Both in the Crimea and at Scutari Miss Nightingale carried on, as opportunity offered, what her sister laughingly called "the education of the British Army." But it was at Scutari, where she principally stayed, that the effort took the largest scope. Outside the Barrack Hospital a building was bought by Sir Henry Storks, on behalf of the Government, to provide a reading-room and a school-room. The reading-room, opened in January 1856, was supplied by Miss Nightingale with books, prints, maps, games, and newspapers. The other room was used as a garrison school; two schoolmasters were sent out; and evening lectures and classes were given. A second school was conducted in a hut between the two large hospitals at Scutari.[194] For the convalescents, Miss Nightingale had at an earlier date established reading-huts in the Barrack Hospital, furnishing them with books, newspapers, writing materials, prints, and games. In all the reading-huts the men attended numerously and constantly, their behaviour when there being, Miss Nightingale added, uniformly quiet and well-bred. The good manners, no less than the uncomplaining heroism of the common soldier, made an indelible impression upon the Lady-in-Chief. [194] I take these particulars from a Memorandum, found among Miss Nightingale's papers, by the Rev. J. E. Sabin, Senior Chaplain at Scutari. It was out of her experiences in the Crimean War that grew her love for the British soldier, to whose health, care, and comfort, at home and in India, she was to devote many years of her long life. In extreme old age, when failing powers were not equally alert to every call, she would sometimes, I have been told, show listlessness if her companion talked of nurses or nursing, but the old light would ever come into her eye, and the faltering mind would instantly stand at attention, upon the slightest reference to the British soldier. CHAPTER XII TO THE CRIMEA AGAIN (September 1855-July 1856) I am ready to stand out the War with any man.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (Nov. 4, 1855). On September 8, 1855, Sebastopol fell, after assaults, as every one remembers, which had filled the British cemeteries and hospitals. Miss Nightingale's time from this date to the end of the war was divided between the Crimea and Scutari. On October 9, 1855, she left Scutari for Balaclava, and she remained in the Crimea till the end of November, when she hurried back to Scutari on hearing of a serious outbreak of cholera in the Barrack Hospital at that place. On Good Friday, 1856 (March 21), she again left Scutari for Balaclava, in consequence of an urgent appeal from the hospitals of the Land Transport Corps, and she remained there till the beginning of July. She left Scutari for England on July 28. * * * * *