100 A Short History of Nursing dience to the physicians. This was radical teach- ing, for the strictly religious Sisters obeyed the priests rather than the physicians, even, some- times, in regard to medical orders. St. Vincent's advice to the Sisters on the need of remaining secular, if they were to be useful as nurses, was uncompromising in the extreme. "My daughters," he said, "you are not religious in the technical sense, and if there should be found some marplot among you to say 'it is better to be a nun,' ah ! then, my daughters, your company will be ready for extreme unction. Fear this, my daughters, and while you live permit no such change; never consent to it. Nuns must needs have a cloister, but the Sister of Charity must needs go everywhere." He wished the Sisters to be instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and suggested that they should form classes among themselves to question one another on the lectures given them by the physicians, in the manner of a modern "quiz." He had no patience with overwork. "Be careful not to overdo," he wrote to Mile, le Gras, "it is a trick of the devil by which he deceives good souls, to entice them to do more than they can and so make them unable to do anything at all."
