The method of imparting this knowledge of nursing varies in different schools. In every case opportunity for practice is abundant; sometimes in their own homes, sometimes among the poor of the city or in the women’s wards of the hospital. A prominent physician of Memphis, noting the examination questions required of the girls of Le Moyne School, said: “If your girls answered those questions, they ought not only to make safe nurses, but also fair physicians.” The object, however, is not to make physicians, but to give a thorough acquaintance with the details of nursing, including all those little thoughtful attentions to the sick which Northern girls learn from the lips and the practice of gentle, efficient mothers, but of which the colored women seem as ignorant as their daughters. You can hardly imagine a more desolate scene than a case of sickness in a cabin home. There is no isolation—all family work performed in sight of the patient, the glaring light falling full on the bed, water either for drinking or bathing seeming an unknown luxury, and noise everywhere. Into such homes these eager girls penetrate, adapting their knowledge to the surroundings with wonderful tact, hanging an old quilt or shawl to give isolation, shading the light, preparing with neatness and dispatch some tempting morsel of food, and administering with their own hands that thorough bathing which is often the most potent medicine. No wonder that after such treatment one poor old creature should ejaculate, “Thank the Lord, when we get to Heaven we shall all get on clean clothes.” Alas, that in so many homes the inmates seem perfectly content to wait till that time for the delightful sensation! Of course cleanliness and other hygienic laws are placed first in importance, and just here we are finding one answer to the question so near our hearts, “How can we make the _homes_ better.” The lessons learned by the daughters at school are duly repeated to the mothers at home, who are the more ready to receive new ideas of _house_-keeping from the young teachers who have first revealed to them the secrets of _health_-keeping. It is idle to hope to accomplish the greatest good for these girls unless for a time they are wholly under our control. Evil influences cannot be forgotten or overcome in a month or a term. They must come into our boarding-schools for a term of years, and the money to keep them there must come in part from you. By the industrial system, they can be helped to some extent and the idle and careless sifted out; but after all is done, the last hard-earned penny paid over, the last work tried, there is still need. But there are so many calls, and you are so busy. Yes, so was one of old, and you remember, “As thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone.”