the curious little sinking of the heart I used to feel, as I
mounted the steps of a house where there was a new patient needing
my care. "Would I do everything right?" "Could I please the
patient and the friends?" "Would the doctor be satisfied with my
efforts?" "How would I feel when I was leaving?" "Encouraged or
hopeless?" "Happy or sad?" A strange house looks so forbidding,
"would this one ever look friendly?" There is time, while walking
up the steps, for these and many more such thoughts to crowd into
the nurse's mind. Once in the presence of the patient, however,
all this quickly changes, and action puts all wondering and doubt
to flight.

The "hints" here given are the fruit of my own experience and that
of the graduates of the school of which I was the superintendent.
Many long talks we had, when they felt the need of coming back to
their hospital home for advice and comfort. It is an earnest wish
to help the young graduate over the intricate paths that the
inexperienced nurse must often tread that has led me to revise
some early contributions [Footnote: Printed by permission of the
_Trained Nurse_.] to the _Trained Nurse_ and write a few
new ones, which have within the past year appeared in the
_American Journal of Nursing_.

In the chapter "Hints to the Obstetrical Nurse," there is little
or nothing that is commonly taught in the class-room.

All of that is so well done, repetition here would be tiresome.
All the asepsis is familiar to every graduate. She knows how to
sterilize any and every thing, but sometimes she does not know the
best way to wash and dry the baby's little shirts or knitted