6. CLEANING THEIR OWN ROOMS.--I well foresee sundry difficulties in the little rooms at the entrance of their wards, where I hope it will be managed to quarter the Nurses. But there is no other way of fairly and really working a ward; and I trust this plan will receive a fair trial. For efficiency, also for comfort, it is most objectionable to make the Nurse sleep at a distance from the patients. This is one of the points on which theories, and the practical working of things, are very divergent. It is an excellent thing when the Head-Nurse’s room opens into the ward and when part of the upper part is of glass, with a thick curtain, so that she can see into the ward, without being seen. Let each Head-Nurse have a small room, with a window opening into external air, with a curtain making an alcove, behind which there should be a small iron bedstead, with good bedding, and a washing table; and in the foreground a table, a small one for meals, a chest of drawers, and a comfortable arm-chair, two chairs, and I should add a sofa. Each room should have a few shelves on the wall, and a large cupboard or small closet with broad shelves, and space at the bottom to stow away the Nurse’s box. Simplification and avoiding all trouble which can be spared to the Departments are very important. I would not therefore insist upon a little kitchen for the Nurses, nor upon a very capital arrangement in some of the Sisters’ rooms in Guy’s Hospital, where, behind a decent little door _in_ the sitting-room, there is a sink, with water laid on, a little safe for meat, &c., at top, and a complete little apparatus of the very few utensils required for cooking one woman’s meals; so that a Nurse can cook and wash-up, in her own room, without carrying things out of it. This is much better than a kitchen, if the Nurse is to cook her own meals; but, as above stated, I would rather she did not. One room, with a curtain making an alcove, is much better than two. The Queen is saved fuel; the Nurse is saved cleaning two rooms; and if fuel is only issued for one, she sleeps in a warm room, instead of one where there never is a fire, and where her things get damp and spoiled. Often, where Head-nurses have two rooms, one is built without a fire-place. Condense and simplify all things--one great object is to form a body of useful hard-working women, of simple self-helping habits. Two Nurses’ rooms should be together, but separate. Sudden illness might occur, and the two women should be at each other’s summons. The Quartermaster-General _must_ grant a _cabinet_ between the two: this is _must_, not _may_. The Superintendent-General must see to this herself, at first at all events: there _is_ a singular obtuseness in the small officials, by whom these things are managed: if not overlooked, they will be sure to put the construction in a particularly awkward, exposed place. These things do enter into an Englishwoman’s daily comfort or misery--it is