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273 Nursing in other Countries 273 There are now schools for nurses in large charity hospitals which are like our city hospitals. The Red Cross is, however, paramount, and its nurses are probably regarded as a superior caste, profession- ally, not necessarily socially. Its hospitals are the leading institutions of their kinds, and the officers of the Red Cross are of the highest aristocracy. As its traditions are military, the Red. Cross nurses of Japan could not form or work for a self-governing national association such as English countries have, but they were encouraged most generously by their Red Cross officers to meet with nurses of other countries in international conferences. Red Cross Sisters and the nursing superintendent of a large charity hospital came together to the last such conference held. The language is a most regret- table barrier to our real intimacy with the skilled and devoted nurses of Japan. It is interesting to know how highly Miss Nightingale is revered in that country. Pupils in training are taught her life, and her achievements are reproduced in screen pictures. When she died, memorial services were held for her departing spirit by the Japanese nurses. The Japanese Red Cross was the first to send staffs of nurses to aid the Allies — England and France in the recent war. 18 ' ■ /