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conclusive report of the Sub-Committee leaves little more to be said on the subject. It determined the Vestry to adopt the system in permanence, and to extend it to the whole of the Workhouse Infirmary, a year before the period fixed for the trial of the experiment had expired. It will be seen that the report of the second year's experience has a peculiar value, as bearing on the question whether, or how far, women may be competent to undertake one of the most delicate and difficult kinds of feminine work—one requiring special knowledge as well as special habits of punctual regularity, obedience, and thoughtfulness—without receiving any special training or education for such a duty. If the reforms about to be introduced into the pauper hospitals in London and elsewhere are not to end in failure and disappointment, provision must be made for training the nurses to be employed there, either before they enter the hospitals or within them. The report of the Sub-Committee of Superintendence is as follows:—
The Special Committee on Nursing, pursuant to resolution of the Workhouse Committee of the 7th of March instant, report,
That the Men's Hospital (exclusive of fever patients) is at present exclusively nursed by skilled, i. e. specially trained nurses and paid assistants, who are themselves undergoing training as nurses; the staff consisting of the Superintendent, nine of the nurses originally sent from the Nightingale School, five nurses who have been trained in the Workhouse, and fifteen probationary or assistant nurses.
Of the character of the nursing in this portion of the Workhouse, your Committee have heard but one opinion. The Governor and the Medical Officers concur in speaking of it in
