Letter to Mr. Burton
1889-10-07

[Page 1 of 4]
10 South St. Park Lane W.
Oct. 7/89
Dear Mr Burton
We most earnestly sympathize
with you & the School-children
this week, & know how busy
& anxious you are. But by
the spirit with which we come
out of trials, we know in Whose
Spirit & Strength we went
into them.
I will not write any thing
more now, but after it is
over, & we shall be most
interested to know the result
- I may perhaps ask some
[Page 2 of 4]
information about the Institute
concerning which we are
also much interested, as
you know.
But I do not, of course, expect
an answer now.
With the very best good
wishes for the School's
highest success in the real
sense of success i.e. to make
good citizens of this & the
next world, & good fathers
& mothers & neighbours & God's servants
with kind regards to Mrs. Burton
believe me always faithfully
yours
Florence Nightingale
[Page 3 of 4]
I am writing to Mr. Butler,
the Mineralogist, to settle
with him about this last
instalment completing the series of specimens. He
is not a mere seller of
stones. I think I may tell
him that you are satisfied
with his collection - that you
have already done good work & gone at it
in the true Educational
spirit - & taught the boys
to collect specimens themselves
& in your Science classes
are going to give one on
Geology, & two Lectures
on Coal etc at an Institute.
- thus training the men & boys
[Page 4 of 4]
to teach themselves - which is
the true Education
Do you know a very pretty
little book of parables
called "Earth's many Voices" ?
There is one on the
formation of Coal. If you
have not the book, I will
send it you.
These boys, I suppose,
will most of them be
miners, or quarrymen,
or in the factory.
F.N.