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131 Florence Nightingale 131 lay her whole life work, and were emphasized on every occasion. Though Miss Nightingale in her youth might properly have been called a revolutionary, she showed in her later life what is so often Miss seen, that at a given point the old can- Night- ingale's not go on with the young, who then conserva- pass beyond to further stages of activ- ity, either by evolution, revolution, or both. When the expansion of English training schools, the increasing number of nurses, and the inevi- table variation of professional standards brought about economic and educational difficulties such as nurses in every country have experienced, the younger generation in England realized the need of self-organization, self-government, and the attainment through state regulation of a basic minimum of training which should be the "one portal" to professional life. Miss Nightingale was wholly out of sympathy with this new movement, carried on by the young in English nursing, and lent all her great prestige to the opposition. No doubt her years of seclusion made it difficult for her to realize the newer condi- tions. Then, too, her individualism was intense, and she believed individual merit would be lost or "leveled down" under state licensing. Yet she