LEST WE GROW HARD.
Lest We Grow Hard. By Edward F. Russell, MA. (Longmans and Co. 2s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Russell's book is a series of addresses to nurses given in connexion with the Guild of St. Barnabas. The addresses are, in our opinion, exactly what they should be. Tho preacher exalts the nurse's profession, seeking always to cultivate in his hearers a worthy pride and a true esprit de corps. At the same time he exhorts them to a serious view of their very great responsibilities, and seeks, by sympathy and advice, to smooth some of the difficulties which must constantly beset them. To take, for instance, this very question of responsibility. How far is it the duty of a nurse to speak the absolute truth, to answer truly the leading questions of a patient whose one chance of life consists in the preservation of hope? Mr. Russell's answer is unexpected and very wise. The nurse is to put aside all responsibility in the matter ; she is to act in accordance with the doctor's orders. The matter is for him, not for her, to decide. One wonders at first why Mr. Russell chose his title—the book contains so little direct insistence upon softness of heart. But those who have seen much of nurses know that it is not by the cultivation of emotional sympathy that the heart of a nurse is kept soft. It is by constant struggle against that strange reaction towards frivolity which seizes upon those who see a disproportionate amount of the painful side of life. This reaction is most often counteracted in those who take most pride in their profession and enter upon it in obedience to religious feeling.
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