Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/269

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
253
A Short History of Nursing

Nursing in other Countries 253 mittee loyally remitted its efforts to gain parlia- mentary recognition, in order to give service to the country, but they were, presently, ill rewarded by the development of a more perplexing situation than they had yet encountered. To explain it we must go back a little way in our narrative. The Matrons' Council (including members in Ireland and Scotland, as well as England) had long desired, and publicly advocated, a higher institu- tion of education where nurses duly certificated could fit themselves in psychology, pedagogy, ad- ministrative and executive science, in public health work, and various domestic arts, for the complex demands being made upon the nursing profession. Mrs. Bedford Fenwick, whose intuitive processes were, like our own Isabel Hampton's, almost pro- phetic in their nature, had outlined the structure of a College of Nursing far back in the opening of the twentieth century ( 1 90 1 ) . In 1 9 1 2 at the Congress in Cologne she further elaborated her views and pub- licly urged them with such force and appeal that a proposal was made by organized nurses to found an international memorial to Miss Nightingale of this character, providing a woman's college in England would adopt it, as Teachers College had adopted the American nurses' plan. Before, however, this very big project could be carried through, an-