necessary, and a full meeting most essential for a fair consideration of the affairs of the Society entrusted to you by the meeting held in Washington last year. REBECCA JACKSON. Michigan State Nurses' Association-Executive Board Meeting Present, Miss Sarah E. Sly, Birmingham, Mich., president of the Association; Mrs. L. E. Gretter, superintendent of nurses, Harper Hospital, Detroit; Miss E. L. Parker, Michigan State School for the Blind, Lansing; Miss A. A. Deans, Detroit; Miss Lula Durkee, Detroit; Miss Katherine Gifford, Grand Rapids; Mrs. L. J. Lupinski, Grand Rapids; Miss I. M. Barrett, superintendent U. B. A. Hospital, Grand Rapids; Miss Jessie Lennox, Ann Arbor; Mrs. M. A. Foy, superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Thirty-one new members were admitted to the state association. Miss Sarah E. Sly was appointed a delegate to the State Federation of Women's Clubs, with which the State Nurses' Association has recently become affiliated. This movement is directly in response to an appeal from the Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane, who recently addressed the Michigan State Nurses on the subject of nursing in our county almshouses. It is hoped that the outcome of this will be trained nurse service for our sick and insane poor. We are to join the Denver Graduate Nurses' Association in an effort to raise a relief fund for a home, etc., for the graduate nurses of San Francisco. The State Association will send this down to the various local alumnæ associations throughout the State, feeling that through them only can the greatest number of nurses be reached. Also our State association is planning to gain the co-operation of the various other state associations in an effort to do some substantial work toward the Hospital Economics Endowment Fund. Individual contributions, which have been the subject of great efforts in our State the past two years, do not seem successful to meet the problem of raising an endowment fund. The Michigan bill for state registration of nurses, which was vetoed in the House of Representatves after passing the Senate at the last session of the Legislature, was the subject of lengthy discussion, and new plans were formulated for a general canvass of the State; newspapers, legislators and the public generally to be reached through various channels, so that when the bill is presented to the Legislature at the next session the members will be much better informed on the subject than they were before, and our chances of success accordingly much increased. A very successful meeting was this most recent one of the board, all the members being in accord in their efforts for the work to be accomplished. LULA B. DURKEE, Chairman Press Committee, Michigan State Nurses' Association. + State Reports* DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. January 28, 1904, a bill was drawn up and introduced by the health officer of the District of Columbia. This was objected to by the nurses and their own bill introduced. This was opposed by the commissioners and health officer. In the District all matters pertaining to medicine or nursing affairs are referred by the commissoners to the health officer; hence his active interest. At a hearing before the commissoners and health officer in November we were promised their support if we could combine the two bills, taking the best points of both. As this was practically the only objection the bill was having, we have worked the winter to combine them, knowing that unless we had the approval of the District commissioners our affairs would stand a very poor chance in Congress. Our new bill was read in the House January 22, referred to the commissioners soon after, and hearing given the nurses' committee. We were asked to concede the right to name candidates for nurse examining board. Their objection to the District Association was that it was not representative and too changeable. We were also asked to provide for non-graduates. Membership in the District Nurses' Association is composed of graduates from six training schools, besides a large number of floating nurses, which is always more or less changeable, making the present enrolment two hundred and seventeen, which is supposed to be half the number of the trained nurses in * Reports read at Convention of Associated Alumnæ. the District. We conceded this point, stipulating that the board be composed of graduate nurses; as to non-graduates, we inserted a clause saying that one who had nursed four years prior to the passage of the bill and served one year as a nurse in a hospital, upon the passing of an examination in practical nursing could use the title of "Registered Nurse," this clause to be operative only three years following the passage of the bill. Upon the return of the bill the second time from the commissioners, the new points in it were that all officers of hospitals asking for registration pay a fee of twenty-five dollars, and that all rules for the nurses' examining board be made by the medical supervisors, and that no superintendent of a training school be eligible for position on the board. We objected to these, in consequence of which the fee was cut down to ten dollars and the medical supervisors cut out. The clause depriving the superintendents of the right to serve on the board remained. The bill also provided for an appropriation of five hundred dollars for office furniture and stationery, which was later cut down to two hundred dollars. These were the important changes we conceded and gained. The commissioners then sent the bill to the district attorney and from him to the House of Representatives, with their approval recommending its passage. It is now with the sub-committee on Ways and Means of the District of Columbia. MISS GREENLEES. PENNSYLVANIA. Thursday of last week I received a telegram saying that I was to make a report for the State of Pennsylvania, and I had no idea what they wanted me to tell, but I can tell you what we have done. In 1903 the state association was organized. As it was late in the season, we simply took that year to get ourselves in systematic order. In 1904 we began to work for the bill and got it in good shape to introduce in the Legislature in 1905. It was introduced in the Legislature in 1905 early and passed the House splendidly. It was unfortunate for us that our senator did not seem to take very much interest, and kept it in his overcoat pocket. In the meantime the insane asylums and small special hospitals had got to work to defeat the bill. The bill was put before the Senate and reported back to the committee. The Maryland State Association held its third annual meeting in January. During the year nearly one hundred new members have been added, raising the membership from two hundred and eighteen to three hundred and sixteen. Up to this time we had only one meeting. Many nurses felt that the interest in the association would be increased if meetings were held more often than once a year. A meeting was, therefore, held in May, and we propose to hold one in October, the annual meeting still to be held in January. In February of this year an amendment was offered to the Maryland bill, the object of which was to allow hospitals to send out their pupil nurses to care for the sick without having this disqualify the nurse for state registration. The amendment, we are glad to report, was defeated, and the Maryland bill now stands just as it was passed. There are five hundred and five nurses ready to register in Maryland. Maryland has an active society working for the prevention and cure of tuberculosis, and the Nurses' Association has joined this society in a body. Moreover, there is in Baltimore to-day a nurse who is doing district nursing among the poor who are suffering with this dread disease, who is being entirely supported by the Maryland State Nurses' Association of Graduate Nurses. We also have a committee whose duty it is to investigate and report the failures and successes of central directories in other cities. While many feel strongly the necessity of such a directory, no definite steps have yet been taken, as the association is somewhat divided as to the advisability of establishing a registry. The association has taken an active interest in the child labor question, and also in the work of the Red Cross Society, and a committee has been appointed to work with the Maryland branch of that society. There is an interesting point in connection with the appointing of this committee. A part of the work of this committee will be to act as vouchers for nurses who apply for enrolment as Red Cross nurses. It was originally intended that this committee should be composed of physicians and nurses; but our honorary president, Miss Nutting, whom so many of you know, always stands for nurses for nurses' work. This caused some delay, but at our May meeting we were told that the Red Cross committee had come around to her way of thinking. Moreover, a few days ago the chairman of that committee called to say that at a meeting held that afternoon they had decided to appoint the committee that the Nurses' Association appointed and to enroll only such nurses as were recommended by them. This practically put the enrolment of the Red Cross nurses in Maryland in the hands of the State Association of Graduate Nurses. MISS PACKARD. Nurses' Home The new nurses' home of the City and County Hospital, St. Paul, Minn., is a handsome three-story structure built of brick and concrete. It is thoroughly modern in every detail and involved an outlay of nearly $60,000. The general dimensions of the entire building are 136 feet by 48 feet. One of the features of the nurses' new residence is the fact that it is connected by tunnel with the hospital proper. By going down to the basement from the office of the hospital one comes directly to the hospital end of the 150-foot passageway leading to the basement floor of the nurses' residence. This is especially convenient, because the nurses' class recitation room is on this floor. A narrow hallway leads along the front of the building directly to this class room. Thus the recitations will not be disturbed by people passing down the corridors. The entrance to the ground floor is through an arched doorway, opening directly into a large reception room. This reception room is the pride of the nurses. It is designed in colonial style, and is finished in the prevailing colors of green and white. Eight wooden columns, all of the window woodwork and panels, and the mantels of the two homelike fireplaces are in pure white. The burlap which lines the wall is green, and all of the wickerwork rocking chairs with which the room is supplied are of the same color. The reception room opens out at the rear onto a spacious veranda, half as long as the building and reaching out ten feet from it. This is an especially pleasant place in the summer time, with a view of the Mississippi and its picturesque bluffs opposite. The suite for the superintendent of nurses is to the east of the reception room, while to the west is a spare room to be used for visitors. On the opposite side of the corridor leading to the east end of the building from the reception room is the room of Miss M. A. Edwards, matron in charge. On this floor there are eight double nurses' dormitory rooms and two single rooms. The large rooms are 151⁄2 by 14 feet and the small ones are 151⁄2 by 8 feet. Each room is supplied with a bureau, bed, chiffonier, rocking chair and small table for each nurse. There is also a closet for each nurse in the double rooms. In the hallway on each of the upper floors is a large mirror on the wall. The second story is given over almost entirely to the dormitories. There are eight double and twelve single bedrooms. There are also two bathrooms and a sewing room on this floor.. The third floor is partitioned off into three large rooms, two of them for trunk rooms and one for a general storeroom, and nine single bedrooms. There are also two bathrooms on this floor. In connection with the home for the nurses an addition for the superintendent of the hospital, Dr. Aucker, was also constructed. The superintendent's residence is attached to the nurses' building, is built of the same material, and is a part of the same general architectural design. It is, however, entirely cut off from the nurses' building by solid walls and has no resemblance whatever to it in interior arrangement. + Youngstown, Ohio Six young women composed the graduating class of the Youngstown, Ohio, Hospital Training School for Nurses. The exercises pertaining to the graduation of the class were held in the First Presbyterian Church June 12. A large number of people, friends of the members of the class, were present at the exercises and witnessed the presentation of the diplomas which had been so well earned. This class was composed of Miss Marjory Vivian Bennett, Miss Bertha May Westlake, |