It was about this time, soon after my return from the East, that there was a demand from the doctors and patients for more efficient nursing. It had been public talk that the sisters did not train for the care of the sick and consequently did not have diplomas. And yet, these sisters, with only experimental knowledge of nursing, were head-nurses, as superintendents and teachers in the training-school. Superiors were appointed who never had any previous hospital experience, coming directly from orphanages, schools or kitchen work. Others who came direct from Canada, who could not speak a dozen words of English, would be appointed to some high office. From these we would be compelled to take orders which meant blind and military obedience under penalty for the non-observance. It was decided that some of the sisters should be given diplomas to show their qualifications for nursing. I was one of the chosen few who received a beautiful scroll of paper certifying that I had completed a thorough course of training in medical and surgical nursing and had undergone a satisfactory examination, in the branches taught in the training school, before certain members of the hospital staff who had attached their signatures. It was also signed by the Superior Provincial and the local Superior. This diploma was a triple falsehood on the face of it, as I had not taken a course of training, I had not taken an examination before these doctors, or any other doctors, on the tenth day of June, 1901, or any other time; and, moreover, I did not receive it until after I had returned from my trip East, which was 1907, which shows that it was either back-dated or had been kept in "cold storage" for several years. [Illustration: _Fac-simile of the Diploma I Received from St. Vincent's Hospital._] This was simply another delusion of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to hood-wink the public and cause them to think that the Roman institutions were as efficient as other institutions. Personally, I was qualified to nurse in nearly all branches, as I will prove to my readers before I close this book, but what I knew was not learned by a "thorough training" by any teacher other than the teacher of experience, and now, with over fifteen years of hospital work to my credit, I was receiving what the ordinary nurse receives after three years' training--the diploma. About 1910 the new addition to St. Vincent's was opened for occupancy and it could then accommodate about four hundred patients.