A CALL TO ALL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20107, 14 May 1935, Page 12

A CALL TO ALL

RED CROSS APPEAL NURSING SCHOLARSHIP <By Major J. Abel, V.D., Dominion Chairman of the N.Z. Red Cross Society.) Fellow New Zealanders, you have the well-won reputation that an appeal to you in the cause of humanity is not made in vain. Therefore, in the full confidence that the request,will have your support, the Red Cross Society asks you to provide a scholarship fund to enable a well-qualified Nurse to be sent each year to London for a post-' graduate course at the Bedford College for Women (University of London), which is associated with the College of Nursing. The courses in which the holders of scholarships will have intensive training during a year comprise public health, administration and teaching in schools of nursing and social work. At the conclusion of this special training the graduates will be under agreement to return to New Zealand where their knowledge and experience will be beneficial to the community. International Enterprise. This project is in accordance with a resolution of the International Council of Nurses and the League of Red Cross Societies (which have been established in sixty-one countries) to promote the Florence Nightingale International Foundation, of which the objects are to establish and maintain a permanent International Memorial to Florence Nightingale in the form of an endowed trust for post-graduate nursing education and to provide for the maintenance and development of facilities for post-graduate education for selected nurses from all countries. Well, the facilities for this education are now available, but, of course, the various countries which are to have the benefit of the education are expected to subscribe funds sufficient for the special training of nurses. Tlife Nightingale Tradition. “The life and work of Florence Nightingale will remain for ever a beacon of the profession of nursing.” remarked “The Times” (London) in an editorial article which warmly commended the memorial project. “Her new order has endured because it was built on the sure foundations of knowledge and experience. None believed more firmly than she in vocation as the beginning of the nurse’s life; none felt a quicker contempt for a vocation unhallowed by work and self-sacrifice and unsupported by training. Miss Nightingale believed in training as the only means to efficient* in the nursing profession. She fought against great odds for her ideas and her ideals. Her opponents are remembered to-day only j because they opposed her. “It is a memorial peculiarly well fitted to achieve its object, because it will serve, down the procession of the years, as a link between the impulse which was Florence Nightingale, and the achievement which continues to proceed from that impulse.” A Light That Fails Not. Shakespeare made one of his characters say in a pessimistic mood: “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” Happily for humanity, the reverse has often occurred. One brilliant example is in the life and work of Florence Nightingale. The light from her lamp is desined to reach for ever along the aisles of time. That marvellous lady’s splendid service is a perpetual inspiration for nursing, which is one of the most honourable professions in the world. What a worthy remembrance of Florence Nightingale is seen in this scholarship enterprise, which fosters an intensive and extensive study of her principles in the cause of humanity, with no barriers of race or creed. Here is an international movement which makes for enduring goodwill, for nurses from many countries study and work together in London, and return to their people with the Nightingale spirit of self-sacrificing service. Many Honorary Workers. Fellow New Zealanders, many men and women in your Red Cross Society and its branches gladly give time and energy free in this far-ranging work, and many also add subscriptions to their service. Whatever they can do. they do cheerfully. Their only reward is in the sense of a public-spirited duty done as well as they can do it. They are working for you, all the year round, year after year. Will you help them now with the Florence Nightingale Memorial Scholarship? Will you send a subscription to Miss C. R. Clark, secretary of the N.Z. Memorial Scholarship Committee (N.Z. Registered Nurses’ Association, Wellington) or to Mrs I. L. Andrews, Dominion Secretary, Headquarters, N.Z. Red Cross Society, Wellington. The New Zealand Committee comprises Miss M. Lambie (Director of the Nursing Division of the Public Health Department), seven representatives of the Registered Nurses’ Association and seven representatives of the Red Cross Society. The committee is hoping to raise a scholarship endowment fund, but meanwhile the call is for at least money enough to send the first selected nurse to London.