Mary Lyon, the Founder of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, and for twelve years its Principal; a Teacher for more than thirty-five years and of more than three thousand pupils. Born Feb. 28, 1797; Died March 5, 1849.
After her death a paper was found containing seven ways of wasting time, against which she guarded, as follows:
1. Indefinite musings. 2. Anticipating needlessly. 3. Needless speculations. 4. Reluctance to begin a duty. 5. Not deciding at once in doubtful cases. 6. Musing needlessly on what has been said or done, or what may be. 7. Spending time in reveries which should be spent in prayer.
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, in 1820. She was the daughter of an English landowner, who lived on a picturesque estate in Derbyshire, and who gave her the best education she could secure from books, school, and travel. As a little girl she showed great interest in the poor and sick, and was kind to animals. Even the squirrels on the lawn made friends with her. Often as she sat at her father’s table with all the good things to eat and the beautiful silver, glass, and china before her, she would think of the poor and sick who were without even an orange to quench the thirst of fever. Frequently she drove with her father’s physician into the country, taking baskets filled with dainties, often denying herself something that she might share with others. Everybody loved to have her enter the sickroom, for her unselfish and helpful nature made her a tender nurse. Until then, nurses were taken from the same class of women as ordinary domestic servants. Few realized that nursing was an art to be learned, requiring intelligence, knowledge, and skill, as well as sympathy and love. But the devotion of Florence Nightingale changed all this. She was an accomplished young lady, possessing abundant wealth. She was happy at home, a general favorite, and the center of an admiring circle. She was favored with everything that might have made her social and domestic life full of attractiveness to most young women. But she turned her back on the gay world that opened to her to tread a path that led to suffering and sorrow. She went to Germany to take training as a nurse, beginning at the very start. She learned the use of the washing-cloth, the scrubbing-brush, and the duster. For three months she was in daily and nightly attendance on the sick in the German hospital. Returning to England she gave her time, strength, and means to nursing her sisters in the Hospital for Sick Governesses in London. Here her health began to fail, and she returned home to seek the needed rest in her father’s home of wealth. But a new cry arose for help. The Crimean war was raging. There was a great want of skilled nurses to relieve the dreadful sufferings of the wounded soldiers who were lying in the hospitals. She at once offered her services to her country, and was sent, with thirty-four other women nurses, reaching Russia on the day of the fearful battle of Inkerman, November 5, 1854. The hospitals were filled with sick and wounded soldiers--four thousand suffering from cholera and other horrors that war brings. Miss Nightingale met the wounded and dying with smiles and words of cheer. Many of the sick wept for joy at the first touch of a woman’s hand they had felt for years. She seemed to be everywhere, superintending the washing of their clothing, and beds, cooking their food, assisting the chaplain with his school, furnishing books for the soldiers to read, writing their letters, saving their money, or sending it to their relatives at home. How the soldiers loved her! Many of them whom she could not personally tend kissed her very shadow as it fell on their pillows, as she passed at night. They called her the “Lady of the Lamp.”