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118 a year's experience.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
W Nearly A Year Has Now Passed Since, Th...
Reformatory in tke Hue de "Vanguard , in Paris , where 100 girls of tile lowest class—the majority actually prisoners and consigned
there by Government—are under the-care of the Sisters of Marie-Joseph . This establishment was founded partly in consequence of
the exertions of Madame de Lamartine , and it was shown to me by Madaine _Lechevalierwho actually holds the salaried post of
Government inspectress of , the female prisons of Prance . Why have not we also an inspeetress for our female prisons ? Madame
Lechevalier has often knocked up a prison at eleven o ' clock at night "when she suspected anything wrong ; and I saw enough of her power
of character , even during the few hours I spent with her , to convince me that she "was a woman to hold a legion of female prisoners
inawe . Sisters of Charity are also now in France trying to make head
against the evils of the factory system . I had not time , when in Lyons last year ; to travel forty miles by railway to see M . Bonnart ' s
factory , where they superintend the female workers ; but in the JRevue des deux Mondes for last February is to be found a very
interesting account of three establishments where the young girls are engaged in manufactures under the care of sisters ;—one at Jujurieux ,
for taffetas ; another at Tatare , for plush ; and the third at La Seauvefor ribbons . Young girls on entering sign an engagement
for three , years , and a month ' s trial is also required . Workwomen are also received , who enter into an engagement for eighteen
months . But all these duties require something more for their wise
fulfilment than love and patience ; they require energy , foresight , prudence , economy , the habit of working in concert and subordination ;
and accordingly we find the women who are to fulfil them subjected to a" severe and methodical training . The Maison Mere of the
Sisters of Charity of St . Vincent de Paul , in the Rue de Bac at Paris , sends out five hundred trained women every year to all parts of the
"world . And we , if we wish to employ women .. successfully in works of
benevolence and social economy , must find some way of training them for their duties , or we shall never achieve our wished-for
results . Here and there we may find one specially gifted , to whom order and activity come by right divine ; but if you take the few
women who are even now filling marked positions of public importance , you will generally find they have received regular training in
some way . Every one knows the severity of Miss Nightingale ' s preliminary studiesand the ordeal she passed through in hospitals
, abroad . Miss Carpenter had concluded a long and honored career * as a teacher before she devoted herself to criminal children .
Elizabeth Blackwell is hardly a case in point , as her _jDossession of a degree involved her career as a student ; and ( I believe ) Miss Dix and
Mrs . Fry forced their way by unusual energy , graduated themselves ,
so to speak ; but all the institutions for nurses presuppose prelimi-
118 A Year's Experience.
118 a year ' s experience .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Oct. 1, 1860, page 118, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01101860/page/46/
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