Then she exhorted her pupils not to be too nice in the picking and choosing of places. "Our brains are pretty nearly useless, if we only think of what we want and should like ourselves; and not of what posts are wanting us, what our posts are wanting _in_ us. What would you think of a soldier who--if he were to be put on duty in the honourable post of difficulty, as sentry may be, in the face of the enemy (and we nurses are always in the face of the enemy, always in the face of life or death for our patients)--were to answer his commanding officer, 'No, he had rather mount guard at barracks or study musketry'; or, if he had to go as pioneer, or on a forlorn hope, were to say, 'No, that don't suit my turn?'" So, again, there are excellent little discourses on the Uses and Limits of School Friendships, on the Right Use of Dress, and on the Art of Exercising Authority, with wise sayings taken direct in some cases from Plato. "Those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule." "The world, whether of a ward or of an Empire, is governed, not by many words, but by few; though some, especially women, seem to expect to govern by talk and nothing else." "She who is the most royal mistress of herself is the only woman fit to be in charge; for she who has no control over herself, who cannot master her own temper, how can she be placed over others, to control them through the better principle, if she has none or little of her own?" Her remarks on Dress are interesting, and might be applied, _mutatis mutandis_, to young men who sometimes combine a habit of slovenliness with a garish taste in waistcoats. Some of the Nightingale nurses seem to have grumbled at the uniform, and to have taken their revenge upon it by gorgeous apparel when off duty. Miss Nightingale avers that to her eye no women's dress was so becoming as that of her Nurses, and for the rest she draws a moral from God's "clothing" of the field flowers:-- First: their "clothes" are exactly suitable for the kind of place they are in and the kind of work they have to do. So should ours be. Second: field flowers are never double: double flowers change their useful stamens for showy petals and so have no seeds. These double flowers are like the useless appendages now worn on the dress, and very much in your way. Wild flowers have purpose in all their beauty. So ought dress to have;--nothing purposeless about it. Third: the colours of the wild flower are perfect in harmony, and not many of them. Fourth: there is not a speck on the freshness with which flowers come out of the dirty earth. Even when our clothes are getting rather old we may imitate the flower: for we may make them look as fresh as a daisy.... Oh, my dear Nurses, whether gentlewomen or not, don't let people say of you that you are like "Girls of the Period": let them say that you are like "field flowers," and welcome.