Here, as in all that she undertook, she knew that the first thing needful was to collect the facts. She drew up a schedule of inquiries, to be filled up with regard to all the sick-wards and infirmaries in London. "I will immediately issue your Forms," wrote Mr. Farnall (Feb. 16, 1865). He required them to be filled up in duplicate, and Miss Nightingale's set of them is preserved amongst her Papers. Throughout the year she and Mr. Farnall were engaged in the work of inspiring and incensing Mr. Villiers in the direction of radical reform. He was throughout very willing, but he was becoming an old man, he had many other things to think about, and he was apt to see lions in the path. Moreover, not all the officials at the Poor Law Board were reformers; there were those, more highly placed than Mr. Farnall, who were of a very different opinion; and some of the medical officers were inclined to dispute the necessity of any radical changes. However, on the subject of workhouse nursing, Mr. Villiers promptly authorized Mr. Farnall to press upon the Guardians the importance of employing competent nurses, and he told the House of Commons (May 5) that "in consequence of communications lately received at the Poor Law Board from Miss Nightingale, who was now taking much interest in the matter," he was hopeful that great reforms in nursing might come about. She, however, knew perfectly well that the only way to such reform was by reform also in administration and finance. In the following month Mr. Farnall persuaded his Chief to insinuate into an innocent little "Poor Law Board Continuation Bill," a clause which would enable the Board to _compel_ Guardians to improve their workhouses; but the clause was struck out, Mr. Farnall was disappointed, and Miss Nightingale wrote to reassure him. They must work all the harder to secure, not by a side-wind, but by a direct move in the next session of Parliament, a full and far-reaching measure of reform. "Your kind note," said Mr. Farnall (July 3), "has done me a world of good; there is not a single expression or hope in it which I cannot make my own. So we hope together for next year's ripened fruit. I hope, too, that we may really taste it. I pledge myself to you to relax in nothing till the task is done. It is something to live for, and something to have heard you say that such a victory will some day be claimed by me. It is a pleasant thing to think of, and I shall think of it as a soldier thinks of his Flag."