If there is no Visiting Nurse Association in the community, under whose auspices the new special nurse may be placed, the lay organization will have to do the best it can. In this event, it will be absolutely necessary to select a nurse thoroughly trained in social work, and since the number of women with this equipment falls far short of the demand, a delay of some duration may take place. This delay is always borne with great impatience by the newly formed group of people, anxious in their enthusiasm to attack the tuberculosis problem at once. Yet policy would counsel postponing the undertaking until a suitable person can be found, for it is usually a fatal mistake to begin new work with an inexperienced worker. Moreover, a situation which has existed for years may be tolerated a few months longer without undue alarm as to consequences. If it is impossible to obtain a nurse fully trained in public health work, the community may select a good nurse and send her for a few months’ experience to some well recognized centre of public health work, such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, etc. The money thus spent will prove a valuable investment to a community thus far-seeing, and an ample return will be manifest in the efficiency of the nurse’s work. A wrong start in choosing a nurse has driven many an enthusiastic organization into deep waters, and caused trouble and misunderstanding of a most grievous sort. In several instances, the local campaign against tuberculosis has come to a disappointed end; in others, public interest has been so antagonized and repelled that the movement received a check from which it did not recover for several years. CHAPTER II The Nurse’s Training—Health—Hours off Duty—Afternoons off—Character. =Training.= One of the first qualifications of the nurse should be proper training. She should be a graduate of a first-class general hospital, which gives a three-years’ course. In States where registration is established, she should be a registered nurse as well. This means that she has passed the examinations set by the State Board of Examiners for Nurses, and has attained at least the minimum degree of efficiency prescribed by that body. Of course, it is well if she far exceeds this minimum, but she must not fall below it in any case.