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 only.” A few also were written for the Nightingale Nurses serving in
Edinburgh.
The letters were not meant for publication, and indeed are hardly
suitable to be printed as a whole as there is naturally a good deal of
repetition in them. Since Miss Nightingale’s death, however, heads of
nursing institutions and others have asked for copies of the addresses
to be read or given to nurses, and her family hope that the publication
of a selection may do something to carry further the intention with
which they were originally written.
Perhaps, too, not only nurses, but others, may care to read some of
these letters. There is a natural desire to understand the nature of a
great man’s or woman’s influence, and we see in the addresses something
at least of what constituted Miss Nightingale’s power. Her earnest care
for the nurses, her intense desire that they should be “perfect,” speak
in every line. They do not, of course, give full expression to the
writer’s mind. They were written after she had reached middle age, as
from a teacher of long and wide experience to pupils much younger than
herself--pupils some of whom had had very little schooling and did not
easily read or write. The want of even elementary education and of
habits and traditions of discipline which grow in schools are
difficulties less felt now than in 1872, when Miss Nightingale’s first
letter to nurses was written. At that time it was necessary in
addressing such an audience to write very simply, without learned
allusions (though some such appear in disguise) and without too great
severity and concentration of style. The familiar words of the Bible and
hymns could appeal to the least learned among her hearers, and never
lost their power with Miss Nightingale herself.
But through the simple and popular style of the addresses something of a
philosophical framework can be seen. When Miss Nightingale hopes that
her nurses are a step further on the way to becoming “perfect as our
Father in Heaven is perfect,” she has in mind the conception she had
formed of a moral government of the world in which science, activity,
and religion were one. In her unpublished writings these ideas are dwelt
on again and again. They are clearly explained in her note on a prayer
of St. Teresa:--
“We cannot really attach any meaning to _perfect_ thought and feeling,
unless its perfection has been attained through life and work, unless it
is being realised in life and work. It is in fact a contradiction to
suppose Perfection to exist except at work, to exist without exercise,
without ‘working out.’ We cannot conceive of _perfect_ wisdom, perfect
happiness, except as having _attained_, attained perfection through
work. The ideas of the Impassible and of Perfection are
contradictions.... This seems to be the very meaning of the word
‘perfect’--‘made through’--made perfect through
suffering--completed--working out; and even the only idea we can form of
the _Perfect Perfect_ ... ‘God in us,’ ‘grieving the Holy Spirit of
God,’ ‘My Father worketh and I work’--these seem all indications of this
truth.... We cannot explain or conceive of Perfection except as having
worked through Imperfection or sin.... The Eternal Perfect almost
pre-supposes the Eternal Imperfect.” Hence her deep interest in the
“laws which register the connection of physical conditions with moral
actions.” She quotes elsewhere a scientific writer who delighted in the
consciousness that his books were to the best of his ability expounding
the ways of God to man. “I can truly say,” she continues, “that the
feeling he describes has been ever present to my mind. Whether in having
a drain cleaned out, or in ventilating a hospital ward, or in urging
the principles of healthy construction of buildings, or of temperance
and useful occupation, or of sewerage and water supply, I always
considered myself as obeying a direct command of God, and it was ‘with
the earnestness and reverence due to’ God’s laws that I urged them....
For mankind to create the circumstances which create mankind through
these His Laws is the ‘way of God.’”
* * * * *
The letters have needed a little editing. Miss Nightingale had great
power of succinct and forcible statement on occasion, but here she was
not tabulating statistics nor making a businesslike summary for a
Minister in a hurry. Certain ideas had to be impressed, in the first
place orally, on minds which were not all highly trained; and for this
she naturally wrote in a discursive way. She did not correct the proofs.
As readers of her _Life_ will know, she was burdened with other work and
delicate health, and she found any considerable revision difficult and
uncongenial. It has therefore been necessary to make a few emendations,
such as occasionally correcting an obvious misprint, adding a missing
word, and taking out brackets, stops, and divisions which obscured the
sense. A few of the many repetitions and one or two passages only
interesting at the time, have also been left out. The object has been to
change as little as possible, and I hope nothing has been done that Miss
Nightingale would not have done herself if she had corrected the proofs.
The first two addresses give perhaps the fullest expression of the main
theme to which she returns again and again. Others have been chosen
chiefly for the sake of characteristic illustrations of the same theme.