Letter to Jane Senior
1873-01-28

[Page 1 of 12]
35 South St.
Park Lane W
Jan 28/73
My dear Madam
I rejoice more than I can say
that you have this work to do.
You are the person to do it
And no one else.
And, tho' I would, most gladly,
serve as your handmaid in it,
if I could, yet I am
much more glad that this
work has you to do it - &
that you & no one else have
it to do.
The enquiry is one of the highest
importance - & will take a
very long time to do it justice
Mrs. Senior
[Page 2 of 12]
You have all the three
classes of Schools to compare
- & very likely you will
scarcely find any two alike,
even in the same class.
Tho' I am sure that I cannot
give you any hints but what,
if they are work anything, you
will have anticipated, yet, as
you are so very good as to
ask me, I will say that I
should begin by the essential
but least practical part, the
Statistical: -
I should open the enquiry
by some
[Page 2 of 12]
Statistical Table
1. Name of School
a. District b.Separate c.Workhouse
2. When established -
3. No. of Inmates (average last year)
4. Yearly Admissions
5. Yearly Deaths & Causes of Death
6. Yearly Discharges
a. to service b. to friends c. other causes.
7. No. of girls for every 5 years of age
0-5 5-10 &
8. No. of orphans
a. both parents dead b. father dead c. mother dead
[Page 4 of 12]
2
9. No. of classes with average attendance in each
10. Branches taught in each class
11. Duration of Classes.
a. hours per week b. in years
12. Domestic training
description of & similar particulars as to time
13. No. of Teachers & Salaries
14. Holidays, if any.
15. Examiniations, if any -
16. How the School & Training managed by Board of
Guardians of School Committee
(generally some good & interested in children -
some hard-fisted or rate-saving or bad)
[Page 5 of 12]
3
17. Then would come your own
thorough personal routing out
of the School & Girls
as to cleanliness
clothing
bedding
general care
etc. etc. etc.
18. Then, most important &
most interesting of all,
your own direct & indirect
routing up
of the moral state.
I should meet the Poor Law
Inspectors & discuss the
subject with them -
& then take specimens of
[Page 6 of 12]
schools good
bad
indifferent
merely to get my hand in.
In this & similar ways I
would get the requisite
experience before I
committed myself to an
official investigation
knowing that I must look carefully
for defects
& be ready to suggest practical
remedies.
[Page 7 of 12]
Amongst other points, I should
go minutely into the method
of placing out the girls to
service
& the kind of supervisions
kept up over them & their
situations afterwards -
- including (horrid blot!)
the number of failures
where the girls return to the
Workhouse
or go to the bad.
This point, its causes & remedies
are of vital need -
as I need not say to you -
[Page 8 of 12]
3a
Training-Shool for Midwives
(a suggestion made by the
kind permission of Mr. Stansfeld)
The 'Medical General Council'
recommend that a system
of Registration of Midwives
should be adopted -
henve the idea* that the
Privy Council under which
the General Medical Council
stands should be the
Department to initiate any
scheme for educating Midwives.
But the question of Registration
cannot at present be entertained
because there is nobody to
register. For there are no
*Mr. Ernest Hart & Co:'s idea
[Page 9 of 12]
proper means of training.
Have the Privy Council any
thing to do with Medical
training beyond the rules
for Examination? or
any means for initiating
such a plan as a School
for Midwives?
What is wanted is a
Model Training-School for
Midwives - [at present
there is no ground for
examination or registration.]
Any opportunity that can
be made available for
introducing this to the Public
with authority should
[Page 10 of 12]
be sought for.
The Local Govt. Board
have - have not they? - a
distinct ground for
requiring such a School.
viz. the supply of Midwives
for Workhouse Infirmaries.
[Could any other Govt.
Dept., such as the Privy
Council, take up the
subject except on the
general score of Public Health
- a too general score?]
[Page 11 of 12]
4
as I need not say to you
It would be the most conceited thing
in the world, if it were not the
one I am most disinclined to,
for me to give you hints -
You who have done so much for the
Boarding out in Families -
the greatest step of all in favour of
these poor girls who are to be our
future mothers -
I would think it a privilege to see you,
- if I thought I could be of the
slightest use -
But - besides that I do not think so -
I am at this moment engaged (not exactly
in a smiliar enquiry but) in seeing all
the Nurses-&-Matrons-in-training of our
[Page 12 of 12]
Nurse-Training-Schools every day.
I am pretty nearly worn out - not having
yet got a third through the whole -
But, if any point arises in which you
think I could be of the slightest use,
please command me -
Write to me first what it is -
& then command my best consideration
& answer - either by word of mouth or letter
I give you joy -
Or rather, I give Mr. Stansfeld &
the girls joy.
I always think of you in connection
with dear Emily Verney
'And she is in her grave - but O
The difference to me!'
Good speed - every yours most truly
Florence Nightingale
1000 thanks for Mrs. Inglefield - &
I will write about that soon -