Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/325

309 Nursing in other Countries 309 group of nurses from many different countries. The executive of the Women's Council had entrusted to Mrs. Bedford Fenwick the task of form- Thelnterna- ing a nursing programme in the section Coun- . cil of nurses of professional women, and after these and what it meetings were over it was she and represents Miss Isla Stewart who inspired the Matrons' Council of Great Britain and Ireland to move a resolution, proposing to nurses in all countries that they unite in a fraternal bond. The International Council of Nurses thus brought into being had a very definite purpose, which has not always been sufficiently clearly grasped, and which its natural opponents have in- tentionally failed to acknowledge. Its purpose was to bring together, in international union, nurses who, in their home lands, had developed, or who were endeavouring to develop, professional self- government, and to strengthen and extend this principle of self-government by admitting to in- ternational membership only such national groups of nurses as had been founded upon that declared basis. Following that purpose the International Coun- cil, at its inception, sought out in each country the group allied to it in purpose and spirit. It cared not at all how small numerically these groups