[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, —I have been wondering
as I read the correspondence on " the greatest Victorian," as to what is the criterion of greatness. Is it originality of thought ? Is it effect upon the select few, or upon the mass of the people ? Must the appeal be purely to the scientific reasoner or may it speak to the imaginations of mystics and poets ? Do the personal qualities count ? And do the extent and importance of work actually done constitute a claim to greatness and what if a combination of all or most of these are to be found in one person ? If so, who in the Victorian age (or almost any other age) reaches the level of Florence Nightingale ? Her achievements include .(for they are far too many to enumerate) the foundation and provision of the motive force of the great profession of nursing in its modern sense, not only for this country but for the world. (It is Florence Nightingale whom today Japanese girls seek to emulate when they start on their nurses' training.) Through her sympathy and her untiring efforts she raised the British soldier from the " drunken brute " of the Secretary at War, to the human being, worthy of education and decent conditions of life which she declared him to be. She transformed the hygiene of the Army in this country, sloe transformed it in India. In the vast work which went on for Indian villages at that time she played the principal and inspiring part. A statesman herself she was the trusted friend and constant
counsellor of statesmen. As an administrator she commanded four miles of beds in the Crimea, fighting her way step by step in the interests of her men against the crassest official opposition. She was herself an unrivalled nurse, she was a psychologist reading into the depths of her patients' minds. She was a scientific observer who realised, two generations in advance of experimental work, the value of sunshine to health. She was a wit; read her " nursing notes " and her letters. She tore class snobbery to tatters .when she put on her nurse's uniform. She was a mystic and her life was the expression of her religion. She stands beside Clarkson and Wilberforce in the honour she did her country.
I had thought the name of Florence Nightingale would never be forgotten, even by her own countrymen, but after reading this correspondence I begin to doubt.—I am, Sir, faithfully
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