In the care of the sick we have seen a complete revolution. Even so recently as the days of our grandparents "Sarah Gamp" was the general refuge--now her name is a byword. The work of nursing and the care of an invalid's room, be it home or hospital, has been raised from mere manual labour. Intellect has established formulæ and dogma on which workers can be trained, and the work itself has been proved not alone a suitable means by which a woman can earn her living, but also a profession demanding a dignified respect and admiration. The researches of medical laboratories--the accumulated experience of the great physicians and surgeons of the world--are constantly placing valuable knowledge in the hands of nurses and those who train them. Elaboration and fuss have gone in favour of a simplicity of service based on scientific facts; the influence of the trained worker has to some extent permeated the untrained service of home nursing. Great may still be our ignorance and great the need for a more adequate service, especially in the homes of the poor, but taken as a whole the care of the sick has been raised to what we may, without ambiguity, call a scientific art. Nursing may be popular from a love of such work and from its financial return, but the real strength of the nursing world lies in its organised provision of skilled women sent out to their work with a knowledge of its detail and a training in routine, paid for by service during years of apprenticeship. The changes that have been effected in regard to the care of the sick may not form a perfect analogy of what can be done in other forms of domestic work, but they at least constitute a lesson in cause and effect, with many suggestions for the would-be reformer. Improvement in nursing owes its first impetus to a realisation of the part a nurse must of necessity play in curing or alleviating suffering, and any real improvements in our general domestic work and conditions will only be seriously considered when they are properly appreciated in their relation to the health and efficiency of the nation. To bring this home to individuals and classes must be the work of education. Let us magnify the office of the housewife unduly rather than leave it unrecognised. We must demand something more than mere manipulative skill from the manual worker--a knowledge and interest from those who direct her work; a place in laboratories and schools for the many problems worthy of elucidation. To make lessons in housecraft a part of the curriculum of elementary and secondary schools has its own good; to make lessons in sick-nursing also a part might be good; but to leave both there would be only to patch, not mend, a rent in our social conditions. The matter must find its way into universities and research schools for its physical and economic investigation--as in other kinds of work we need an aristocracy of brains to guide the democracy of hands to found an apprenticeship system that shall