"It was admitted on all sides in England, when investigations were held on the office of hospital nursing, that the general management of our hospitals and charitable institutions exhibited the want of female aid such as exists in the hospitals abroad-- the want of a moral, religious, intelligent, sympathizing influence combined with the physical cares of a common nurse. Some inquiry was made into the general character of hospital nurses, and the qualifications desired, and what were these qualifications? Obedience, presence of mind, cheerfulness, sobriety, forbearance, patience, judgment, kindness of heart, a light, delicate hand, a gentle voice, a quick eye; these were the qualities enumerated as not merely desirable, but necessary in a good and efficient nurse--virtues not easily to be purchased for £14 10S. per year! (or hired at $14 a month in New York [Footnote 11])--qualifications, indeed, which, in their union, would form an admirable woman in any class of life, and fit her for any sphere of duty, from the highest to the lowest. In general, however, the requirements of our medical men are much more limited; they consider themselves fortunate if they can ensure obedience and sobriety, even without education, tenderness, religious feeling, or any high principle of duty. On the whole, the testimony brought before us is sickening. Drunkenness, profligacy, violence of temper, horribly coarse and brutal language--these are common, albeit the reverse of the picture is generally true. The toil is great, the duties disgusting, the pecuniary remuneration small, so that there is nothing to invite the co-operation of a better class of nurses but the highest motives which can influence a true Christian. At one moment the selfishness and irritability of the sufferers require a strong control; at another time their dejection and weakness require the utmost tenderness, sympathy, and judgment. To rebuke the self-righteous, to bind up the broken-hearted, to strengthen, to comfort the feeble, to drop the words of peace into the disturbed or softened mind just at the right moment; there are few nurses who could be entrusted with such a charge, or be brought to regard it as a part of their duty. To this social function corresponds the Sister of Charity, as defined by St. Vincent de Paul, an ideal so often fulfilled in life and action. [Footnote 11: This is the salary of orderlies at Bellevue Hospital, where the duties are often so arduous that one attendant would be quite inadequate to the care of twenty beds but for the aid rendered by patients to each other. The night-watch passes but once in two hours.]