A TRIBUTE TO THE NURSES.
T"proposal to recognize the sorriest of the linnet during this war has our heartiest sympathy. It will indeed command universal assent, for we all admire the devotion and self-sacrifice shown by the women who tend our Mali and W01111001 just as much as see marvel at the courage and endurance of our men at sea or in the field. Women are playing a great part in the war, but nowhere are they rendering finer service than in the countless hospitals where the armies of injured and ailing men are restored to health. "The men are splendid," we know, and the women are splendid too. 'As a nation, we have been prompt to consider the question of the eador's and soldier's future. We have set up a Ministry of Pensions whose duty it is to look after all the disabled and invalided men. We have established a Ministry of Reconstruction to make plans for absorbing into civil occupations all the able-bodied men who, on leaving the Army or Navy, may
find themselves unemployed. We are now reminded that the women's future is also a matter for serious consideration. The country is showing its gratitude to the men who have fought in its service. It has still to show in some tangible form its gratitude to the women, and especially to the nurses.
What the. nurses chiefly need is a professional organization. Sixty years ago, when we fought the Crimean War, we discovered the need for trained nurses, and Mies Florence Nightingale began to supply them. The nation subscribed a large fund, as a thank- offering for the work of Miss Nightingale and her staff at Scutari, and that enabled her to found the nursing profession on a narrow, but secure, basis. Slowly and tentatively, and mainly by private effort, the profession grew, both in numbers and in efficiency. There were not nearly enough trained nurses, before the war, to meet the needs of the population, but the hospitals and nursing institutions were gradually increasing the supply and raising the standard. Yet the profession was still unorganized, and had no representative body to defend its interests or to protect the public against the ignorant Fahey Gamps who still ply their trade in poor neighbourhoods. The outbreak of war, with its tremendous calls upon the nursing profession, at once made this an urgent question. Leading nurses and doctors took counsel together in the first winter of the war, and founded a College of Nursing, with a representative governing body composed of twenty nurses, ten doctors, and three laymen, of whom the Chairman, Sir Arthur Stanley, is one. This College has branches in Scotland and in Ireland, and aims at having affiliated institutions throughout the Empire. It will require certain guarantees of competence from its members, and in return it will give them the advantages of prestige and security that the members of the organized professions enjoy. But the nursing profession, unlike the others, is poor. Nurses work hard for modest pay, and few of them can save very much for days of skluiese or for old age. Consequently the College of Nursing, if it had to depend solely on the contributions of its members, would find it difficult to raise funds for the work that it hopes to do.
It is now proposed that the country should come to the rescue and show ite gratitude to the nurses by providing a substantial endowment for their professional institution. The College of Nursing requires money to provide and maintain a suitable head- quarters, to promote the higher technical training of nurses, and to defend the general interests of their noble calling. Furthermore, money is needed to provide a benevolent fund for pensioning the many nurses who have been disabled by injuries or have wrecked
• their health in following their occupation. The State is providing to some extent for the nurses in military hospitals, but nothing has been done for the thousands of nurses who are employed at home in the service of the civil population. With a well-endowed College of Nursing and a large benevolent fund—as a nucleoli, no doubt, for some contributory pension scheme—the nurse's profession might be placed, for the first time, on a really sound footing. It seems to us that this is a most laudable scheme. The public, in contributing generously to it, would show its appreciation of the services that the nurses have rendered during this war, and would also confer a permanent benefit upon the nurses and the community. The appeal, which is being made by the Committee of the British Women's Hospital, with the hearty dupport of Sir Douglas Haig and Sir Alfred Keogh and the heads of the medical profession, is, we think, certain to meet with an immediate, hearty, and generous response, ae a thaukoffering to the good and skilful women who have tended our sick and wounded during these terrible years.
Let us add that Lady Cowdray, the Honorary Treasurer of the British Women's Hospital, will gratefully receive any contribu- tions addresaed to her at 16 Carlton House Terrace, S.W. 1, or 21 Old Bond Street, W. 1.
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