Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/397

Rh profession was one eminently suited to women, who entered upon their new vocation with boundless enthusiasm and dauntless energy. The substitution of trained ladies for such rough specimens as Mrs. Sarah Gamp and Mrs. Betsy Prig was in itself an inestimable blessing to mankind; in addition to this, the movement created one of the greatest social changes of the century. No longer now was matrimony the only possible opening for any self-respecting woman, but henceforth she could justify her existence, fill her life with interest, and fulfil her destiny, by ministering to the relief of human suffering.

How eagerly women grasped at this new outlet for their energies is best illustrated by figures. A training school for nurses was founded in 1860, and started with fifteen probationers; eleven years later there were thirty-two, and in 1889 as many as five hundred nurses had been sent out to work in the world. Women, too, for the first time now were allowed to take their places in the ranks of