Between 1872 and 1900 Miss Nightingale used, when she was able, to send an annual letter or address to the probationer-nurses of the Nightingale School at St. Thomas’ Hospital, “and the nurses who have been trained there.” [1] These addresses were usually read aloud by Sir Harry Verney, the chairman of the Nightingale Fund, in the presence of the probationers and nurses, and a printed copy or a lithographed facsimile of the manuscript was given to each of the nurses present, “for private use onl

And this brings me to something else. (I can always correct others though I cannot always correct myself.) It is about jealousies and punctilios as to ranks, classes, and offices, when employed in one good work. What an injury this jealous woman is doing, not to others, or not to others so much as to herself; she is doing it to herself! She is not getting out of her work the advantage, the improvement to her own character, the nobleness (for to be useful is the only true nobleness) which God has

And of those who have to be Ward Mistresses, as well as those who are Ward Mistresses already, or in any charge of trust or authority, I will ask, if Sisters and Head Nurses will allow me to ask of them, as I have so often asked of myself— What is it that made our Lord speak “as one having authority”? What was the key to His “authority”? Is it anything which we, trying to be “like Him,” could have—like Him? What are the qualities which give us authority, which enable us to exercise some charge o

Lastly, it is charity to nurse sick bodies well; it is greater charity to nurse well and patiently sick minds, tiresome sufferers. But there is a greater charity even than these: to do good to those who are not good to us, to behave well to those who behave ill to us, to serve with love those who do not even receive our service with good temper, to forgive on the instant any slight which we may have received, or may have fancied we have received, or any worse injury. If we cannot “do good” to th

And let me say a word about self-denial: because, as we all know, there can be no real Nursing without self-denial. We know the story of the Roman soldier, above fourteen hundred years ago, who, entering a town in France with his regiment, saw a sick man perishing with cold by the wayside—there were no Hospitals then— and, having nothing else to give, drew his sword, cut his own cloak in half, and wrapped the sick man in half his cloak. It is said that a dream visited him, in which he found hims

May I take this opportunity of saying what I think really very much concerns us? First of all, that you have, or might have, directly and indirectly, a great deal to do with maintaining a supply of good candidates to this School. You know whether you have been happy here or not; you know whether you have had opportunities given you here of training and self-improvement. Many, very many of our old Matrons and Nurses have told me that their time as probationers with us was “the happiest time of th

May I pay ourselves even the least little compliment, as to our being a little less conceited than last year? Were we not as conceited in 1872 as it was possible to be? You shall tell. Are we, in 1873, rather less so? And, without having any one particularly in my head—for what I am going to ask is in fact a truism—is not our conceit always in exact proportion to our ignorance? For those who really know something know how little it is. Would that this could be a “secret” among us! But, unfortuna

And now I have a word for the Ladies, and a word for the Nurse-Probationers. Which shall come first? Do the ladies follow up their intellectual privileges? Or, are they lazy in their hours of study? Do they cultivate their powers of expression in answering Mr. Croft’s examinations? Ought they not to look upon themselves as future leaders—as those who will have to train others? And to bear this in mind during the whole of their year’s training, so as to qualify themselves for being so? It is not

Now let us not each of us think how this fits on to her neighbour, but how it fits on to oneself. Shall I tell you what one of you said to me after I last addressed you?—“Do you think we are missionaries?” I answer, that you cannot help being missionaries, if you would. There are missionaries for evil as well as for good. Can you help choosing? Must you not decide whether you will be missionaries for good, or whether for evil, among your patients and among yourselves? And, first, among your pati

London , May 26, 1875 . My dear Friends ,—This year my letter to you must needs be short, for I am not able to write much. But good words are always short. The best words that ever were spoken—Christ’s words—were the shortest. Would that ours were always the echo of His! First, then: What is our one thing needful? To have high principles at the bottom of all. Without this, without having laid our foundation, there is small use in building up our details. That is as if you were to try to nurse wi

These are some of the little things we need to attend to: To be a Nurse is to be a Nurse: not to be a Nurse only when we are put to the work we like. If we can’t work when we are put to the work we don’t like—and Patients can’t always be fitted to Nurses—that is behaving like a spoilt child, like a naughty girl: not like a Nurse. If we can do the work we don’t like from the higher motive till we do like it, that is one test of being a real Nurse. A Nurse is not one who can only do what she does

Easter Eve, 1879 , 6 A.M. My dear Friends ,—I am always thinking of you, and as my Easter greeting, I could not help copying for you part of a letter which one of my brother-in-law’s family had from Col. Degacher (commanding one battalion of the 24th Regiment in Natal), giving the names of men whom he recommended for the Victoria Cross, when defending the Commissariat Stores at Rorke’s Drift. (His brother, Capt. Degacher, was killed at Isandhlwana.) He says: “Private John Williams was posted, to

London , May 16, 1888 . My dear Friends ,—Here, one year more, is my very best love and heart-felt “good speed” to the work. To each and to all I wish the very highest success, in the widest meaning of the word, in the life’s work you have chosen. And I am more sorry than for anything else that my illness, more than usually serious, has let me know personally so little of you, except through our dear Matron and dear Home Sister. You are going steadily and devotedly on in preparing yourselves for