Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/371

355 The Past and Future 355 of people, have been a priceless heritage. We draw inst)iration from their long tradition of courage and fortitude, their willingness to tackle any kind of difficult task and their steady tenac- ity in holding on to a task once begun. The gentle voice, the quiet unobtrusive manner, and the poise and dignity of the religious sister, have to some extent at least, served as a model for all nurses. But while we have gained much from their ex- ample in these ways, there are some other tra- ditions of both Catholic and Protestant orders which do not so fully represent our modem ideals. The older conception of nursing as a penance and a form of self -mortification, the idealization of drudgery and the contempt for and abuse of the body, the attempt to repress normal human instincts and to cut the nurse off as completely as possible from the ordinary life of the world, the emphasis on unquestioning obedience to au- thority and the suppression of individual judg- ment and initiative — all these we believe make for mental and physical atrophy and exhaustion rather than for broad social interests and en- lightened progress. These ascetic traditions have not yet entirely disappeared from nursing. Their influence may