We had in one of the Hospitals which we nurse a little girl patient of seven years old, the child of a bad mother, who used to pray on her knees (when she did not know she was heard) her own little prayer that she might not forget, when she went away to what she already knew to be a bad life, the good words she had been taught. (In this great London, the time that children spend in Hospital is sometimes the only time in their lives that they hear good words.) And sometimes we have had patients, widows of journeymen for instance, who had striven to the last to do for their children and place them all out in service or at work, die in our Hospitals, thanking God that they had had this time to collect their thoughts before death, and to die “so comfortably” as they expressed it. But, if a Ward is not kept in such a spirit that patients can collect their thoughts, whether it is for life or for death, and that children can hear good words, of course these things will not happen. Ward management is only made possible by kindness and sympathy. And the mere way in which a thing is said or done to patient, or probationer, makes all the difference. In a Ward, too, where there is no _order_ there can be no “authority”; there must be noise and dispute. Hospital Sisters are the only women who may be in charge really of men. Is this not enough to show how essential to them are those qualities which alone constitute real authority? Never to have a quarrel with another; never to say things which rankle in another’s mind; never when we are uncomfortable ourselves to make others uncomfortable--for quarrels come out of such very small matters, a hasty word, a sharp joke, a harsh order: without regard to these things, how can we take charge? We may say, so-and-so is too weak if she minds that. But, pray, are we not weak in the same way ourselves? I have been in positions of authority myself and have always tried to remember that to use such an advantage inconsiderately is--cowardly. To be sharp upon them is worse in me than in them to be sharp upon me. No one can trample upon others, and govern them. To win them is half, I might say the whole, secret of “having charge.” If you find your way to their hearts, you may do what you like with them; and that authority is the most complete which is least perceived or asserted. The world, whether of a Ward or of an Empire, is governed not by many words but by few; though some, especially women, seem to expect to govern by many words--by talk, and nothing else. There is scarcely anything which interferes so much with charge over others as rash and inconsiderate talking, or as wearing one’s thoughts on one’s cap. There is scarcely anything which interferes so much with their respect for us as any want of simplicity in us. A person who is always thinking of herself--how she looks, what effect she produces upon others, what others will think or say of her--can scarcely ever hope to have charge of them to any purpose.