Volume II Part 23 (2/2)
”THE NURSES' BATTLE”; AND HEALTH IN THE VILLAGE
(1885-1893)
Nursing cannot be foristered like population--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1890)
What can be done for the health of the home without the woman of the home? In the West, as in the East, women are needed as Rural Health Missioners--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1893)
The period of Miss Nightingale's life covered in this chapter includes the year of Queen Victoria's Jubilee; which was also what Miss Nightingale used to consider _her_ Jubilee Year She fixed her effectual call at February 7, 1837 In 1887 she had thus coust, a month of many memories to her, she looked back over the past and around her in the present, and was in a despondent ale to Mrs S S_ 5 [1887] DEAREST AUNT MAI--Thinking of you always, grieved for your suffering, hoping that you have still to enjoy In this12) And in this land froo the first Royal Co 7) And since then, 30 years of work often cut to pieces but never destroyed God bless you! In this o, Sidney Herbert died, after five years of work for us (Aug 2) In this o, the work of the second Royal Commission (India) was finished And in this ain And in this month this year the work at St Tho Matrons--after 27 years And in this e set in May the Father Alhty, Irresistible--for Love is irresistible--whose work and none other's this is, conduct it always, as He has done, while I have misconducted it May He do _in_ us what He would have us do God bless you, dearest Aunt Mai As ever your old loving FLO
And in this ale was to die; but nearly a quarter of a century of life was first granted to her, and for the greater part of the tih shenurses, others remarked that she looked wonderfully fresh and youthful for her years
If old age had set in, her powers had by no h sometimes sore beset, continued to prosper
We will take first in our survey her work in the nursing world
The ”change of matrons” at St Thomas's Hospital, caused by the retireedy as it seeale Mrs Wardroper had done her work, and there were younger woed Miss Nightingale to remember that ”there is no necessary , he once added, ”yourself” But in this case the Chief of the Nightingale School was not yet retiring, and she would still be able to supervise it--perhaps even ale continued to maintain the intimate touch with her School that has been described in an earlier chapter: seeing the Sisters constantly,with theirtheir diaries and examination papers Her heart was even more closely in the hen she secured the appointment, as Mrs Wardroper's successor, of her dear friend, Miss Pringle Presently, however, there cale joined the Roman communion, and it was necessary that she should retire from the Matronshi+p of St
Thomas's The months of unsettlerief to Miss Nightingale Indeed her notes and est that the ”loss” of her favourite pupil was one of the heaviest griefs of her life; but she loved her friend too well for the sorrow to leave any abiding bitterness Over and over again in her h's _Qua Cursule was succeeded by Miss Gordon, an old pupil of the Nightingale School; she and Miss Nightingale speedily becas went on es, with the delicate weighing of rival clai conflict of personal aale heavy anxiety
Intensely conscientious, acutely sensitive, and seeing in every change a great potentiality of good or evil, she could not treat such things as mere matters of business There have been Prihts under the sense of responsibility caused by ecclesiastical preferale the selection of a Superintendent or a Home Sister was even as the appointment of a bishop
II
The , which was always near to Miss Nightingale's heart, and which, in conjunction with Mr Rathbone and others, she had done much to promote, received considerable extension by the action of Queen Victoria in 1887 The bulk of the sum presented as the ”Wo the sick poor in their own homes by means of trained nurses” She appointed the Duke of Westet to be trustees of the Fund, and to advise upon its adale, who, in several conversations, is were the training of nurses for the work, and the association of the association,” which had for htingale School and by grants froale Fund, were adopted as the basis of the ”Jubilee Institute for Nurses,” and the association presently became affiliated to the Institute In an introduction which she contributed in 1890 to a book giving account of thesenote ”The tendency is now to ; a sort of literary expression Now, no living thing can less lend itself to a for bodies and spirits It must be syh it may be tested by current supervision”
The Royal Jubilee Institute in soivings ”_Vexilla regis prodeunt_; yes, but of which King?” Was the orifla sisterhood, ”of heavenly fire, or of terrestrial tissue?”
”We are beco; ”weon us; we s were speedily to be justified
[217] See Bibliography A, No 120
The nursing world was for some years rent in twain by a dispute about Royal Charters and Registration The controversy lasted for seven years (1886-93); Miss Nightingale was in the thick of it, and during the more critical period of the dispute (1891, 1892) it was her main public preoccupation In 1886 the Hospitals association[218] appointed a Co a General Register of Nurses The Coreed; in 1887 the majority retired, and the minority founded the British Nurses association with a view to carrying forward a scheistration In 1888 the Hospitals association appointed a second committee which proceeded to collect opinions fro Schools
These Schools were for the ister; but there was difference of opinion a leaders alike in theworld ”I have a terror,” wrote Miss Nightingale to Mr Bonham Carter (April 20, 1889), ”lest the BNA's and the anti-BNA's should for one another by that test chiefly or alone This would be disastrous
The Unionists and the Home Rulers show us an example of what this is
They are two hostile ca_ even of a good doctor or of an acquaintance is, to which ca for an appointment, is asked whether he is Ho since the Reform Bill, which I remember very well, when the two sides would notbetween the pro-Registrationists and the anti-Registrationists went to the length of war-to-the-knife-and-fork; but the ”Nurses'
Battle” (as it was called in the newspapers) was hot and prolonged Fro point of view, the two sides were fairly matched On each side there were ee in that they included the greater nue of nurse-training; but the ”pro's” had a Princess at their head The Princess Christian had accepted the presidency of the British Nurses association; and when the ti for a Charter, it was the Princess who petitioned the Queen ”This ale; and undoubtedly it did There were courtly personages even aale's devoted adherents ere inclined to tri never perhaps thought out the questions, were predisposed to do as the Princess did Let each man in the battle have such credit as is due for his personal loyalty ”In any ale is my Pope,” wrote Mr Rathbone, ”and I believe in her infallibility” ”Nothing can save us,” he said to Miss Nightingale herself, ”except your intervention” She was not slow to give it Suggestions were made by intimate friends--Sir Henry Acland and Sir Harry Verney--that she should see the Princess Christian and endeavour to come to terms; and later on, in 1893, when the Eale, they renewed the suggestion But the Princess Christian had made no overtures; she was committed to the particular scheme advocated by the association of which she was President; and, to Miss Nightingale, opposition to that scheme was a matter of vital principle She threw herself into the fray with an equipumentative resource derived from her unequalled experience, and with a passionate conviction inspired by long brooding over a fixed ideal
[218] An association founded by Sir Henry Burdett, out of which cahtingale much commended) She took a different view of his Directory of Nurses
The objects of the British Nurses association were ”to unite all qualified British Nurses in nized Profession”; ”to provide for their Registration on tereons as evidence of their having received syste”; ”to associate thee in every way of their professional work”; and ”with a view to the attain the association and authorizing the forister”[219] It was around the second and the fourth of these objects that the principal battle raged The case of the association was _priister of Nurses, duly certified as coainst impostors The certification was to be by a Board which would insist on a certain standard of professional proficiency Three years' training in a hospital was suggested as the preliminary test The case, on the other side, as developed by Miss Nightingale and her allies, was that the apparent advantages of a Register were deceptive Who was to be protected? Not the hospitals: they protected theister, by their own methods If any one was to be protected, it ister would rather ister would, at best, only certify that at a certain date the nurse had satisfied the required tests; but the date istration would tell nothing of her subsequent conduct or coistration offrom that of nurses; for in the former case, a certain definite technical skill is of the essence of the , character is as much of its essence as any technical qualification As for the three years' training in a hospital, there were hospitals and hospitals, training-schools and training-schools; and as to guarantee the guarantors? The General Register would not raise the profession of nursing; it would do an injury to the better nurses by putting them on a level with the worse, and to the profession by stereotyping a minimum standard The British Nurses association had published a preliale analysed it, and found that in the case of nurses ”trained” at one hospital, the private Register of that Hospital excluded nearly one-third of those entered on the BNA's register; and that another Hospital's Register included, as ”duly certificated,” only one-third of those entered on the BNA's register as trained thereat ”You cannot select the good from the inferior by any test or system of examination But most of all, and first of all, must their moral qualifications be made to stand pre-eminent in estimation All this can only be secured by the current supervision, tests, or exa-school or hospital, not by any exan body like that proposed by the British Nurses association Indeed, those who come best off in such would probably be the ready and forward, not the best nurses”[220] The much vexed question of ”internal” or ”external”
examination was, it will be seen, involved in this dispute But to Miss Nightingale a larger and a more vital issue was at stake It was a conflict between two ideals--or rather, as she would have said, between a high ideal and a reed in her view ”that nurses cannot be registered and exareatly perturbed over what seemed to him so small a matter ”It is a co all the hich you have done, and you ale it was not a trifle, but a trial--a possible parting of the ways It was diverting attention fro a high calling to professional advancement ”There comes a crisis,” she wrote to Mr
Jowett (May), ”in the lives of all social h-hew the or registering spirit co-and-selling spirit on the other This has co was born about 30 years ago The present trial is not persecution but _fashi+on_; and this brings in all sorts of a, and _registering_ instead of _training_ On the other hand, an extra ardless of the truis has been raised fro the Hospital, Workhouse Infiruards, inspiring a sense of duty and love of the calling” The true way of ”protecting the public” was ”to extend Homes for Private Nurses on sound lines, aided by the Nurses' Training Schools and Hospitals”; not, by e nurses ”to flock to the Institutions which gave the easiest certificate at the least trouble of training”
Miss Nightingale could not, then, regard the dispute as a trifle It caused her days and nights of grievous anxiety Her s of heart both bitter and self-reproachful