they desire the help of men, and find a difficulty in obtaining it I have done so in no defiant, no presumptuous spirit, but with a hope that, if found worthy of attention, they will be openly, wisely, earnestly considered and discussed. Even amid all the clash of foreign war and conflict of political parties echoing round us at this moment, I cannot think it necessary to apologise for calling your Lordship's attention, and that of the Association over which you preside, to some of the questions I have touched upon. It has been said wisely and truly that "all healthy public life springs out of the relations of home," and it is a popular saying that "as the woman is, such is the home," and the aggregate of homes constitutes the nation. I hope it will be remembered that I call for no rash innovations, no fanciful experiments. A State may be revolutionised by a coup-d'état, and we know what comes of such revolutions; but society cannot be revolutionised-luckily! You may change a form of government, but you cannot change the life of a community by any outward pressure; it must live and grow by some organic law of development which, to be healthful and permanent, must be gradual. Lord Shaftesbury, in his admirable speech at Liverpool (the wisest and the most practical, to my mind, he ever delivered), described sanitary reform as being partly physical, partly moral. I consider a larger infusion of the female element into our social institutions as one item of that moral sanitary reform to which Lord Shaftesbury alludes. Generally speaking, women are by nature helpful, and feel themselves in their "proper sphere" when they have something to do, to suffer, to conquer, for others; but I allow that there are exceptions. I know many who are by their whole organisation unfitted to minister to others. I know women to whom the mere sight of physical suffering, of haggard and decrepit age, of deformity, of mental aberration, of vice and cruelty, causes such positive pain, such

intense disgust, that they could not enter an hospital or a prison without an interval of mental preparation-without a physical recoil through every nerve; such are often the women of artistic temperament, born to be objects to others, not to make objects of others; with hands which we sce were never formed to do anything—only to be held out to be kissed, like those of Giovanna d'Arragona, in Raphael's picture. Well, in "this working-day world" we accept them, and make room for them, and are glad and thankful that God has given them to us; but because we have such charmers - charm they wisely or unwisely-is that a reason why all women should be trained as if the sole purpose of their existence was to please? as if for us life had not its solemn and sacred significance, its responsible present, its awful hereafter, as well as for men? You, my Lord, and many others, have openly expressed the opinion that it is to women we must look for the "regeneration of society." For myself, I hesitate to believe that social morals, social progress, can depend wholly on onehalf of the human race. But if such be the will of God, if to such lofty duties, such a dread responsibility, we are called by His providence and by the dictate of those who rule our earthly destinies, these can only be fulfilled through. our influence over the minds as well as the hearts of men; and for this influence to be exercised effectively and healthfully, two things are necessary:-that in the higher classes the woman's standard of manly virtue, and in the working classes the man's standard of feminine virtue, be both more elevated; and that the woman's sphere of knowledge and activity should be limited only by her capacities.

I have the honour to be,

&c., &c.,

ANNA JAMESON.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION.

NURSES, HOSPITALS, WORKHOUSES, BARRACK-ROOMS.

A SECOND Edition of this little lecture (or essay, for I hardly know which to call it) being required within the short period of a month, I seize the opportunity to add a few words.

The principles here so briefly and so imperfectly announced have met with a reception altogether unexpected, and which certainly I do not take to be any testimony to the merit of the book, as such, but rather as a proof that it has struck upon a chord of feeling in the public mind, tuned and ready to vibrate to the most unpractised touch. So unlooked-for, indeed, has been the general expression of responsive sympathy, public and private, that the hand laid thus timidly and unskilfully upon the chords, almost "recoils from the sound itself hath made."

Not less have I been touched with pleasure and surprise by the numerous communications which almost every post has brought to me from medical men, from clergymen, from intelligent women (the greater number strangers to me personally), either expressive of cordial sympathy, or conveying practical suggestions, or offering aid and cooperation; all, however various the contents, testifying to the great truths I have endeavoured to illustrate in these pages: namely, that there exists at the core of our social condition a great mistake to be corrected, and a great want supplied; that men and women must learn to understand