92 A Short History of Nursing characteristics found in English nursing today. There was the reasoned and intelHgent discipHne — perfect, Hke the mihtary discipHne, but infused by a more thoughtful and ethical purpose, gaining therefrom a different tradition, one wholly humane. There was the practical efficiency, the cheerful, balanced poise, the ability to control the situation, the entire devotion called today "keenness" in professional work. The loss of this system left EngHsh nursing in a depth from which secular authorities for a long time did little or nothing to extricate it. The wealth then taken from the monastic orders was turned into institutions benefitting men only, and thus the previous possibilities of education for girls, who had been taught in the convents by the nuns, were lost, and nurses for hospital service were drawn more and more from the illiterate classes. The secular authorities now managed all surviving hospitals, and staffed them throughout by paid attendants. In some details, the English retained the form of the monastic nursing hier- archy. A Matron continued to be at the head of the nursing staff, even though she was in effect little more than an untrained housekeeper, and the title "Sister" was given as before to the head nurse of a ward. An ordinance of 1699 specified
