up in first specimens, either in close rooms or in overcrowded wards, where it could not by any possibility have been caught, but must have begun! Nay, more. I have seen diseases begin, grow up, and pass into one another. Now, dogs do not pass into cats. I have seen, for instance, with a little overcrowding, continued fever grow up; and, with a little more, typhoid fever; and, with a little more, typhus; and all in the same ward or hut. Would it not be far better, truer, and more practical, if we looked upon disease in this light?"

"Again," she says, addressing parents, "why must a child have measles? If you believed in and observed the laws for preserving the health of houses, which inculcate cleanliness, ventilation, whitewashing, and other means (and which, by the way, are laws) as implicitly as you believe in the popular opinion (for it is nothing more than an opinion) that your child must have children's epidemics, don't you think that, upon the whole, your child would be more likely to escape altogether?"

Miss Nightingale is an enemy of crinoline, the wearing of which she styles "an absurd and hideous custom." "The dress of women," she adds, "is daily more and more unfitting them for any mission or usefulness at all. It is equally unfitted for all poetic and all domestic purposes. A man is now a more handy and far less objectionable being in a sickroom than a woman. Compelled by her dress, every woman now either shuffles or waddles; only a man can cross the floor of a sick-room without shaking it! What has become of woman's light step, - the firm, light, quick step we have been asking for?"

She has a very pleasing and suggestive passage upon the kind of conversation which is most beneficial to the sick. "A sick person," she observes, "does so enjoy hearing good news; for instance, of a love and courtship while in progress

to a good ending. If you tell him only when the marriage takes place, he loses half the pleasure, which, God knows, he has little enough of; and, ten to one, but you have told him of some love-making with a bad ending. A sick person also intensely enjoys hearing of any material good, any positive or practical success of the right. He has so much of books and fiction, of principles, and precepts, and theories! Do, instead of advising him with advice he has heard at least fifty times before, tell him of one benevolent act which has really succeeded practically; it is like a day's health to him. You have no idea what the craving of the sick, with undiminished power of thinking, but little power of doing, is to hear of good practical action, when they can no longer partake in it. Do observe these things with the sick. Do remember how their life is to them disappointed and incomplete. You see them lying there with miserable disappointments, from which they can have no escape but death, and you can't remember to tell them of what would give them so much pleasure, or at least an hour's variety. They don't want you to be lachrymose and whining with them; they like you to be fresh, and active, and interesting; but they cannot bear absence of mind; and they are so tired of the advice and preaching they receive from everybody, no matter whom it is, they see. There is no better society than babies and sick people for one another. Of course you must manage this so that neither shall suffer from it, which is perfectly possible. you think the air of the sick-room bad for the baby, why it is bad for the invalid, too, and therefore you will of course correct it for both. It freshens up the sick person's whole mental atmosphere to see the baby.' And a very young child, if unspoiled, will generally adapt itself wonderfully to the ways of a sick person, if the time they spend together is not too long."

If

These passages give us a more correct conception of the

mind and character of Florence Nightingale than any narrative of her life which has yet been given to the public. There has been nothing of chance in her career. She gained her knowledge, as it is always gained, by faithful and laborious study, and she acquired skill in applying her knowledge by careful practice.

There can be no doubt that the example of Miss Nightingale had much to do in calling forth the exertions of American women during our late war. As soon as we had wounded soldiers to heal, and military hospitals to serve, the patriotic and benevolent ladies of America thought of Florence Nightingale, and hastened to offer their assistance; and, doubtless, it was the magic of her name which assisted to open a way for them, and broke down the prejudices which might have proved insurmountable. When Florence Nightingale overcame the silent opposition of ancient surgeons and obstinate old sergeants in the Crimea, she was also smoothing the path of American women on the banks of the Potomac and the Mississippi. Her name and example belong to the race which she has honored; but to us, whom she served in the crisis of our fate, and thus associated her name with the benevolent and heroic ladies of our land, she will ever be peculiarly dear.

LYDIA MARIA CHILD.

BY T. W. HIGGINSON.

To those of us who are by twenty years or more the juniors of Mrs. Child, she presents herself rather as an object of love than of cool criticism, even if we have rarely met her face to face. In our earliest recollections she comes before us less as author or philanthropist than as some kindly and omnipresent aunt, beloved forever by the heart of childhood,

some one gifted with all lore, and furnished with unfathomable resources, some one discoursing equal delight to all members of the household. In those days she seemed to supply a sufficient literature for any family through her own unaided pen. Thence came novels for the parlor, cookery-books for the kitchen, and the "Juvenile Miscellany" for the nursery. In later years the intellectual provision still continued. We learned, from her anti-slavery writings, where to find our duties; from her "Letters from New York," where to seek our purest pleasures; while her "Progress of Religious Ideas" introduced us to those profounder truths on which pleasures and duties alike rest. It is needless to debate whether she has done the greatest or most permanent work in any especial department of literature, she has done work so valuable in many. She has shown memorable independence in repeatedly leaving beaten paths to strike out for herself new literary directions, and has combined the authorship of more than thirty books and

pamphlets with a singular devotion both to public and private philanthropies, and with almost too exacting a faithfulness to the, humblest domestic duties. Sero in cælum. May it be long before her full and final eulogy is written; but meanwhile it would be wrong to attempt even a sketch of her career without letting sympathy and love retain a large share in the service.

Lydia Maria Francis was born at Medford, Mass., February 11th, 1802. Her ancestor, Richard Francis, came from England in 1636, and settled in Cambridge, where his tombstone may still be seen in the burial-ground. Her paternal grandfather, a weaver by trade, was in the Concord fight, and is said to have killed five of the enemy. Her father, Convers Francis, was a baker, first in West Cambridge, then in Medford, where he first introduced what are still called "Medford crackers." He was a man of strong character and great industry. Though without much cultivation, he had uncommon love of reading; and his anti-slavery convictions were peculiarly zealous, and must have influenced his children's later career. He married Susannah Rand, of whom it is only recorded that "she had a simple, loving heart, and a spirit busy in doing good.”

They had six children, of whom Lydia Maria was the youngest, and Convers the next in age. Convers Francis was afterwards eminent among the most advanced thinkers and scholars of the Unitarian body, at a time when it probably surpassed all other American denominations in the intellectual culture of its clergy. He had less ideality than his sister, less enthusiasm, and far less moral courage; but he surpassed most of his profession in all these traits. He was Theodore Parker's first learned friend, and directed his studies in preparation for the theological school. Long after, Mr. Parker used still to head certain pages of his journal, "Questions to ask Dr. Francis." The modest