344 A Short History of Nursing but to those she works with and for. Until we get rid of this idea once for all, we shall never be able to secure the proper status for nursing or to attract and train enough competent women for the re- sponsible positions in nursing work. While most progressive medical men recognize the newer developments in nursing and fully sym- pathize with nurses' efforts to equip themselves better for their work, there are others who are somewhat jealous of what they consider the en- croachments of nursing on medicine and who insist on going back to the old discarded system of auto- cratic authority on the one hand and humble subservience on the other. They do not realize that even in industry the day of arbitrary domina- tion of one group by another is going fast and that the new day of co-operation with the freeing of human energies and the development rather than the repression of individual intelligence and initia- tive is here. This reactionary spirit and the resentments and antagonisms which it arouses, are responsible for most of the friction between physicians and nurses, and though any increase in this friction is greatly to be deplored, it is essential for the better rela- tions of the future, that the matter should be frankly faced. There is no question that where
