Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/299

283 Nursing in other Countries 283 whole, however, the modern spirit has not pene- trated Switzerland as much as would seem natural in the sturdy republic. There is in Lausanne a school called La Source which should have been to Switzerland what the Nightingale School was to England, for it was founded on a "free" basis to enable women to attain self-support on a perfectly independent plane, not bound to the school, nor subject to a religious test. This was, at that time (1859), very advanced indeed. The liberal principles of La Source have always drawn to it women of superior type, but they have not received the professional training for which they were fit. A woman is not at its head, but a physician. With insufficient hospital resources, it undertook to train its pupils in the homes of the patients. This did undoubt- edly prepare them well for private cases, but did not enable them to go into hospitals, organize, train, and remodel, as women of their fine calibre should have been utilized to do. The excellent material of La Source has thus to a great extent been lost. Not only that, but the controlling medical men have been controversial propagan- dists, and have not always shown tolerance toward the extension of the genuine Nightingale system. Before the war Swiss nurses had talked of organiz-