As a practical nursing student, I want to know what is practical nursing and how practical nursing evolved. By knowing the development in nursing history, I will be better ready to understand and adapt to possible changes in the future. And I can be better to join this glorious job as well. Nursing in Canada can be dated back more than 300 years. The first woman who regularly cared for the sick was Marie Rollet, who married to a surgeon-apothecary, Louis Hebert in early 17th century. She worked alongside her husband, as was the practice for French wives of the early 17th century, providing care to settlers and natives. Early Canadian nursing history records the numerous contributions of nursing sisters and their assistants. In 1693, three "hospital nuns" arrived from France to found the Hotel-Dieu at Quebec. Two years later, Jeanne Mance arrived at Quebec along with Maisonneuve and his band of followers to found a settlement at Montreal. They began to care for the sick and helped to establish the hotel-Dieu hospital. In the eighteenth century the growth of cities brought an increase in the number of hospitals and the need for nursing education. The first training school for nurse in Canada is founded at the St. Catharines General and Marine Hospital in St. Catharines, Ontario in 1874 by Dr. Theophilus Mack. The second training school opened in April, 1881, was Toronto General Hospital.
By 1891, the training program was 160 hours spend over 9 months in a two-year program, following revisions by Mary Agnes Snively, a revolutionary nursing educator. The program was lengthened in 1896 to three years setting the example for most other schools of nursing. John Murray Gurray and Mary S. Mathewson described the program in "Three Centuries of Canadian Nursing as in this course. There were 84 hours of Practical Nursing and 119 hours of instruction by the medical staff."" In 1938, Centers in Ontario began offering courses in "practical nursing" the six-month training program.