(_To Miss Ellen Tollet._) [_Nov._ 1855.] I don't know whether Mrs. Milnes told you how hard we worked to send off boxes for F.'s education of the army! let me tell you, Ma'am, to instruct 50,000 men is no joke. Seriously tho', my love, it is small things any one can do amid such a mass, which made one the more anxious to enable her to do what she could, and we have sent a dose of 1000 copybooks, writing materials in proportion, Diagrams, Maps, books illustrated and other. _Macbeth_ (6) to read 6 at a time, and the music in the interludes, which Mr. Best (a pattern man whom I love more even than the Dean of H.) recommended as having been successful in his village. Chess, Footballs, other games, a magic Lanthern for Dissolving views, a Stereoscope (very fine!), plays for acting, music, &c. &c. Finally I thought a little art would be advisable, and had a number of prints stretched and varnished which are to be my subscription towards the improvement of the British army!
But, my dear, you can't conceive how pretty the sort of help is that everybody poured in; the P. & O. says, nothing is to be paid, Miss N.'s things all go free.
(_To Florence Nightingale._) [_Nov._ 16, 1855.] Please, my dear, acknowledge a print which the Queen sends you for the soldiers. She heard thro' Lady Augusta Bruce that you had asked for one of her for the "Inkerman Café "; and she accordingly sends you the one of the Duke of Wellington presenting May flowers to the little Prince Arthur his godson; which is very pretty of her, for it combines so many things. It is sent to you to do what you like with, so I have said you most likely will wish to have it at Balaclava for your Reading Room plans. We have been racking our brains to get together amusing things for your men.... To mitigate the science I have slipped in the Madonna of the Sedia; which, my love, is domestic, if you please, not Popish. The Duchess of Kent sends a capital lot of books; she has been so pleased to be of use.
Both in the Crimea and at Scutari Miss Nightingale carried on, as opportunity offered, what her sister laughingly called "the education of the British Army." But it was at Scutari, where she principally stayed, that the effort took the largest scope. Outside the Barrack Hospital a building was bought by Sir Henry Storks, on behalf of the Government, to provide a reading-room and a school-room. The reading-room, opened in January 1856, was supplied by Miss Nightingale with books, prints, maps, games, and newspapers. The other room was used as a garrison school; two schoolmasters were sent out; and evening lectures and classes were given. A second school was conducted in a hut between the two large hospitals at Scutari.[194] For the convalescents, Miss Nightingale had at an earlier date established reading-huts in the Barrack Hospital, furnishing them with books, newspapers, writing materials, prints, and games. In all the reading-huts the men attended numerously and constantly, their behaviour when there being, Miss Nightingale added, uniformly quiet and well-bred. The good manners, no less than the uncomplaining heroism of the common soldier, made an indelible impression upon the Lady-in-Chief.