120 A Short History of Nursing for her work we see that she was chiefly self-taught. In her youth she had embraced every opportunity to nurse among her own relatives and dependents, and these opportunities had been frequent and often exacting. Her studies of hospital systems were exhaustive, but her own actual training as we understand the word was of the briefest. Her pro- bation at Kaiserswerth was indeed the only real training she had, yet in after years she demurred to having it said that Kaiserswerth had trained her, and held that the hospital was the poorest part of the deaconess institution, and that the nursing there was very crude. These facts show as even more remarkable her own extraordinary attainments, for not only in directing others but in all her personal work as a nurse she was peerless. Her own standards and tests were so much more thorough and exacting than any others of her day, that she was satisfied with nothing less than "perfection. The Crimean War broke out in 1854, and Miss Nightingale's great opportunity came to her. Sid- The Herbert, then Secretary at War, Crimean (^^g Duke of Newcastle was Secretary tionof army for War), was her personal friend, and nursing j^jg political influence and personal character were such that he could dare to do things
