Year: 1870

There is one employment that has been al
most entirely overlooked by women in search
of work, and those philanthropists who are try
ing 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 demand larger than the supply, which
pays steady, living prices; and, above all, which
is thoroughly womanly. We suggest this last
soto poce, 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 what
ever 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
Outr6 and famboyant order, whO their I" Thin
"bles into armed gauntlets change, their needles
"to lances,n and their soft flowing drapery to
ill-ftting trOwsers.


The occupation we propose is eminently un-
fitted to the work of reform there is no out
let 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 a patient or quiet baby with the collc
We fear, too, that our nurses must content
themselves with unreformed petticOats, as one
of them, arrayed in the gray pantalOons and
sacque coats of our feminine doctors, dandling
q long-skirted baby in her arms, would be q
fearful and wonderful spectacle, at the thought
of which the iron enters into our soul If
the candidate for this work, however, must
leave her internal yearnngs for liberty, and
her public rights, outside of the .slck-r0Om
she will find inside of it an ample field for
the exercise of all her skill, judgment, refine
ment and Christian virtue. Ordinary women
will probably be contented with this. The
business of professional nurse is seldom un
dertaken by an educated woman, unless in an
emotional gush of heroism and self-sacrifce
which does not, unfortunately, constitute
efficiency. every young girl" says Miss
Nightingale, "whO has met with a dlsappOint-
"ment in love, thinks herself fit to take charge
"Of hospital" To be an effective nurse re-
quires as much study and mechanical training
as to be a physician or a carpenter Unfortu-
nately, the business (Which should deserve the
name of a profession) is usually left in the
South to old negroes, and in the North to
ignorant women, who, if not precisely on a
level with Mrs. Camp and the mythical Har-
ris, 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 kindred
and scarcely less OnerOus duties, and that is, as
might be supposed, under the care of the Soci-
ETY. of Friends, who 80 well comprehend that
true secret of charity, helping people to help
themselves. In this establishment, as We un-
derstand, women are given thorough course
of instruction, by the aid of the study Of elm
les, the use of manikins, and lectures from the
professors of obstetrics and medicine in tho
medical colleges. They are boarded at NOM
inal price during their tuition, and at the close
are given twelve charity cases of two weeks
each, under the surveillance of the physicians of
the institution. After this, they receive a diplO-
ma, and become part of the regular corps of
the Home" to which they return when out
of a situation. These skilled nurses, some of
whom have spent half their life in the institu-
tiOn, are in demand in all the Eastern cities,
and command from S. to $50 per week, accord
ing to their ability or the class of diseases.


We have been thus minute, in the hope of
melting attention to this practical and efficient
mode of benefting women. In the present
outcry for new kinds of employment, it is en-
cOuraging to find one under our hand which il
at once easily cOmpassed, feminine, and remu-
nerative. The institution TO which we refer has
made itself almost self-supporting. 1t deserves
asylum for women. The prevention of vice
and suffering is always nobler than their cure.