Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/365

349 The Past and Future 349 progress — the breaking down of the spirit of hatred and prejudice, the promotion of kindher and more humane relations between human beings, the or- ^ ganization of practical and effective measures for reducing human suffering and distress— it would be hard to find any group of workers, who have con- tributed more to the sum total of social effort, than the little group we have been studying, from Phoebe to the nurses of our own day. The movement which revolutionized modern nursing has carried us forward by its great impetus to the present time. The question now The task of is, whether we are going to continue the future this line of advance, or whether we are going to slip back into one of those periods which our history has shown us, often came when the momentum of a great movement had slackened somewhat, and the pioneers of that movement had begun to give place to a new generation. That critical time we are now approaching. The sturdy pioneers who fought with dirt and disorder and all kinds of ancient abuses in the old hospitals, have done their share and we cannot honour them too much for it. But though they have carried nursing a long step ahead of where it was a genera- tion ago, they have left us a great deal still to do and we should be unworthy of them if we should