But the forest began as a tiny acorn. Pastor Fliedner started his work not with grandiose schemes or full-fledged programmes, but with individual cases and personal devotion. This was a point to which Miss Nightingale called particular attention in her account of the place. "It is impossible not to observe," she said, "how different was the beginning from the way in which institutions are generally founded--a list of subscribers with some royal and noble names at the head--a double column of rules and regulations--a collection of great names begin (and end) most new enterprises. The regulations are made without experience. Honorary members abound, but where are the working ones? The scheme is excellent, but what are the results?" Miss Nightingale's intensely practical genius had ever a holy horror of prospectuses. In some notes written on June 15, 1848, I find this passage:-- Eschew Prospectuses; they're the devil, and make one sick. It is like making out a bill of fare when you have not a single pound of meat. What do the cookery books say? First catch your hare. All the instances on the Continent have begun in one of two ways. At Kaiserswerth, a clergyman and his wife have begun, not with a Prospectus, but with a couple of hospital beds, and have offered, not an advertisement, but a home to young women willing to come. At Berne, a Mdlle. Würstenberger, a woman of rank and education, goes to Kaiserswerth to learn, and her friend to Strassburg. They return and open a hospital with two rooms, increase their funds, others join them and are taught by them.... To publish first is as bad a practical bull as is the name of the _Prospective Review_. A few years were to pass, and Florence Nightingale herself was to begin her work in the world not with a programme, but with a deed.