of mankind is a great mistake. About this we are of the same opinion. We do not know of any disease or debility which can be traced back to a pure moral life.”

We must use all our energy to reach a better moral education for both sexes, but all of this labor will be of no avail so long as we are governed by laws which, as far as impurity is concerned, stand on the side of the wicked. So long as any higher and bolder vocation is closed against women, and the most uncleanly and injurious trade of prostitution is allowed, no moral education will be of avail. If women had a seat in our parliament these shameful laws, which are a disgrace to all the people of the world, never would have existed. But as this is not the case we must do for the present what we are able to do.

THE ROYAL BRITISH NURSES' ASSOCIATION REPORT BY MRS. BEDFORD FENWICK OF ENGLAND.

The English nation will look back to the years 1854-1855 as the beginning of the changes in trained nursing; before that time our hospitals were worked primarily by the Sisters of Mercy, who had but little theoretical knowledge of hospital duties. The nursing of the sick was handed over to women of the very lowest type, women who could get no other work to do, the most demoralized of our sex. The portraits drawn by Dickens of Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prigg were taken, I believe, from life.

The abuses in our hospitals called forth a better class of workers. Cultured women some years ago began to undertake the work, but it was found very arduous: the food was bad, the hours were long, and the companionship was demoralizing. Out of this system the regulations which are enforced to-day arose, and only women of education, culture. and the best physical and intellectual endowment are accepted. I may say that in one of the largest London hospitals one thousand six hundred applications are now received from educated women to fill from sixty to seventy vacancies.

The Royal British Nurses' Association is composed only of medical men and nurses, and was formed in order to unite all qualified British nurses in the membership of a recognized profession, to provide for their registration on terms satisfactory to physicians and surgeons, as evidence of their having received systematic training, and to associate them for their mutual help and protection, and for the advancement, in every way, of their professional work.

There is no necessity to point out the immense advantages of coöperation. Nurses, when they decide to combine, only follow the example shown by nearly every other profession, handicraft, and trade in which men are now engaged, but they make almost a new departure, so far as professional women are concerned, and for this reason their union acquired the greater significance. The progress of the association has been curiously watched in this and other countries, as illustrative of an experiment which, if successful, might have far-reaching effects in the encouragement of coöperation among women employed in other spheres of life. It may fairly be said that the progress of the associa tion hitherto has been more satisfactory than could have been at first anticipated. In four years it has been joined by more than three thousand nurses, and although many have died, and more have for various reasons resigned, it now has more than two thousand eight hundred members.

The first subject which engaged the attention of the association was the most important question of the registration of trained nurses. The practice of enrolling upon a general register the names of the members of any skilled calling in order to distinguish them from persons who assume the same title without any justification, is of admitted utility and public benefit, and the principle of registration has frequently been sanctioned by Parliament. It was, and unhappily still is, notorious that grave necessity exists for the protection of the public, not only against ignorant women terming themselves nurses, but also against welltrained workers who have proved themselves to be entirely

unworthy of trust by drunkenness, or by the commission of various grave offenses and crimes. In other professions means exist whereby such discreditable characters can be removed from the recognized ranks of the calling, and nurses very fairly ask that similar powers shall be provided in order that their profession may be cleared of persons who disgrace it. After considerable discussion at meetings held in different parts of the country, and after most careful consideration, the association applied first to the General Medical Council, and then to all the large hospitals in the United Kingdom which train nurses, asking each, the former separately and the latter collectively, to undertake the work of registration. The General Medical Council declined to do so, chiefly upon the ground that it had no power to undertake such a scheme. With a few exceptions the hospitals also declined, the majority of their governing bodies being of opinion that it was no part of their duty to control nurses who were not in their service. The association, in default of all other help, therefore, undertook the work itself. It appointed a very influential and representative registration board, and opened a register of trained nurses, offering for the first six months, as a period of grace, to enroll the names of all who could prove that they had been in attendance upon the sick for at least three years, and that they were of unexceptionable character. Since June 30, 1890, every candidate for registration has been required to prove that she has had three years' hospital work and experience. The most careful inquiries are made into each applicant's character and work, and the board has the power to remove from the register the name of any nurse who shall, after full inquiries, be considered by the board to be unworthy to remain thereon.

The advantages of this system to medical men, nurses. hospitals, and the public are very great. The registers being published annually, doctors are able to learn at a glance when and where any registered nurse received her hospital education; whether, in fact, she has had special

experience or not in the cases for which she is needed. Trained nurses are distinguished for the first time from women who assume that title without being in any way entitled to do so, and from those who bring discredit upon nurses as a body. Hospitals which were formerly powerless to protect the public against women who forge or steal their certificates, or against nurses whom they have trained, or perhaps even certificated, but who afterward proved unworthy, are now protected to some extent against the discredit which such persons reflect upon them. And the public is benefited most, because, by demanding a registered nurse, they can now be protected as never before against the many dangers to life and property which ignorant or untrustworthy nurses can cause.

Beyond this important work, however, the association seeks in various ways to help nurses. It has established a benevolent fund from which pecuniary assistance is given to members of at least two years' standing who are in need of such aid. Pensions of twenty pounds a year each have been established for members of not less than three years' standing, who are past work and without sufficient means. of subsistence. In time it is hoped that this department will grow to be of the greatest service to nurses in times of adversity, sickness, or old age. The association holds six meetings during each winter for the reading and discussion of papers on nursing subjects, a conversazione in December in London, and the annual meeting in July in a provincial town. At the offices there is a reading-room and library for the use of members, and a list of vacant appointments is also kept. The Nurses' Journal is sent, post free, to every member once a quarter. In various other ways now it benefits nurses, and by still other methods, as time goes on, it will be able to advance their interests. In short, the Royal British Nurses' Association can claim that, with nearly three thousand members all over the world, and with its record of accomplished work, its existence has been already more than justified.

CHAPTER XV.-ORDERS, CIVIL AND POLITICAL

REFORM,

AS PRESENTED IN THE SUBORDINATE CONGRESSES.

EDITORIAL COMMENT - EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE YOUNG LADIES' MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION, BY EMILY S. RICHARDS EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE DEPARTMENT CONGRESS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, EY MRS. ADLAI E. STEVENSON-EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE DEPARTMENT CONGRESS OF THE WOMAN'S RELIEF CORPS, BY KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD - EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE DEPARTMENT CONGRESS OF THE ORDER OF THE EASTERN STAR, BY MARY C. SNEDDEN - ABSTRACT OF AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL CONGRESS, BY RACHEL FOSTER AVERY.

F no other subordinate Congresses were the managers more painstaking in the preparation of their respective programmes than were the committees charged with the control of the Department Congresses here represented. The report of the Department Congress of the Eastern Star, so carefully prepared and so generously sent by Mrs. Lorraine J. Pitkin, merits special mention.

In numbers and in public influence the four organizations herein reported are among the strongest in the country.

It seems appropriate that the last pages of this historical résumé shall be filled with the last utterance of the Congress. Therefore, the address of Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery is here reproduced. It serves to bind the subordinate Congresses to the main Congress; it seems not an echo but a clear prolongation of the key-note of the great meeting, the greatest significance of which lies in its recognition of the fact that harmony is greater than melody; that not merely is the whole greater than any of its parts, but that