FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S CHOICE.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 18 September 1914, Page 8

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S CHOICE.

It was on October 21, 1859, that Florence Nightingale, a quiet and almost unknown young woman of thirty-one. embarked on -hoard the Vectis for the East. Accomplished and rich, aha had devoted ncr youth to^ihiianthropic work, and when the Government resolved to form a body of female nurses for the Crimea, she was offered the post of superintendent. Some forty ladies. ma.ny belonging tc the higher classes, accompanied Miss Nightingale—their number was later on increased zo 150. Immediately on her arrival at Scutari she set to work energetically. Surgeons and officials raised red-tape obstacles, her subordinates were not always disciplined or obedient, she herself was the victim of a violent attack of cholera after an excursion, to the ambulances at the "front" at Balaclava. How gallantly she rested at her post, how she practically created a new era, not only in the nursing system, but in military hospitals generally, and finally formed an institution for the training, etc., of nurses is now a matter of history. Few ?'" c-r examples exist of the real and permanent influence of a life of Spartan self-denial and intelligent effort. A refined woman of fortune, she might, had she chosen, have shone in the highest circles of rank and wealth or the most intellectual of Society coteries ; but she deliberat- ly and consistently chose | that "! etter part" which "shall not be taken away."