The Past and Future 353 When ideals are lost, when the mercenary spirit creeps in and persons of coarser fibre and looser morals began to predominate, the whole profes- sional spirit breaks down, and nursing becomes little more than a trade. The morale of our profession and its good name cannot be maintained unless the great body of nurses, students as well as graduates, „ .
- ' ' Nursing
make an effort to learn and support its ideals and best traditions and ideals. Every body traditions of workers, every profession and calling, has its own traditions which have gradually accumulated and which are handed down from generation to generation of new recruits. In this way the whole group is welded together into a more or less homo- geneous and united body with common aims and a common spirit. Traditions do not, however, always make for progress, a blind loyalty to outworn traditions often blocking necessary reforms. While our greatest leaders have not been afraid to smash the most ancient traditions when they conflicted with right and progress, the best work is usually done by building up and strengthening good traditions and institutions and letting the old useless ones die out of themselves. On the whole, nurses have every reason to be 23
