Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-11-08

enLdnEle not thy n6dIL Win
any creature.
81 PIT were more just that thou
Shouldst accuse myself and
excuse thy brother.
Just before the end, too, as l have
said, she wrote a number of let
ters. She forgot no one; among the
letters that she left was one ad-
dressed to the nurses of her school,
and there was a message tor q girl
who was trying to break herself of
the morphine habit; Miss Cdvell had
been trying TO help her and she
sent word TO be brave, and that if
God would permit she would con-
tinue to try to help her.
1t was on the 10th of October,
1915. already condemned to death,
that Miss Cavell wrote the letter
of farewell to her nurses. The let
ter was in French, for all the
nurses were Belgian girle, and in
it, after expressing the sorrow she
felt in bidding adieu to her pu-
pills, she wrote of the joy she had
in being called on the 18th of Sep
TENDER. 1907. to organize at Brus-
sells the first school of graduate
nurses in Belgium. At that time
nursing had not been made a sci
ence i'm Belgium, as 1t had been In
England and in America; the grad
uate nurse was unknown. DR.. De-
page, one of the leading physicians
in Belgium, one of the leading ply
sicians, indeed. in the world, had
been anxious that such a school be
founded. and it was through his
inspiration and that of his wife
that the school was made possible.
They succeeded in interesting
number of influential men and
women in Brussels, Antwerp,
Bruges, Liege and Mons in the prof.
ect. a society was fUImed and Ma
dame Ernest Solvay gave to the
school the sum of 100000 francs
with which was built the model
that stands now in the Rue de
had fifty rooms for nurses and THU
ty rooms for patients, study halls,
theaterS for operations and repre-
scented the ideas of DR.. Depage. of
Madame Depage and of Miss Cavell.
The building was completed in
the month OF May, 1915, the very
month that Madame Depage went
down on the Lusitania, and five
months before Miss Cavell was kill
ed, and by the operation of the old
ironic rule of life neither of the
two women most concerned in it
and most responsible for it ever
saw the school they had founded
and established in it. Miss Cavell,
in organizing and establishing the
school, encountered very real diff
culties in those first years, for. as
she says in her letter, tout etait
nouveau dams cette profession pour
la Belgique." She was evidently a
woman of great force of will and
intelligence and profound char
acter, and she succeeded; she es-
tablished the school, she establish
ed nursing in Belgium, and her
name and that c. Madame Depagc,
both victims of German frightful-
ness. will ever be associated with
the school at Brussels.
The letter which sounds the pro-
found depths of the Anglo-SaXon
character with its stern command Of
while deep down there is an affec-
tion that somehow fears to express
itself, somehow sums up the char
acter that made q noble and de-
voted life. When one thinks that
there in her cell behind the grim
walls of the prison of st. GILES this
frail woman sat down and in a
firm hand, and in a foreign Ian
guage. almost without a fault, wrote
such a letter as this, one under
stands something of her nature.
She gives glimpse of the difficult
ties she had to overcome to found
her school in a peculiarly conserva-
tive milieu where all was new and
strange.
She remembers some of the OBJ
scure but tragic conflicts that were
going on in the souls of those whom
she was directing. She had been a,
strong disciplinarian. a self-contain-
ed nature which she had completely
mastered, sternest always with her
self, and in asking those girls. who
may not always have understood
her, to forgive what they may have
considered her severity. she ends
with the touching confession that
she loved them more than they
knew.
Letter to Her Nurses
Prison of st. GILES.
"My Dear Nurses: 1t is a very
sad moment for me when ] write
to make my adieuS to you. 1t calls
TO my mind the fact that the 18th
of September was the end of eight
years of my direction of the school.
/ was so happy to be called to aid
in the organization of the work
that our committee had just
founded The October of the year
1907 there were only four young
students; now we are already nu-
merous. between fifty and sixty in
all, 1 believe, counting those who
have received their diplomas and
have already left the school.
81 have told you on various oc-
casions of those first days and OF
the difficulties that We encountered,
even in the choice of words for your
hours 'on duty and off duty etc;
all was new in the profession In
Belgium.
"Bit by bit one service after an
other was ablished-Sraduate
nurses to nurse in private houses
student nurses-the st. GILES Hos
pital. We helped in the Institute
of Dr. Depage. the sanltarlum OF
Byssingham (Buysinghen), the elm
ic of DIR. Mayer, and now many are
called las perhaps you will be later
to nurse the brave men wounded IN
"If i'm this last year our work
has diminished the cause is tound
in the sad time in which we live.
In better days our work VIII re-
sumo its growth and all it's power
to do good If I speak of the past
il is because il is well sometimes 10
stop and look over the roaq that
we have traversed and to take ac-
count of our mistakes and or our
progress. ~,
"In your beautiful house you will
have more patients and you VIII
have all that is necessary for their
comfort and your own.
ITO my regret / have not been
able always to speak very mucn .
with you personally; you know that
l have had a good many occupa-
tions. but / hope that you will not
forget our evening chats. L told
YOU that devotion would give you
real happiness-and the thought
that before God and yourselves you
have done your entire duty with a
good heart will be your greatest
comforts in the hard moments OF
life and in the face of death:
There are two or three Of you
who will recall the little interviews
that we have had together; do not
forget them. Being already so far
along i'm life l have been able per-
haps more clearly than you to show
YOU the straight path. One word
more. Beware of gossip! And may
I say to you--loVinE your country
with all my heart--that that is the
great fault here. I have seen so
al