are open usually about half-past five, and the performance seldom
begins later than six or seven. This interferes with the time of the
usual evening meal, so that refreshments at these places are always in
order. One of the most characteristic evenings maybe spent at the
Philharmonie, where the best music is given at popular prices several
times each week. Tickets seldom cost more than fifteen or eighteen
cents, and may be bought by the package for much less. This is a
favorite place with the music-loving Germans, and for many Americans
as well. Nearly all the German ladies take their knitting or
fancy-work. The large and fine hall is filled on these occasions with
chairs clustered around small tables accommodating from two to six.
Here families and friends gather, chat in the intervals, and listen to
the music, quietly sipping their beer or chocolate, and supper is
served in the intermission to those who order it. Smoking is
forbidden, but seldom is the hour after supper free from fumes of
smokers who quietly venture to light their cigars unrebuked unless the
room gets _too_ blue. Many entire families seem to make nightly
rendezvous at these concerts, enjoying the music as only Germans do,
and setting many a pretty picture in the minds of strangers. The
concerts are over by nine or ten o'clock, but the performances at
theatre and opera are frequently not concluded before half-past ten or
eleven, and an after-supper at a _café_ or at home is a consequent
necessity. In one aspect of behavior at concerts, American audiences
may well imitate our German friends. The beginning of every piece of
music is the signal for instantaneous cessation from conversation. I
do not remember ever having been annoyed during the performance of
music, either in public or private, while in Germany, by the talking
of any except Americans or other foreigners. To the music-loving
Germans this is among the greatest of social sins.
III.
EDUCATION.
The buildings of the Berlin University are somewhat scattered, but the
edifice known by this name is situated opposite the Imperial Palace,
in the finest part of the city. The building was once the palace of
Prince Henry, brother of Frederick the Great. It is built around three
sides of a court open southward to the street, guarded by a high
ornamental iron fence. Before it are the sitting statues of the
brothers Humboldt, in fine white marble, on high pedestals. That of
Alexander von Humboldt, in particular, inspired me with profound
admiration often as I passed it. Few statues are more fortunate in
subject, in execution, or in position. The former reception-room of
the palace is now the great _aula_ of the University, and the old
ball-room is transformed into a Museum. The Cabinet of Minerals and
the Collections of the Zoölogical Museum are each among the most
valuable of their kind in existence. The fine park to the north of the
University is open to the public, and is best seen from the rear
entrance in Dorotheen Strasse. Its quiet shades seem quite the ideal
of an academic grove, if that can be in the middle of a great city.
The Astronomical Observatory is upwards of half a mile south, in a
park at the end of Charlotten Strasse; and the Medical Colleges are
mostly to the northwest, near the great hospital.
This University, with its hundreds of professors, and nearly six
thousand students annually in attendance, is now one of the foremost
in Europe. Professors who, like Virchow, Helmholtz, and Mommsen, have
a world-wide reputation, draw many to their classes; but there are
other equally learned specialists with a more circumscribed reputation
and influence. Hundreds of American students tarry each year for a
longer or shorter term of study in Berlin, and it is rapidly gaining
upon Leipsic as a centre for musical study also. No woman is allowed
to matriculate in the University at present, although there are not
wanting German women who, in advance of general public sentiment,
affirm that this ought not so to be.
The Academy of Arts and the Academy of Science are housed in the
conspicuous building opposite the palace of Emperor William I. and
adjoining the University. The Science Academy is organized in four
sections, physical, mathematical, philosophical, and historical, and
has valuable endowments and scholarships. The Academy of Arts has one
section devoted to higher instruction in painting, engraving, and
sculpture, and one to music, eminent specialists in each branch
composing the Board of Direction. The imposing building of the
Institute of Technology, near the extremity of the Thiergarten, has a
fine Technological Museum, and accommodation for two thousand
students. Its organization grew out of the union of two previously
existing institutions for the promotion of architecture and trade. It
has now five sections, in which about one thousand students pursue the
study of architecture, civil engineering, machinery, ship-building,
mining, and chemistry.
Instruction in the science of war is given in all its departments, as
might be expected. The War Office of the Government is in the
Leipziger Strasse, adjoining the Reichstag, with one of the finest of
ancient parks behind it, covering a space equal to several squares in
the heart of the city. This park is elaborate and finely kept, but it
is surrounded by high walls, within which the public is rarely
admitted. Even its existence is unsuspected by most visitors. The
large and elegant building of the War Academy in the Dorotheen Strasse
has a war library of eight hundred thousand volumes and magnificent
accessories. Its object is to educate army officers. There are three
courses of study, promotion from which to the General Staff is made by
examinations. The business of the General Staff is, in war, to
regulate the movements of the army and to attend to the correct
registration of material for war history. In peace, the time of the
officers who compose it is devoted to a profound post-graduate study
of the science and the art of warfare.
An important accessory to the privileges of the University is the
Royal Library, opposite the main building and adjacent to the palace
of Emperor William I. in the Opera Platz. It is possible, though not
common, for ladies to be allowed the privileges of this library,
consisting of over a million volumes and thousands of valuable and
curious manuscripts. A card of introduction to the Director from an
influential source gave me the great pleasure of the use both of the
library and the fine reading-rooms. Considerable time was consumed in
the preliminaries, and there was red tape to be untied, but in general
no unnecessary obstacles were thrown in the way even of a woman. On my
first visit, before the requisite permission to use the library had
been obtained, I was treated as a visitor, and most politely shown the
treasures of the institution by intelligent officials. A young man who
spoke excellent English was given me as a guide by the distinguished
Director-in-Chief. Classification of the books is carried to great
minuteness, and it is but the work of a moment, to one familiar with
its principles, to turn to any book of the million. The apartments are
plain and crowded, although some of the rooms of the adjoining palace
had recently been turned into the library, which is fast outgrowing
its accommodations. The young librarian who acted as our guide was
eager for information concerning American libraries, asking
particularly about the size and classification of the Boston Public
Library. It was a pleasure to respond to one so intelligent and
interested, and I felt sure he would make good use of every scrap of
trustworthy information. He showed us his books with pride, and gave
many interesting particulars. He also displayed to us some of the
treasures kept in glass cases and usually covered from the light. Here
were Luther's manuscript translation of the Bible, Gutenberg's Bible,
the first book printed on movable types, the ancient Codex of the time
of Charlemagne, miniatures, illuminated missals, and other things of
much interest. As my dinner-hour approached I begged off for that day
from the cordially offered inspection of the celebrated Hamilton
manuscripts. It is said that the highest-priced book ever sold was the
vellum missal presented to King Henry VIII. by Pope Leo X., which
brought $50,000. The missal was accompanied by a document conferring
on the King the title of "Defender of the Faith." It is now in this
collection, having been given by King Charles II. to an ancestor of
the Duke of Hamilton, whose manuscripts were purchased by the German
Government in 1882.
The tables of the reading-rooms for periodicals are well filled with
magazines in all languages, and equal politeness is shown by
officials. The apartments are in the second story, reached by a
stairway ascending from a paved court off the Behren Strasse, in the
rear of the Imperial Palace. No lovely spring-time memories are to us
more vivid and attractive than those of the library reading-room, in
the second story of the Library building, looking on the Opera Platz.
Here, among many students of all nationalities from the University, I
was wont to spend long delicious afternoons at a table of my own
choosing, to which attentive officials brought the books of my
selection, and where I was free to turn to books of reference on the
shelves beside me. The room would accommodate perhaps two hundred,
similarly employed. Among those I frequently met there were a German
lady and an American gentleman whom I was so happy as to number among
my friends. Intercourse between our tables was by smiles and nods,
seldom crystallizing into words, but these were not wanted. Four
centuries looked down upon us in portraits from the walls, and forty
centuries were ours in the books below them. As the season advanced,
the room was not full, and the long French windows stood open. Before
them was a balcony facing the Platz, with its fountains, its
shrubbery, and its flowers. The breath of spring and early summer was
perfumed by mignonette and English violets, as it floated away from
the murmur and the brightness of the brilliant scenes beyond up
through every alcove of this quiet scholar's retreat.
Books in English, as in other languages, are many and finely selected,
though some departments are incomplete. A month's preparation here for
a trip to Russia and the far North was one of unalloyed pleasure; and
many volumes from the library were, under the rules, kindly permitted
to reach and remain on the study-table of my own room while I needed
them. The department of Scandinavian travel was, however, much more
scantily represented than Russia. Long shall I have reason to remember
with gratitude the generous "open sesame" and the rich privileges of
this library, which, more than most things that enjoy the epithet,
truly deserves the name Royal.
As no woman can enter the Berlin University as a student, neither is
it practicable for a lady, either as student or visitor, to find
access to the _Gymnasia_, which, in the German sense of this term, are
somewhat in the line of our American colleges. My windows looked into
those of a fine new building across the street, devoted to the
instruction of German youth. In through its doors there filed, every
week-day morning, long lines of German boys and young men for the
various grades of instruction; and a natural desire arose in the mind
of an old teacher to "visit the school." But on application to an
influential friend long resident in Germany, for a note of
introduction to the Director of the _Gymnasium_, his hands were lifted
in unaffected astonishment at the nature of the request, "A woman in a
boys' school! oh, never! Ask me any other favor but that! Oh, it is
_impossible_!" A German lady was more hopeful. She was intimate with
the wife of the Director, and thought she could gain for me the
coveted permission. But weeks lengthened into months, and still the
right to enter even the enclosure sacred to the education of German
boys was not obtained. So I studied the educational system at first on
paper, and found many facts of interest. Attendance at the common
schools is compulsory, all children of both sexes being required to
attend, in separate buildings, from the ages of five to fourteen.
Beyond this, the High School offers a training for practical life and
business, and the _Gymnasium_ a classical and scientific training
leading to the special studies of the University. The course of study
in the _Gymnasia_ is similar to those of our colleges, some of the
studies of the latter, however, being relegated to the University. A
boy at nine years of age enters the _Gymnasium_ for a course of nine
years, in which Latin and Greek receive the chief emphasis. The same
great division of opinion as to the comparative merits of linguistic
and scientific training which exists in the rest of the world,
agitates the German mind. The _Gymnasium_ with its classical training
is the child of the present century, and its growth all along has been
disputed by those who claim greater advantages from a curriculum which
lays chief stress on science, omitting the Greek and half the Latin,
for a part of which modern languages are substituted. This has given
rise to what are called the Real Schools, corresponding to our
Scientific Schools. These receive their inspiration from the people
rather than the learned classes, and are regarded as still on trial.
Meantime, until quite recently, the graduates of the _Gymnasia_ have
had a monopoly of competition for positions as teachers and
opportunity to practise the learned professions. A recent change
allows graduates of the Real Schools to compete for teacherships. The
graduates of _Gymnasia_ only are allowed to enter the professions of
Medicine and Law. The Prussian _Gymnasia_ are about two hundred and
fifty in number, and the Real Schools somewhat over one hundred. In
point of military service, these schools are all on an equal footing,
a pupil who completes a course of six years in either being obliged to
serve but one year with the colors. It is said that a large number of
those who graduate in these schools do so for the sake of thus
shortening their term of military service. I was present at an evening
entertainment offered by the older students of one _Gymnasium_ to the
friends of the school. It was a rendering, in Greek, of the Antigone
of Sophocles, with considerable adjuncts of scenery, costume, and
Greek chorus. A brief outline of the play in German was distributed to
the audience. For the rest, a knowledge of Greek was the only key to
what was said by experts to be well done.
But if this one personal glimpse of the scholarship of the higher
schools for boys was all that could be obtained, I was more fortunate
in finding access to the schools for girls. Not, however, without
painstaking. It is by no means a matter of course for any visitor to
knock at the door of a school-room for a call upon the school. The
coming of visitors is uniformly discouraged; the teachers saying that
the pupils are not used to it, and that their attention is thereby
diverted from their studies. A lady of my acquaintance, resident for
some years in Berlin, asked permission to visit the school which her
little daughter attended, and was refused. A professional educator
from abroad, especially a gentleman, if properly introduced, will find
little difficulty in obtaining access to the schools; but a lady, who
wishes to go unofficially, will need persistence and courage before
she effects her object.
A friendly acquaintance with two German teachers smoothed the way,
perhaps opened it, to a privilege I had hitherto sought in vain. At
supper one evening I made an engagement to meet one of these ladies in
the school to which she belonged, early the next morning. In the short
Berlin days of mid-winter one must rise by candle-light to be in time
for even the second hour of school, if living a half-hour distant. In
one of the largest hotels of Berlin I saw, the week before Christmas,
a little fellow, scarcely tall enough for seven years, departing for
school in the morning, with his knapsack on his back, an hour before
there would be daylight enough for him to study by. As he sturdily
went forth from the elegant rooms and brilliantly lighted corridors
into the cold gray dawn and the snowy streets towards the distant
school, I said, "There is the way to train Spartans!" The schools
begin at eight o'clock for girls, at seven for boys, though many go at
later hours. Those who are not able to pay for instruction attend the
"common schools," where tuition is free; but those who can must pay at
the rate of from about five to seven dollars per quarter, in the
schools denominated "public."
The school to which I went occupies a handsome modern brick edifice,
and accommodates eight hundred girls. It was ten o'clock, when the
recess which follows the stroke of each hour (ten minutes) is doubled,
in order to give time for the "second breakfast"--bread and butter
taken in basket or bag--by both teachers and pupils, to supplement
the rolls and coffee partaken of by candle-light in winter, which form
the first breakfast. The teacher whom I knew was waiting for me in the
corridor, where the busy hum of hundreds of young voices filled the
air. Handsome and substantial stone staircases fill the central
portion of the edifice, lighted by a skylight, by windows where a
transverse corridor reaches to the street, and by ground glass in the
double doors leading to some of the class-rooms. It was a dark
morning, and so the corridors were dim enough. Most of the pupils are
in school from eight to one o'clock. Some of the younger ones come at
nine, or even ten, and go home at twelve. I was told that instruction
as to what to do in case of fire in the building is carefully given,
but saw no fire-escapes, except the stairways. There was provision for
ventilation in the class-rooms,--a register near the floor admitting
pure warm air, and another near the ceiling giving exit to impure air.
But this mode was quite insufficient to secure good air in most of the
rooms. I was conducted to the Director of the school, without whose
permission I could not enter. He was standing in the corridor on the
third floor, surrounded by several girls, with whom he was talking in
the manner of a _paterfamilias_,--an aged man, with a shrewd but
kindly face. I was introduced, and the object of my visit stated.
Bowing and leading the way to his office, he made a slight demurrer as
to the profit I should reap, but freely accorded the permission, after
making an entry, apparently from my visiting-card, in his register. My
friend again took me in charge, and conducted me to another room,
where I was introduced to the "first instructress," and to five or six
other lady teachers, all of whom sat, in wooden chairs, around a plain
wooden table, partaking of their luncheon. Two or three good
photographs--one of the Roman forum--were in frames on the walls; a
large mirror and a set of lock-boxes gave the teachers toilet
accommodations; while baskets of knitting and other belongings bespoke
this as the retiring-room of the lady teachers. The chief of these, a
kind-faced matronly woman, spoke English imperfectly; but several of
the younger ones spoke it very well, and one or two were of charming
manners and appearance.
From a schedule hanging on the wall, I was shown the names and number
of recitations for the day. "What would I like to see? How long can I
remain? Will I come again to-morrow?" If the permission to visit a
school be often difficult to gain, once received, it covers every
recitation, and as many hours or days as the visitor chooses to devote
to it. I was first conducted to a recitation in arithmetic. The room
contained accommodations for fifty pupils, and the seats were filled
by girls about thirteen or fourteen years of age. Wooden desks and
seats (the outer row for three pupils each, the central for four
each), a slightly raised platform for the teacher, with a plain desk
and two chairs, several cases of butterflies and beetles, on the walls
a map or two, a small blackboard behind the teacher's desk, in
grooves, so that it may be elevated or lowered at pleasure, make up
the furniture of the room. The light, as in every room I visited, was
from one side, to the left of the pupils. The teacher--a man with gray
hair and beard, but young enough as to vivacity and enthusiasm, and a
gentleman in manners--bowed me to the chair he offered, and with a
wave of the hand bade the children, who had risen on our entrance, be
seated. The lesson was wholly oral and mental. Addition, subtraction,
and multiplication were carried on by means of numbers, given out with
so much vivacity and judgment that every eye was fastened on the
teacher and every mind alert. Most of the right hands were raised for
answer to every question, with the index finger extended; and the
pupil selected was chosen now here, now there, to give it audibly.
Rank was observed from left to right, the lower changing places with
the higher whenever a failure above and a correct answer below paved
the way. Large numbers were often used; for example, adding or
subtracting by sixties, and multiplying far beyond twelve times
twelve,--all apparently with equal facility. The second half of the
hour was devoted to a visit to a class of younger girls. Another
arithmetic class, taught by a younger gentleman; the pupils were in
the eighth class, or second year at school,--age about seven. The room
accommodated the same number, and was lighted and furnished in a
similar way. Here figures were written on the blackboard by the
teacher. The early part of the lesson had evidently been in addition;
now it was subtraction, which was carefully explained by the pupils,
and the hour closed by a few mental exercises in concert. In the ten
minutes' recess which followed, I again chatted with the teachers in
their private room. Thirty teachers are employed to teach these eight
hundred girls,--twenty gentlemen and ten ladies. I said that in
America the lady teachers largely outnumbered the gentlemen. The lady
with whom I was conversing replied that the upper classes in girls'
schools were all taught by gentlemen, as the ladies were not prepared
to pass the required examinations for these positions. "The gentlemen
have a course in the _Gymnasium_ about equal to that in your
colleges," she said, "and then pursue a course in the University, in
order to fit themselves for teachers." "The expense of this is too
much for ladies?" I inquired. "Yes; and they have not the opportunity.
They are not admitted to the University of Berlin, and then--women
have not the strength for such hard studies"! "How many recitations do
you hear?" I asked. "The lady teachers, twenty-two per week; the
gentlemen, twenty-four." "The salaries of the gentlemen are higher?"
"Oh yes, much higher. They have families to support; and then, the
ladies are unsteady,--they often marry."
I was now conducted to the upper division of the first class; girls in
the last of the nine years' course of study,--ages about fourteen to
sixteen. This was the only class reciting in English, which within a
few years has been made a part of the required course, as well as
French. They were reading in little paper-covered books, in German
text, the _Geisterseher_ of Schiller, and translating the same into
English. The teacher was an English gentleman. He wrote occasionally a
word on the blackboard, when he wished to explain or impress upon the
memory a term or a synonym,--as, for instance, "temporarily," and the
words "soften," "mitigate," "assuage,"--and corrected such mistakes in
translation as "guess to" for "guess at," and "declaration" for
"explanation."
The second division of this first class was in German history. Several
of the pupils had historical atlases open before them, which covered
the history of the world from the most ancient times to the present,
prepared with that excellence which has made German maps famous. The
compendium used for a class-book was a brief record of dates and
events in Roman type, which is gradually but surely superseding the
old German letters. The teacher talked of the quarrel between popes
and emperors in the Middle Ages, and especially of the wars of the
Investitures. Passing through the corridor after this recitation, I
inquired the use of a library there, consisting of several hundred
volumes, and was told it was for the use of the teachers; and that
there was also one for the use of the pupils, from which they might
draw books to read at home,--"some amusing and some instructive."