Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/145

Florence Nightingale 129 sharply limited by the hospital governors. To change this was her fundamental principle. Proof of this statement can be found in her letter to Dr. Gill Wylie, when he went to see her to ask advice about opening a training school in Bellevue hos- pital. Next to this in importance, from the re- volutionary standpoint, was her insistence on the high possibilities of nursing as a secular career. She described it as an art requiring the most as- siduous preparation. She took away from it the popularly sentimental ideas of martyrdom, pen- ance, and charity, and declared it a life full of the most complete satisfaction and worth-whileness. She was strongly religious, but regarded practical life as the best religious service. She disliked con- ventional, formal religion, and hated cant, equally she hated superficial amateurishness, and con- tinually adjured women, often in spicy terms, to fit themselves thoroughly for life by hard work and study. Miss Nightingale was closely associated with the United States Sanitary Commission and the many women who took charge of army influence of relief work during the Civil War. In Miss Night- ingale with correspondence she gave them contmu- hercontem- ous advice. At home she was in touch poraries with every social worker. She co-operated 9