technical Education Committees; wrote memoranda and letters on the subject.[237] To the Women Workers' Conference, held at Leeds in November 1893, she sent a paper dealing exhaustively with the whole subject of Rural Hygiene—a paper which is unhappily by no means out of date to-day, though the work, in which Miss Nightingale was a pioneer, has branched out in many directions. “We want duly qualified Sanitary Inspectors,” she wrote, and she was delighted when she heard a few years later of the good work done by some women sanitary inspectors in the north. Full qualification, practical training, she insisted upon; and then something else was wanted also. Her last word to the Health Missioner was the same as to the Nurse. “The work that tells is the work of the skilful hand, directed by the cool head, and inspired by the loving heart.”
CHAPTER VIII
MR. JOWETT AND OTHER FRIENDS
Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close—then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others.—Ruskin.
The last chapter was largely concerned with Miss Nightingale's activity in public affairs and with acquaintanceships which she formed in connection with them. In such affairs she was forcible, clear-sighted, methodical. Sir Bartle Frere, on first making her acquaintance, had said to a friend that it was “a great pleasure to meet such a good man of business as Miss Nightingale.” But she was many-sided, and even in her converse with men or women on public affairs she was generally something more than a good “man of business.” Much of her influence was due to the fact that so many of those who first saw her as a matter of affairs became her friends, and that to the qualities of a good man of business she added those of a richly sympathetic nature.