Needless to say, a nurse who cannot get on with her patients is a failure. No matter how experienced she may be, or how well trained, if she cannot gain the confidence and friendship of her families she is unfitted to deal with them. It frequently happens that for the first few visits a family may be uncordial and suspicious, but within a short time a well trained, sympathetic nurse should be able to change this attitude into one of confidence and appreciation. A few, a very few families remain unchangeable of course, but their number is so small that they form a negligible quantity. Neither should a nurse fraternize with her patients. Through familiarity she loses the personal dignity which means so much to her authority. Authority is a term somewhat subtle in its definition—it means that hint of power, of sureness, of knowledge, which enables one to speak with a confidence which transmits itself to others, and compels them to accept one’s point of view. A strong personality easily conveys this sense of authority, but it may also be conveyed by a personality less strong, when the nurse is well assured of her facts and cannot be caught tripping. It is the hall-mark of the successful teacher—this ability to impress her points upon others, and to make them see that what she proposes is right, reasonable, and advantageous. It seems hardly necessary to speak of the qualities of honesty, loyalty, and conscientiousness. When they are lacking, all or any one of them, the nurse is useless. The nurse is alone in her district all day long, from early morning till late in the afternoon, and she must be a woman with a high sense of responsibility and worthy of her trust. Patience, that despised virtue, is also an essential part of the nurse’s equipment, for she must listen to long details of illness, and must be willing to reiterate, over and over again, without show of annoyance, the rules which have been needlessly and exasperatingly ignored. No one knows better than the nurse the awful hiatus that exists between preaching and practising—the glib promise and the broken pledge—but she must never show her irritation. We have known many excellent nurses who gave up this work because they could not stand discouragement of this sort, and who had not vision enough to look into the future for results. This standard of requirements may seem high, but it is not impossible. In fact, it is the minimum from which successful work can be expected. A superintendent who has a choice of nurses will of course approximate it as nearly as possible, in choosing her staff. The higher and finer the type of woman, the more valuable she will be—probably in no other field do fine instincts and fine feeling tell so strongly. CHAPTER III Salary—Increase of Salary—Carfare—Transportation—Telephone—Vacation— Sick-Leave—Uniforms—Badges.