Florence Nightingale's Indian letters : a glimpse into the agitation for tenancy reform, Bengal, 1878-82.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Florence Nightingale's Indian letters : a glimpse into the agitation for tenancy reform, Bengal, 1878-82. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

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    various reforms she found time to study intelligently the sorrows of teeming millions across the dividing seas. The immediate occasion of the correspondence seems to have been the acknowledgment of a contribution to the topical question, a tract of the times which my father had composed and sent to her for her opinion. Her knowledge and information kept pace with her sympathy and love, and any one who goes through these letters will realise how intimately she knew about the peasants of Bengal and Bihar. They will also show that she exerted her influence (which was not slight) in the Cabinet for the relief of the tillers of the soil in India. Her insight showed her the im- portance of this land question compared with which all others put together must sink into insignificance. Her earnest and intense mind was, for a substantial portion of her life, devoted to the good of India, and the people of India will thankfully remember her words: My interest in India can never abate. Far above the din and bustle of contemporary politics lie enshrined the thoughts of Florence Nightingale, care- fully scanning the distress and growing poverty of the Indian people and furiously trying to bring about better conditions. A people cannot really be helped except through itself: a people must be mformed, reformed, mspired through itself. When factions rule and the highest interests of the body politic are lost to view, her words have a special meaning for us: Disinterested political, not party principle—oh, what a great, what a divine quality that is I