Volume II Part 24 (1/2)

The Princess Christian, with the best intentions, was giving her naale's ideal This could not justly be attributed in blame to the Princess; the fault ale, who had misused her opportunities, and had failed to impress her ideal on other minds She was an unprofitable servant But here, as in all things, the sensitive reproaches of the night-watches left no trace of themselves on the work of the day; or rather, they left their trace in greater activity and devotion

[219] Proceedings of First General Meeting, February 24, 1888

[220] Letter froale to Mr Rathbone, read to the Privy Council: see p 90 of the book cited below (p 362 _n_)

It was in 1889 that the occasion came for resolute action The British Nurses association announced their intention of applying for a Charter, and proceeded to enlist public support Miss Nightingale set to work on the other side She made the acquaintance at this time of Miss Luckes, then, as now (1913), the Matron of the London Hospital, as strongly opposed to the idea of registration The acquaintance speedily ripened into friendshi+p, and henceforth Miss Nightingale was looked to for support and sympathy by the Matron of the London, hardly less than by her of St Tho schools ca their intention to oppose any petition for a Charter There was desultory skiristrationists and anti-Registrationists There was a lively polemic in the newspapers There were as ical dispute in a University[221] In 1891 the British Nurses association applied to the Board of Trade to be registered as a Public Company, without the addition of the word ”Limited” to its name

The Memorandum and proposed Articles of association were duly filed, and the fore the declared objects, to a register of trained nurses, and to power to deterhtingale and her allies took up the challenge Through Sir Harry Verney she approached the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) with a stateainst the association A counter-petition was presented; and after full consideration the Board refused the application The first engageale In the same year there was a Committee of the House of Lords to inquire into the London Hospitals Mr Rathbone, coached by Miss Nightingale, gave evidence on the question of the registration of nurses, and the Coistrationists now brought up their most formidable reserves

Pern to use the title ”Royal”

Thus strengthened by favour in the highest quarter, the Royal British Nurses association petitioned the Queen for a Royal Charter The petition was referred in the usual course to a special Committee of the Privy Council, and the two sides n fund was raised by the anti-Registrationists Miss Nightingale appealed privately to the Lord President of the Council and wrote various letters, Memoranda, Statements She enlisted support froe of nurse-training schools throughout the country, rallied round her Two petitions, of special weight, were presented to the Privy Council against the Charter One was froale Fund, the body which had been the pioneer in pro of nurses The other was the ”Petition of Executive Officers, Matrons, Lady Superintendents, and Principal assistants of the London and Provincial Hospitals and Nurse Training Schools, and of Members of the Medical Profession and Ladies directly connected with Nursing and the Training of Nurses” The list of signatures, which occupies twenty-three folio pages, was headed by ”Florence Nightingale” In the preparation of these docuh much of the work--especially in the instruction of the lawyers, in consultations and so forth--was done by Mr Bonhaale's side two of the ister for Nurses Desirable?_ by Henry Bonhaain by joining the British Nurses association?_ by Eva Luckes (Churchill, 1889)

The Committee of the Privy Council sat in Noves Miss Nightingale wrote an account in which, as will be seen, she did not let the Registrationist dogs have the better of it, but which betrays at the sahtingale to Sir Harry Verney_) 10 SOUTH STREET, _Nov_ 22 [1892] Yesterday was the first day of the Privy Council Trial

We had to change our senior counsel at the last ed on an Election Committee And our previous four days were, therefore, as you h to have Sir Richard Webster Sir Horace Davey opened the Ball on behalf of Princess Christian His speech was dull, and contained only the commonplaces we have heard for a year in favour of the Royal Charter The Judges were: Lord Ripon (who only stayed half the time), Lord Monson, and t Lords [Lord Hannen and Lord Hobhouse] They appeared to have been chosen as knowing nothing of thebeen on the Lords Committee on Hospitals Our side, Sir Richard Webster, folloith athat of a shrewdup of our case at short notice He put very strongly our contention that character, _unregistrable_, rather than technical training, es adjourned till Monday in theas we do--What is the use of saying that a Nurse has had 3 years'

training at such a Hospital? how can you certify the Hospital? He will resues asked all the questions--_not_ to the point--that you can fancy norant of the subject to ask, and which we have answered over and over again Sir Richard Webster said to Bonhaainst us” The Charter pledges itself to adister only nurses of three years'

Hospital training--which the Judges pronounced could do no harm

But it provides for itself what may put into its hands the whole control of what constitutes training Is it not wonderful these men do not see this? Well, ”we are in God's hands, brother, not in theirs” (the Privy Council's) In all uided me so faithfully (O that I had been as faithful to Hiest episode of all--to see a nu their naet told me himself that the na each other like a flock of sheep; to see their Council of Registrationabout nurse-training (Sir Jae out as students do!!); to see these able, good, and shrewdis sure to fall into a clique They have let Princess Christian fall into such an one already She is made a tool of by two or three people ”Lift up your heads, ye gates, and the King of Glory shall co in battle” O God of Battles, steel thy soldiers' hearts against happy-go-luckiness, against courtiershi+p, fashi+on, andon the part of the Nurses and their Societies! _PS_ This trial will cost us 700 at least

[222] A verbati (Nov 21, 28) was published in 1893 entitled _The Battle of the Nurses_ (Scientific Press)

The Committee took time to consider their advice to Her Majesty In May 1893 the decision was announced The Corant a Charter in accordance with a Draft revised by theranted

Each side claian of the Registrationists--claimed that they had won all, and even more than all, that they asked, and declared proudly that henceforth ”her position than any others” The _Hospital_, on the other side, argued that all this was ill-founded, but if the ”British Nurses” wanted to be congratulated on nothing, ”we are willing to congratulate theht before the Privy Council now beca of the verdict The anti-Registrationists, headed by Miss Nightingale and the Duke of Westminster, put their interpretation in a quiet letter to the _Times_ (July 3), which the Royal British Nurses association hotly denounced as ”untrue in fact and injurious in intention” (July 6)

The fact was that the Lords of the Council had steered a ranted the Charter; but in it for the words ”theas to each nurse registered,”

etc, they substituted the words ”the maintenance of a list of persons who may have applied to have their na in the Charter which gave any nurse the right to call herself ”chartered” or ”registered” What the promoters hoped we need not discuss; what the opponents feared was a Charter in such terive the Corporation an authoritative, and perhaps ultiister nurses, and thereby would give it also indirect control over nurse-training No such Charter was obtained; and in this sense the opposition of Miss Nightingale and her friends had prevailed The controversy is not dead; but, so far, her view has continued to prevail,[223] and the official registration of nurses is still a pious hope to its supporters, a heresy to its opponents Miss Nightingale greatly deplored the feud, but sought to bring good out of evil ”Forty years hence,” she wrote to Mr Rathbone (Feb 26, 1891), ”such a scheht not be preposterous, _provided_ the interently and successfully e all nurses at least equal to the best trained nurses of this day, and in levelling up Training Schools in like oodour side to an increased earnestness about (1) providing Ho, and (2) full _private_ Hospital Registers, tracing the careers of nurses trained by theave ht and trouble, than in 1891-3, to personal care for the affairs of the Nightingale School

[223] See the report of a deputation to the Prime Minister in the _Tiale was invited to contribute to a Congress on Woo in 1893, she treated the whole subject of nursing[224] This paper embodies in a methodical form her characteristic views, and in it she takes occasion in several places to touch obliquely upon the controversy described in preceding pages ”A new art, and a new science, has been created since and within the last forty years And with it a new profession--so they say; we say, _calling_” She dwells on the conditions necessary toschool for nurses She dilates upon the dangers to which nursing is subject These are ”Fashi+on on the one side, and a consequent want of earnestness;on the other side; and a ” ”Can it be possible that a testi or service from a hospital--_any_ hospital with a certain number of beds--can be accepted as sufficient to certify a nurse for a place in a public register? As well arden of a certain number of acres, that plants are certified valuable if they have been three years in the garden?” Then there was ”i No systeistration not capable of being gained by a public register!” The whole paper is written with a good deal of gusto The volume in which it appeared was dedicated to Princess Christian

[224] Bibliography A, No 131

In the following year Miss Nightingale had some correspondence with the Princess, who, as President of the Royal British Nurses association, had h the Hospitals, and had written to consult Miss Nightingale about it The Hospital Sisters were according to this scheme to be placed ”in subordination to the Arer experience under those with the sale a mistake; and she noted other details in which the scheme appeared to her inadequately considered She pointed these things out faithfully to the Princess, but the correspondence on both sides was cordial The letters froracefully Royalty can do things!” And on her part she desired to be conciliatory ”We should, I think, be earnestly anxious,” she wrote, ”to do e can for Princess Christian as she holds out the flag of truce, in order to put an end as far as we can to all this bickering, which does such harale's hout this controversy still deeper than any which have yet been noticed She had an esoteric conception of Nursing which istrable business in the light ale ”A profession, so they say; we say, _calling_” And not only a calling, but a forht be found Her view comes out in a letter which she wrote to Mr Jowett in 1889 in the course of a discussion with hiious life: ”You say that 'h for most people without outward form' And I may say I can never remember a time when it was not the question of my life Not so much for myself as for others For ion as laid down by St John's Gospel, however ih But the two thoughts which God has given me all ion into the for they would show it forthwoive theanization for their activity in which they could be trained to be the 'hand for women was then unknown, unwished for, and is the discovery of the last thirty years One could have taken up the school education of the poor, but one was specially called then to hospitals and nursing--both sanitation and nursing proper) This was then the 'organization' which we had to begin with, to attract respectable woious woo I planned a future,a Religion” Now, ”handmaids of the Lord” cannot be certified by external exaisters

Does this view of the matter seem a little transcendental? It was in accord, at any rate, with another of Miss Nightingale's fundamental doctrines, which in its application to the controversy had a severely practical force Nursing, she held, is a progressive art, in which to stand still is to go back No note is more often struck in her Addresses to Nurses She held, assuistrationists, consciously or unconsciously, had lost hold of that essential truth about nursing It was right that precautions should be taken against impostors, and that the fullest inquiries should be ale's objection was not to the precautions, but to theirnature; not to the tests, but to their inadequacy The only real and sufficient guarantee, in the case of an art in which the training, both technical and moral, is a continuous process, was, she held, that the public should be able to obtain a _recent_ recommendation of the nurse, as to be passed on from one doctor, hospital, or superintendent to another with so of the same elaborate record of work and character that she herself required in the case of Nightingale Probationers and Nurses

III

The fate of Miss Nightingale's work in the cause of Public Health both in India and at ho these years, even as was that in the cause of trained nursing, but here again substantial advance was made in several directions There was once a Secretary of State who entered the India Office possessed by a strong and personal interest in sanitation There was some excitement in the Office There were one or two men around the Minister who heartily approved; there were more who shook their heads The Minister ht, directly or indirectly, to a certain lady's ”beautiful nonsense” He was too is, in spite of the claims of economy He was too much in a hurry They took hiht to have succeeded in s as they were The other side becae ”It is essential,” wrote one of them to a certain lady, ”that you should see him at once” The lady, as the hope of one side and the fear of the other, was Miss Nightingale The Minister need not be identified; for these things, though true also of a particular case and tiory For thirty years and es and chances in the political world, Miss Nightingale was a per, in the interests of better sanitary administration