Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/301

285 Nursing in other Countries 285 enjoyment of intellectual liberty, social life, music, and drama, to its staff. Also, nurses could ter- minate their Red Cross contracts and seek inde- pendent occupations without incurring the stigma that attached to the deaconess who left her Motherhouse. Next appeared the Nightingale system in the Victoria House founded by the Empress Frederick, daughter of Queen Victoria, in Berlin (1886). Its first Matron was sent to St. Thomas's to be trained. This was imitated in other large hospitals, notably that at Eppendorf, Hamburg. Liberal pastors now modified the deaconess sys- tem, allowing more freedom, giving the Sisters a share in direction, and providing for fuller econo- mic advantages. Finally in evolution came the "Free" Sisters, those who had, for justifiable reasons, chiefly economic, left the various rigid orders to work independently. They were or- ganized into a national society by Sister Agnes Karll, a woman of great breadth of mind and a genuine humanitarian; born, also, with gifts of leadership. By the time the great war broke out the Free Sisters had attained a gratifying stage of progress. They had asked for state registration and secured an entering wedge in the form of a federal act which