Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-07-14
TRAINING NURSES.

In recent number of the RECORD UNION,
we remarked upon the benevolence of Mr.
ID. o. Mills in establishing training
school for male nurses in New York and
| the great need and benefit of such institu-
lions. 1t is not, probably, so generally
known as it should be that in San Fran
cisco there is, in connection with the Hos
| pital for Children, training school for
for the hospital and school was opened
and to its furnishing many merchants of
San Francisco contributed, and Mrs. C.. p.
Huntington sent from New York for the
same purpose, the sum of $1,000 There
are now about twenty nurses III raining
in the practical details of the business,
the course of instruction covering the
period of one year. The Trustees of the
institution are well known and reliable
citizens, and the Board of Managers is
composed entirely of philanthropic ladies'
To the Hospital and Training School Mrs.
Margaret E. Croker. of this city, gave
$500; Charles Croker and wife, S1,750;
the estate of VIM. Sharon, $4,000, and Mrs.
Leland Stanford, $1,000, while many 9TH
ers gave smaller sums, aggregating some
$4,000; still others gave large amount
of material for building, while one citizen
of San Francisco, Nathaniel Gray, do
mated the lot upon which the hospital
stands. The several leading insurance
companies and agencies donated the neces-
sary policies, and several hundred people
have given clothing, provisions and
monthly contributions for the work.
We have been thus explicit, because the
dual scheme of the institution awakens
deep interest, and because it is philan-
thropic effort deserving of strong encour-
agement. Wealth cannot better subserye
the interests of suffering humanity than
by aiding wisely-directed efforts to train
men and women to nurse the sick, and
dress the wounds of the injured. 1t
is very gratifying to run down the list
of names of donors to such in
situations as that named and note
how well and freely ample means
in private possession in California are dis
bursed in the interest of humanity. But
these fields are limitless, and the California
School for Nurses ought to be able to re-
port very many more than twenty pupils
in attendance, and endowments sufficient
| TO warrant the reception of three or four
times that number annually. The advance
made in medical science, the discoveries
IN modes of treatment of disease, the
equally positive advance made in methods
of caring for the sick and wounded, render
trained nurses more and more indispensa-
bic; and it is philanthropic, therefore, to
i encourage men and women to devote their
lives to the requirement and practice of
the knowledge of nursing the afflicted.
From the reports of the institution made
the subject of this article we learn that a
very high standard is set by it for gradua-
ton of nurses, which probably accounts for
the fact that its graduates thus far number
but sixteen. This is better far however.
than to turn out two score ill-equipped
nurses every two years. There is desire
by the institution for pupils to be trained as
nurses; strong, healthy cultivated women
OF from tweniy-one to thirty-one years of
age are wanted, and California women are
preferred, those familiar from youth or BY
long residence with the State Such pupils
If found, after short probationary period,
fitted, are paid small salary for their serv-
ices in the hospital while undergoing
| training. 1t would seem that there ought
to be no lack of applicants willing to en-
gage in such vocation and to freely
receive valuable instruction that insures
them good employment at excellent wages;
nor should there be lack of endowment to
maintain institutions of this character.
We look upon them of the highest value
to society, and upon the men and women