At the end of two years Miss Nightingale returned to England, with her constitution over-tasked, and her health permanently impaired. She was received by the Queen and the people with every demonstration of gratitude and respect. The only form in which she would allow any public memorial of her services to take, was the establishment of an Institution for the training of women as nurses of the sick, and the educating of persons of the requisite qualities of character and business capacity for the superintendence of hospitals and infirmaries. The enterprise was taken up with great enthusiasm, and a Fund called the Nightingale Fund (stated to amount in 1870 to £40,000), was soon subscribed, and out of the income a Training School has been established in connection with St. Thomas' Hospital, London. In a beautiful introduction to a memoir of Miss Agnes Elizabeth Jones, one of her pupils and dear friend, who died in charge of the Training School for Nurses in Liverpool, in 1868, Miss Nightingale thus sets forth the object of her Institution.

We require that a woman be sober, honest, truthful, without which there is no foundation on which to build.

We train then in habits of punctuality, quietness, trustworthiness, personal neatness. We teach her how to manage the concerns of a large ward or establishment.

We train her in dressing wounds and other injuries, and in performing all those minor operations which nurses are called upon day and night to undertake. We teach her how to manage helpless patients in regard to moving, changing, feeding, temperature, and the prevention of bed-sores.

She has to make and apply bandages, line splints for fractures, and the like. She must know how to make beds with as little disturbance as possible to their inmates. She is instructed how to wait at operations, and as to the kind of aid the surgeon requires at her hands. She is taught cooking for sick; the principles on which sick wards ought to be cleansed, aired, and warmed; the management of convalescents; and how to observe sick and maimed patients, so as to give an intelligent and truthful account to the physician or surgeon in regard to the progress of cases in the intervals between visits-a much more difficult thing than is generally supposed.

We do not seek to make "medical women," but simply nurses acquainted with the principles which they are required constantly to apply at the bedside. For the future superintendent is added a course of instruction in the administration of a hospital, including, of course, the linen arrangements, and what else is necessary for a matron to be conversant with.

There are those who think that all this is intuitive in women, that they are born so, or, at least, that it comes to them without training. To such we say, By all means send us as many such geniuses as you can, for we are sorely in want of them.

The success of Miss Nightingale's endeavors in the St. Thomas' Hospital Training School for nurses, has confirmed the experience of Pastor Fliedner at Kaiserswerth, that nursing is an art, in which aptitude of head and heart may be necessary to the highest success, as 'aptness to teach' is in teaching, but both knowledge and training-knowledge of the human system, of diseases, and remedial agents, and training in the application of these agents and the ways and means of dealing with mind and body diseased, are indispensable to women of average ability.

TRAINING INSTITUTIONS FOR NURSES AT LIVERPOOL.

THE scheme of establishing a Training Institution for Nurses in connection with the Royal Infirmary, the principal hospital in Liverpool, originated in 1861 with some of the inhabitants of that city, whose names are not given in the pamphlet on "The Organization of Nursing;" but the Committee of the Institution is there described as consisting, "not of benevolent enthusiasts or philanthropists by profession, but of practical men of business, who have abundant work and large experience in commerce, in politics, and in life, who know the value of time and money, and would not be stow either on an enterprise in which they did not find the results proportionate to the expenditure."

The objects of the Institution are thus explained in a prospectus which was published for the purpose of obtaining the necessary funds:

1. To provide thoroughly educated professional nurses for the Infirmary.-There are in the Infirmary, nurses of whose efficiency and kindness we can not speak too highly, but the supply of good hospital nurses is quite inadequate to the requirements. And the misconduct of the unsuitable oues, who, from necessity, are employed, discredits a profession which is in its nature most honorable, and would otherwise attract many whose ability and character would peculiarly fit them for its duties. We refer to the testimony of the Medical Board on this point, and need hardly point out how much might be done by a complete system of nursing to save life and health, and to make the expenditure of an hospital more effective, by giving increased power to the medical and other agencies, and by abridging the period requisite to effect a cure.

2. To provide district or missionary nurses for the poor.-In cases which are not suitable for, and can not be reached by, hospitals, to do in nursing what -the dispensaries do for them in medical aid. We propose to furnish nurses to those districts which will, by means of local committees or individuals, find the necessary medical comforts and superintendence. The results of district nursing, though only tried on a small scale and with an imperfect organization, have been invariably satisfactory. It relieves an amount of suffering most intense in its character, and capable of alleviation, to a great extent, by a proportionately small expenditure. It does more than this; it teaches the people to nurse their own sick, and, by introducing a knowledge of sanitary laws among the working classes, tends to prevent illness and strengthen health.

In a merely economical point of view, by restoring parents to their work and place, it often prevents whole families from steadily sinking into hopeless poverty, misery, and vice, the consequences of which, in the end, take vengeance on society for its neglected duties.

In a moral and political point of view, aid thus given to the suffering poor does away with an irritation against God and man, the extent of which is not suspected by those who have not been in a position to see it. Such irritation is the frequent result of extreme suffering, when unmitigated by assistance from those who have the power to give it, leading men to brood bitterly over an inequality of conditions to which they are not reconciled by experiencing in their need the alleviation which wealth and knowledge could and should have provided. Assistance thus bestowed would open the hearts of the sufferers and of their families to all benevolent persons in their attempts to benefit the working classes, physically, morally, and religiously.

3. To provide sick-nurses for private families. It is a fact well known by medical men that far more patients die unnecessarily (or live with permanently

impaired health), from defective nursing, in families who could and would gladly pay for efficient nursing, if procurable, than even under the defective nursing which, till lately, was almost general in hospitals. Most of the hospital nurses had at least some knowledge of what they were about. However devoted and watchful the relative or the private nurse may be, while she is gaining her experience of what ought to be done, the object of her care has often passed out of its reach, or her own health has given way, and death has thus multiplied its victims. If relieved by the aid of a trained nurse, she might with an easy mind have left her charge and obtained the necessary rest."

RULES OF THE LIVERPOOL NURSES TRAINING SCHOOL.

1. That the nurses are to attend the sick, both rich and poor, at hospitals or private houses, as the Committee or Lady Superintendent may appoint.

2. That when sent from the Home to attend a patient, they receive their instructions from the Lady Superintendent, and do not leave the case without communicating with her; this they can do by letter at any time.

5. That no present or gratuity of any kind be accepted by a nurse, beyond some very trifling remembrance from or of the patient.

4. That nothing belonging to a deceased patient is to be accepted by the

nurse.

5. That while on duty at the Home, at the Infirmary, or in private houses, the regulations of the establishment with regard to dress are to be observed by the nurse.

6. That no male visitors to the nurses be admitted at the Home without special permission from the Lady Superintendent.

7. That the nurses shall not take more than 1 pint each of table beer in the twenty-four hours, and no wine or spirits without a medical order; and that they shall carefully avoid adding unnecessarily to the expenses of a household either in board or washing.

8. That a nurse is always to bring back with her a certificate of conduct and efficiency from the family of her patient or from the medical attendant.

It is expected that the nurses will bear in mind the importance of the situation they have undertaken, and will evince, at all times, the self-denial, forbearance, gentleness, and good temper so essential in their attendance on the sick, and also to their characters as Christian nurses. They are to take the whole charge of the sick room, doing every thing that is requisite in it, when called upon to do so. When nursing in families where there are no servants, if their attention be not of necessity wholly devoted to their patient, they are expected to make themselves generally useful. They are also most earnestly charged to hold sacred the knowledge which, to a certain extent, they must obtain of the private affairs of households or individuals they may attend.

A building (the Nurse's Home) capable of accommodating a staff of nurses with a superintendent, a deputy, and three servants, was erected at the expense of an individual (Mr. W. Rathbone, merchant of Liverpool), on the grounds of the Infirmary, and placed under the charge of Miss Agnes Elizabeth Jones (daughter of Col. Jones of Fahan on the Lough Swilly, Ireland), who spent some time in the Nightingale School in connection with St. Thomas' Hospital, and in Kings College Hospital, to learn the system of these two nursing schools, the method of study, and the surgical and medical training pursued there. In the organization and instruction of the •Training Department, Miss Jones was eminently successful, until her health failed. She died February 19, 1868, in the midst of her usefulness, with 50 nurses, 150 pauper scourers, and 1,350 patients under her charge.

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH thus writes in his Journal, after devoting a fortnight (at intervals) to Madame de Sevigné's Letters:

POLITE CONVERSATION AND FAMILIAR LETTERS.

When a woman of feeling, fancy, and accomplishment has learned to converse with ease and grace, from long intercourse with the most polished society, and when she writes as she speaks, she must write letters as they ought to be written; if she has acquired just as much habitual correctness as is reconcilable with the air of negligence. A moment of enthusiasm, a burst of feeling, a flash of eloquence may be allowed; but the intercourse of society, either in conversation or in letters, allows no more. Though interdicted from the long-continued use of elevated language, they are not without a resource. There is a part of language which is disdained by the pedant or the declaimer, and which both, if they knew its difficulty, would dread; it is formed of the most familiar phrases and turns, in daily use by the generality of men, and is full of energy and vivacity, bearing upon it the mark of those keen feelings and strong passions from which it springs. It is the employment of such phrases which produces what may be called colloquial eloquence. Conversation and letters may be thus raised to any degree of animation, withont departing from their character. Any thing may be said, if it be spoken in the tone of society; the highest guests are welcome, if they come in the easy undress of the club; the strongest metaphor appears without violence, if it is familiarly expressed; and we the more easily catch the warmest feeling, if we perceive that it is intentionally lowered in expression, out of condescension to our calmer temper. It is thus that harangue and declamations, the last proof of bad taste and bad manners in conversation, are avoided, while the fancy and the heart find the means of pouring forth all their stores. To meet this despised part of language in a polished dress, and producing all the effects of wit and eloquence, is a constant source of agreeable surprise. This is increased when a few bolder and higher words are happily wrought into the texture of this familiar eloquence. To find what seems so unlike author-craft in a book, raises the pleasing astonishment to its highest degree.

Letters must not be on a subject. Lady Mary Wortley's letters on her Journey to Constantinople, are an admirable book of travels; but they are not letters. A meeting to discuss a question of science is not conversation; nor are papers written to another, to inform or discuss letters. Conversation is relaxation, not business, and must never appear to be occupation; nor must letters. Judging from my own mind, I am satisfied of the falsehood of the common notion, that these letters owe their principal interest to the anecdotes of the court of Louis XIV. A very small part of the letters consist of such anecdotes. Those who read them with this idea, must complain of too much Grignan. may now own that I was a little tired during the two first volumes: I was not quite charmed and bewitched till the middle of the collection, where there are fewer anecdotes of the great and famous. I felt that the fascination grew as I became a member of the Sevigné family; it arose from the history of the immortal mother and the adored daughter, and it increased as I knew them in more minute detail; just as my tears in the dying chamber of Clarissa depend on my having so often drank tea with her in those early volumes, which are so audaciously called dull by the profane vulgar. I do not pretend to say that they do not owe some secondary interest to the illustrious age in which they were written; but this depends merely on its tendency to heighten the dignity of the heroine, and to make us take a warmer concern in persons who were the friends of those celebrated men and women, who are familiar to us from our childhood.

I once thought of illustrating my notions by numerous examples from La Sevigné.' The style of Madame de Sevigné is evidently copied, not only by her worshiper, Walpole, but even by Gray; who, notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his matter, has the double stiffness of an imitator, and of a college recluse.

POWER OF CHARACTER-UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE.

From "Sermons for the New Life, by Horace Bushnell."

THE following passages, in which Dr. Bushnell sets forth in a novel and masterly manner the power, which a Christian exerts in the circle in which he moves, by what he is, in distinction from what he professes, is strikingly true of the Teacher. So it seemed to us when we first heard it delivered in the old North Church, Hartford, forty years ago, and so it seems to us now, when we have come to estimate more highly than ever before, the subtle, yet beneficent and inspiring influences which stream out from the voice, manner, action, the daily life of the true teacher, as he goes out and in before his pupils, and discharges all his manifold duties in and out of the school-room. The train of thought is suggested by the record in John's Gospel (xx, 8), in which the unhesitating step of Peter, as he approaches and at once enters the sepulchre, decides John,-" then went in also that other disciple."

There are two sorts of influence belonging to man; that which is active or voluntary, and that which is unconscious;—that which we exert purposely or in the endeavor to sway another, as by teaching, by argument, by persuasion, by threatenings, by offers and promises,-and that which flows out from us, unawares to ourselves, the same which Peter had over John when he led him into the sepulchre. The importance of our efforts to do good, that is of our voluntary influence, and the sacred obligation we are under to exert ourselves in this way are often and seriously insisted on.

But there needs to be produced, at the same time, and partly for this object, a more thorough appreciation of the relative importance of that kind of influence, or beneficence which is insensibly exerted. The tremendous weight and efficacy of this, compared with the other, and the sacred responsibility laid upon us in regard to this, are felt in no such degree or proportion as they should be; and the consequent loss we suffer in character, as well as that which the Church suffers in beauty and strength, is incalculable.

The influences we exert unconsciously will almost never disagree with our real character. They are honest influences, following our character, as the shadow follows the sun. And, therefore, we are much more certainly responsible for them, and their effects on the world. They go streaming from us in all directions, though in channels that we do not see, poisoning or healing around the roots of society, and among the hidden wells of character. If