Letter to Jane Senior
1874-01-05

[Page 1 of 14]
35 South St
Jan 5/74
My dear Madam
I am so shocked at
myself for sending you
such a scrawl.
But if you knew how
entirely bankrupt & a pauper
I am of all time & strength:
& how, ever since it was
light this morning, I have
been interrupted at every
word in writing this even -
Happily for you, I have
not a moment to write a
Mrs. Senior
[Page 2 of 14]
word more:
but if you like to try
me again & let me see
the Report again, I need
not say, if you can give
me a little more time,
how pleased I should be
if you thought I could be
of the least little use
God save the General!
ever yours devotedly
Florence Nightingale
[Page 3 of 14]
I have made a few
unimportant notes
in red
on your M.S. (Report)
F.N.
[Page 4 of 14]
35 South St
Park Lanw W.
Jan 5/74
My dear Madam
[I am so delighted to hail you 'Inspector' -
Officer of a Government Office, - "Senior" Officer, as
you strictly are (Senior of one) - General of Infantry, tho' they are
only female Infants, only Poor-Law female Infantry
- that I hope you will allow me to address you
as such]
My dear "Senior" General of Female Infantry,
I have read your papers once [you, or rather
cruel Fate, has given me such very short notice
& I am, at this time of year especially, so very
busy iwth my Workhouse Infirmary Matrons & other Pearls]
that] I read your papers through in the cool of the
morning; i.e. before it was light, on Sunday:
and on this single perusal I must write in
the cool of this Monday morning:
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2
"Conclusion"
1. I agree with your "Conclusion" so frantically
that I agree with you more than you do
with yourself: that is,
that Borading-out is the only way to save
life & capacity in these poor children -
you have proved the case to dmonstration -
nem: con: And then you are obliged to secede from your
case: Boards of Guardians con:
This is very hard.
N.B. - Scrofula and its eldest child Ophthalmia
are greatly developed by merely bringing
children - especially poor children - together.
[You have no occasion to resort, even to
"clean"? towels as a means of carrying "infection"]
By sub-dividing (i.e. boarding out) you at once
cut up this cause of ill-health & incapacity,
root & branch, & clear the ground for training.
You cannot do this in a large School, except
at great cost.
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3
This, I believe, stated roughly is the 'conclusion'
of the whole matter. And in this I agree
with you violently.
I incline to think that, if I were you, I would
put the "Conclusion" at which you have arrived,
& which is quite beyond dispute, broadly:
vis. that the shortest & best way is:
to set about at once the introduction of the
Boarding-out system in the country:
(never in a town, unless under compulsion.)
[A General must decide which point in the
enemy's country she marches for: & then
she must calculate her forces & his roads.]
Boarding-out solves all the difficulties.
You want only - house to recieve the children,
- money to pay their board,
- Inspector & Committee to see that
everything is going on right
The new Schools will supply education
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4
[Your poor little Infantry are poorly bred
& poorly fed, & most, or all, more or less
scrofulous.
What they want of all things is: fresh air,
good food, exercise, & personal kindness.
- & even with all this some will grow up
to consumption: & many more to incapacity.
To collect these children into large Schools
where they must be crowded & have impure
aire: - the two conditions for the finest
development of Scrofula &
encouragement of incapacity
is: simply dooming 8500 children
of London to this prospect in different degrees.
[Page 8 of 14]
5
2. But with an inevitable consequence
which is hard upon the General, she is compelled
to fall back upon the Schools & propose
to improve them.
Much could be done: but it will be very
costly: [tho' not so costly as the having
to maintain a large proportion of these 8500
& their offspring, on the Rates.]
The General's suggestions are excellent:
(1). Superficial Area.
You must have at least 50 square feet per
child of Dormitory Area.
[Superficial area is more important than cubic
space: or rather cubic space is more
important horizontally than vertically]
besides suitable means of warming:
(not by gas)
& ventilation:
& cleanliness:
including change of linen:
(day linen myst never be work by night)
& dirty clothes never to be kept in
Dormitory. 
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6
(2) There must be far more sub-division.
If this sub-division cannot be carried out
by Boarding-out, it must be by "Home"
- Schools or Cottage Schools of certainly not more than
30 children. (mixed ages.)
[You may say of all this poor little
Infantry that they are ill -
And certainly the danger & difficulty
increases as the square of the number.]
(3). The Child Infant Inmates of each "Home" Schl. should be
certainly mixed with older girls.
Providence has arragned that each child of each age should
have a mother to itself: (for no woman has
28 children between the ages say of 5 and 6:)
and if unfortunately the Mother is absent
from death or wickedness, the best thing we
can do is to imintate Providence's arrangement
as nearly as we can.
[Experience, e.g. teaches me every year
more & more that sick children are much
better scattered about in Adult Sick Wards: 
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7
than conglomerated in wards to themselves.
Every sick child ought to have a Nurse to
itself: this is impossible in the best Children's
Ward.
But in Adult Wards, the man or the
woman in the next bed, if well selected,
will often take almost entire charge of
the adjacent child-Patient. Even the
most unlikely Patients: Young men of 20 or 21:
will do this: to the immeasurable benefit
of both child & adult.
This is only an illustation from Hospital
life: but]
the real way of benefiting Pauper girls & infants,
if they cannot be boarded out, would be
to put them mixed up into a Cottage or "Home" School,
with a good Nurse-Matron & female servant-
girls to learn house-work & help 'mind'
infants: (as they would do in a good home.)
[Would it be quite impossible for them to have a
cow, pig & poultry?]
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8
[The 3 Rs do little to help poor-law
children. What is most wanted is: continued
administration of the milk of human kindness:
which is the appointed nutrient of Child-souls:
& which no cow belonging to the R. farm can yield]
(4) The General's proposed improvements
most judicous, if you myst have the present
schools.
But All this will cost so much, that Guardians
will scarcely sanction it: Boarding-out cheapest.
(5) As regards Casual children, it is
clear that there should be some power
somewhere to keep the child in School,
if the character & circumstances of the
Parents appear to render its going out
unadvisable.
[It is heart-rending to us sometimes -
in the Workhouse Infirmaries - to have to give
up a little child to a bad mother going out.
E.g. We had a little girl of 7 years old who used to go
down on her little knees by herself - in the Lavatory
- praying that she might not forget the 'good words'
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9
she had heard with us when she went out:
she knew already that her mother was a bad one.]
(6). [Whispered with the utmost diffidence]
Nothing, I believe, can well be worse for children than the
Infirmary Wards of the large Schools.
And nothing, I believe, could make them much
better: the dulness, dreariness, want of
amusement & occupation, indifferent air:
the having, instead of one Nurse, to each sick
child, not even one Nurse to each Sick Ward.
Could it be that the School sick children might
be sent to the Sick Asylum of their
District? as e.g. the St. Pancras' etc.
children to the "Central London Sick Asylum"
(Highgate Infirmary) -
As this suggestion may be quite
impracticable in Guardians' eyes, I will
and I know that we, at Highgate Infirmary, are just as full as we can hold,
better say no more at present.
The present School Infirmary wards
combine all Hospital disadvantages, all
School disadvantages, all home disadvantages,
without the advantages of any: do not they?
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(7) Were I the General, I would "go in for"
Female Head to appoint, dismiss, suspend, pay
all Female Servants: of course reporting to
Committee & with (formal) sanction of Committee
of Managers. There is absolutely no other way of
obtaining or keeping good female servants or
Nurses.
[In our - Workhouse Infirmary - case: we are
at this moment waiting for the nod of the Lord of the
Local Government: on this very subject: on which
really depends the future of good Nursing:
during which period (of waiting) I - as all the
gentlemen on the Guardians' Management are on my side, -
do as  Ilike: wh: is of course the right.
But how it would be if I were not alive
enough to 'intrigue' & 'lay about' me - like a
furious old pauper (as I am): unless the
Imperial nod comes soon:  - I do not like to think.
[Without such a condition, it is quite impossible
that we should send our Trained Matrons, who
are gentlewomen, into Workhouse Infirmaries]. 
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(8) Please look at my paper on this subject
in "Report on Cubic Space of Metropolitan
Workhouses" 1867.
I have no copy: but send an adaptation
of it, made 'by desire'.
Please look at p. 4 - about duties
& responsibilities of Female Head.
(9) I have long thought that an Inidivudal
/School for Poor-Law girls might be
attached to the Sick Asylums: especially if
these took in the child-Patients from the
large Union, District or separate Schools,
instead of these Patients being placed in those
wretched School Infirmary wards:
where they never, poor mites, get really
well.
Please look at p. 3, same paper
on this subject.
To Her Majesty's
"Senior"General
of Poor Law Female Infantry.
5/1/74