31 6 A Short History of Nursing They held that the amateur nurse in war was an anachronism, and that volunteer aid should be limited to other, almost equally useful lines of service. With the entrance of this country into the war, a Committee on Nursing was formed within the General Medical Board under the Council of National Defense. The function of this committee was to advise and help the Army Corps, the Navy Corps, and the Red Cross Department of Nursing (the latter, as the nursing reserve of army and navy, was the recruiting service for the war), to transfer nurses in great masses from civil life, and to substitute for them there. The committee to whom this responsibility was given was fully equal to it, and found in its fulfil- ment a congenial task. The chairman was M. Adelaide Nutting, Professor of Nursing and Health, Columbia University, whose active, far-ranging mind had long been occupied with considerations of national scope in nursing matters. ^ ' The important work of this committee requires a listing of names. The other nurse members were: Mary Beard, President, National Organization for Public Health Nursing; S. Lillian Clayton, President, National League for Nursing Education; Jane A. Delano, Director, Department of Nursing, American Red Cross; Mary S. Gardner, Director, Bureau of Public Health Nursing, American Red Cross; Annie W. Goodrich, Department of Nursing and Health, Columbia
