Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing - Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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The Pe r si stent Reality . . . Three years ago, as we entered training, ours was a peacetime nation and we began to learn to serve a people at peace. Today, as we are graduated, that people has been catapulted into a struggle tremendous in its world-wide significance — and we are to serve a nation at war. A day, a week, a month bring with them everchanging events. The unpredicted and the predicted happens, making it impossible to say with assurance what will be next. To what, then, in a war-wracked world, can we look forward? We have been taught to minister to the sick. In war or in peace sickness is a persistent reality. Our service then is two-fold — to care for the sick and conserve the health of a people at war as an immediate press ' ing problem, and to plan for the care of the sick and the maintenance of health when peace again comes. The roar of guns speaks its own need. To some of us it will mean the sight of bayonet wounds, of scattered shrapnel shot, of men bruised and maimed and crazed and dying. To others may even come the sight of civil- ians cut down in the streets by enemy bombs, of homes burning and of the spoiling of lives and property. This is a perilous moment when man is savage. This is an emergency — no time for wasting or wishful thinking. This is the time for immediate service — toil of hands, understanding, courage, faith and wisdom to do. But no matter how long this war may be, we can still hope to do a “heap of living” in an era of peace — when each one may be wiser and more Page Ten

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. . . for her kindness, care, and sympathy, we give to yianaf yyt. J ' haMh, our very grateful appreciation Page Nine

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humble for the sacrifice. For this postwar world which will be ours to help create, we need education and preparation. The health of children, the problem of relief, the success of new towns mushroomed about dormant defense industries, the still persistent reality of sickness — these are a few of the problems which may be our concern. As a philosophy for us and for our times Bertrand Russell has written: “Remind yourself that the world is what we make it, and that to the making of it each one of us can contribute something. This thought makes hope possible and in this hope, though life will still be painful, it will no longer be purposeless.” The Editors Page Eleven