The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-14
sP1R1r OF TEE PREss.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topios-Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
TRAINED NURSES.

TRAINED NURSES.
From Ae NJ Y. Tribune
There is one employment that has been
almost entirely overlooked by women in
search of work. and those philanthropists
who are trying to aid them, which we wish to
suggest and most earnestly recommend. We
mean that of educated nurses. 1t is work for
which there is always o demand larger than
the supply, which pays steady, living prices;
and, above all, which is thoroughly womanly.
We suggest this last S0tt0 00co, lest it place
the employment at once under ban with
those gallant ladies who find it necessary in
defense of their inward needs to suffer a
metamorphosis into any shape whatever,
provided it is not back into the old gentle
ideal of man; who welcome only systems of
help for wronged woman which are of the
most outre and hamboyant order, who, their
''thimbles into armed gauntlets change, their
needles to lances," and their soft-Aowing
drapery to ill-htting trowsers
The occupation we propose is eminently
untitled to the work of reform; there is no
outlet for ambitious aspirations in bandages
or blisters, no chance for proving equality
with man in pap or panada; suffrage or the
serfdom of woman is not the thing with which
to soothe patient or quiet baby with the
colic. We fear, too, that our nurses must
content themselves with unreformed petit
coats, as one of them, arrayed in the grey
pantaloons and sacque coats Of our feminine
doctors, dandling long-sirted baby in her
arms, would be fearful and wonderful spec
tacle, at the thought of which the iron enters
into our soul. If the candidate for this work,
however, must leave her internal yearnings
for liberty, and her public rights, outside
of the sick-room, she will find inside of
it an ample field for the exercise of all
her skill, judgment, refinement, and
Christian virtue. Ordinary women will
probably be contented with this. The
business of professional nurse is seldom
undertaken by an educated woman, unless in
an emotional gush of heroism and self-sacri-
fee, which does not unfortunately constitute
efficiency. Every young girl, says Miss
Nightingale "who has met with a disappoint
ment in love, thinks herself fit to take charge
of hospital" To be an effective nurse re-
quires as much study and mechanical train
ing as to be physician or q carpenter. Un-
fortunately the business (Which should de-
serve the name of profession) is usually
left in the South to old negroes, and in the
North to ignorant women, who, if not pre-
cisely on level with Mrs. Camp and the
mythical Harris, are best qualified for their
work by their own necessities.
There is but one institution in the country
where women are educated for this work with
the same care as physicians are for their kin
dred and scarcely less onerous duties, and
of the Society of Friends, who so well COM
prehend that true secret of charity, helping
people to help themselves. In this establish
ment, as we understand, women are given a
thorough course of instruction, by the aid of
the study of clinics, the use of manikins, and
lectures from the professors of obstetrics and
medicine in the medical colleges They are
boarded at nominal price during their tut
ton, and at the close are given twelve charity
cases of two weeks each, under the surveil-
lance of the physicians of the institution.
After this they receive diploma, and become
part of the regular corps of the ''Home," to
which they return when out of situation.
These skilled nurses, some of whom have
spent half their life in the institution, are in
demand in all the Eastern cities, and COM
mand from $5 to 500 per week, according to
their ability or the class of diseases.
We have been thus minute, in the hope of
melting attention to this practical and eff
cient mode of benefting women. In the
present outcry for new kinds of employment,
it is encouraging to find one under our hand
which is at once easily compassed, feminine,
and remunerative The institution to which
we refer has made itself almost support
ing. 1t deserves imitation more than any
other reformatory asylum for women. The
prevention of suffering and vice is alway!
nobler than their cure.