Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/342

326 A Short History of Nursing standards were, on the whole, well upheld. In this respect our country was much more fortu- nate than England, where the extensive use of amateurs, many of whom became permanent members of the class of superficially trained workers, seriously demoralized standards. Educa- tional work in training schools was disorganized in certain ways, but on the whole the war served to stimulate rather than lower general standards of nursing education, and new experiments were tried which will probably result in marked im- provements. Widespread popular education in home nursing and hygiene through the Red Cross courses has already shown good results, and instead of under- mining the work of the professional nurse, it seems to work rather toward a greater recognition of her value and place. Undoubtedly one of the most far-reaching results of the war will be the stimulation of nursing in countries where it was imperfectly developed. Already the influence of the highly trained wo- men of Great Britain and her Dominions, Scan- dinavia, and the United States, is evident in France, Italy, Greece, the Balkan countries, and Palestine. It is said that reactionary movements always