weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports sent to the parents, I asked to
see the text-book, and was shown two or three. That for the younger
pupils was simple, after the manner of our "Bible Stories," of the
Creation, "Joseph and his Brethren," etc. That for the upper classes
consisted of several catechisms bound in one, including "Luther's,"
and supplemented by a number of Psalms, as the 1st, 15th, 23d, 130th,
to be committed to memory.
I asked if sewing and knitting were taught, and was answered in the
affirmative. "Is there a teacher for sewing only?" I asked. "No;
formerly there was, but now the teaching of sewing and knitting is
distributed among all the lady teachers. The teachers have more
influence with the pupils in this way." A wise remark; as only a
sewing-teacher of exceptional force and ability can have an influence
with the pupils to be compared with that of those who teach them
literature. Embroidery is taught, but only "useful embroidery," as the
beautiful initial-work on all bed and table linen in Germany is
called. Some of that shown me in the sewing-room I now visited was
exquisite, but was outdone, if possible, by the darning. Over a small
cushion, encased in white cotton cloth, a coarse fabric of stiff
threads is pinned, after a square has been cut out from it. This hole
the pupil is to replace by darning, composed of white and colored
threads. In this instance blue and white threads were woven about the
pin-heads inserted at some distance outside the edges of the hole, one
for each thread. The darning replaces the fabric, not only with
neatness and strength, but in ornamental patterns. Squares, plaids,
herringbone and lozenge patterns were done by this process in such a
manner as to be very handsome.
We now descended to the ground floor, where was a large gymnasium,
fitted up simply, but with a variety of apparatus. A teacher is
employed for gymnastics only, but for the reason that until recently
the other teachers have not had opportunity to prepare for the
examinations, so strict in Germany on every branch. The children here
were among the youngest in the school, and were well taught by a lady,
but with nothing in the method worthy of special note. The last
half-hour, I listened to a recitation in geography. Girls of ten to
twelve were numbering and naming the bridges of Berlin, as I entered,
and the recitation continued for some time on the topography and
boundaries of their own city. A few general questions were given on
Germany and its boundaries, and the passes of the Alps, especially the
Simplon; and the First Napoleon came in for a little discussion. The
whole method and result in this class were admirable.
The teachers seemed to expect I would come again on the morrow, as I
had not visited all the classes; and my thanks for the hospitality and
full opportunity of inspection which I had so much enjoyed, were
mingled with the apology I felt was needed, that my engagements would
not permit another visit to the school.
I next sought and obtained an introduction to a Girls' High School.
This was under the patronage of the Empress Augusta, and was said, in
furnishing and equipment, to be the best in the city. The building is
a good one, and the furniture more nearly approaching to that of the
best schools in American cities. We went into two or three classes,
but were not particularly impressed, favorably or unfavorably, with
the methods of instruction. Not so in the gymnastic rooms, where we
went to view the exercises of the Normal class, soon to be graduated.
No courtesy was shown us by the master in charge, but we were
tolerantly allowed to take seats. Here were young women about eighteen
years of age, going through some of the more active exercises, in a
large and well-fitted room, without a breath of outer air, in sleeves
so close that their arms were partly raised with difficulty; so
tightly laced about the waist that the blood rushed to their faces
whenever they attempted the running exercise sometimes required, and
with long skirts and the highest of French heels! And yet this is a
country in which a woman is not considered capable of instructing the
higher classes in gymnastics!
I now essayed to visit a representative girls' school carried on by
private enterprise. The one to which I obtained introduction--and this
was always a particular matter, the time of the visit being arranged
some days previous by correspondence--was under the patronage of the
then Crown Princess, Victoria, whose portrait hung in a conspicuous
place in the elegantly furnished drawing-room into which I was first
shown. Soon the principal appeared,--a lady, who from a small
beginning about fifteen years before had brought the enterprise to its
present successful stage, with several hundred pupils in annual
attendance. There were a number of governesses, and about thirty
pupils resident in the family, the remainder being day-pupils. When
asked what I would like to see, as this was a private school, and I
knew nothing of its methods, I replied that I would leave the
particulars of my visit to the lady in charge. She still hesitated,
when I suggested that I should feel interested to visit a class in
mathematics. The lady lifted her hands in astonishment. "Mathematics!
for girls? Never! We aim to fit girls to become good wives and
mothers,--not to teach them mathematics!" "Do you have no classes in
arithmetic?" I asked. "Yes, some arithmetic; but higher mathematics
would only be hostile to their sphere,--it is not necessary." "Not
necessary, possibly," I replied; "but in America we do not think
higher study hostile to the preparation of girls for their duties as
wives and mothers." "But it is," she replied. "When girls get their
minds preoccupied with such things, it interferes with the true
preparation for their life." As I had come to learn this lady's ideas
of education for girls, not to vindicate mine, I turned the discussion
into an inquiry as to the ideal of culture she set before her pupils.
"Girls attempt too many things," was the reply. "They come here, some
from England and other places, anxious to learn music and languages
and what not. I tell them it is impossible to do so many things well.
If they wish to learn music, this is not the place for them. They may
practise a little,--an hour or two a day, if they wish,--but it is
folly to attempt the study of music with other things. We aim to give
a thorough training in language and literature; not a smattering, but
such an acquaintance as will enable them to understand the people
whose tongue they study,--to look at life through their eyes, and to
be thoroughly familiar with the masterpieces of their literature. Of
course, German holds the first place, but French and English are also
taught." I was taken to a class in German literature. The plain and
primitive furnishing of the class-rooms was in noticeable contrast to
the elegance of the parlors. The girls sat on plain wooden benches,
with desks before them on which their note-books lay open. They used
these as those who had been trained to take notes and recite from
them. I had been told that the teacher in charge of this class was one
of the most excellent in the city. The hour was occupied by a lecture
on Lessing, a poet whom the class were evidently studying with German
minuteness.
I also visited a class in reading,--younger girls, about ten or twelve
years of age. They were admirably taught, both in reading and
memorizing, the latter chiefly of German ballads. I saw no better
teaching done in Berlin than that of this class. Its enthusiastic lady
teacher would be a treasure in any land. The last visit of the morning
was to a class in vocal music, taught by a gentleman. It was
interesting as affording a view of the methods in this music-loving
country, but did not differ materially from what would be considered
good instruction and drill on this side the water. The teacher himself
played the piano, the pupils standing in rows on either side.
In the teachers' dressing-room, a comfortable apartment for the
teachers who came from without the building, I chatted a few moments
with two or three ladies. One spoke English so well that I asked if it
were her vernacular. She appeared gratified by the compliment; said
she had been much in other continental countries, and had spent three
years in England, with eighteen months beside in the United States.
She mistook me for an Englishwoman, and confidently informed me that
she had feared her English accent was ruined by the time spent "in the
States." "Did you find it so?" I inquired. "No," she said;
"fortunately I was able to correct it by stopping in England on my way
back." She had evidently not met the gentleman who informed his
English friends that they must go to Boston, Massachusetts, if they
would hear English spoken correctly. While in Berlin I heard of a
young American who was accosted by an Englishman with a question as to
what language she spoke. "I speak American," was the reply, "but I can
understand English if it is spoken slowly."
The wish to learn English is almost universal among Germans, and the
schools have not been before public opinion in making it a part of the
curriculum. The result as yet, however, judging from our observation,
will justify greater painstaking and more practice, before a high
degree of accuracy is reached among the pupils.
IV.
CHURCHES.
The greatest Protestant power of Continental Europe has no
Court-churches worthy in appearance of companionship with its palaces
and public buildings. But there are those of much historical and other
interest, and in some of them the living power of Christianity bears
sway. The _Dom_, or Cathedral, dating from the time of Frederick the
Great, is far inferior, within and without, to the magnificent
buildings which surround it, facing the _Lustgarten_, or Esplanade.
Long ago royal plans were made to replace it by an edifice more
worthy, but these have not been carried out, though since the
accession of Emperor William II. measures have been taken looking
toward the erection of a new cathedral.
The usual hour for Sunday-morning service is ten o'clock. The latitude
of Berlin is over ten degrees farther north than that of New York and
Chicago, and the sun at ten o'clock in winter is about as high as at
nine o'clock in the latter cities. So it is only by special effort
that a midwinter sojourner in Berlin can be at morning service. Within
three minutes of the time appointed, on my first visit, the aged
Emperor William entered the _Dom_ and stood for a few minutes in the
attitude of devotion, as did the other members of the Imperial
household. The gallery on the left of the preacher was occupied by
three boxes,--one for the Emperor, one for the Crown Prince and his
family, and one for their retinues. The service proceeded in the
language of the people,--that language created and preserved to
Germany by Luther's translation of the Bible. A finely trained choir
of some sixty singers led the music, all the people joining in the
psalms and hymns; the Imperial family taking part in the service with
simplicity and appearance of sincerity, as those who stood, with all
present, in the presence of Him with whom is no respect of persons.
The plain interior of the _Dom_ has a painting behind the altar, and
the large candles in immense candlesticks on either side were burning
before a crucifix throughout the entire service. This we found true
also in most of the other churches,--a reminder that, wide as was the
gulf between the Lutheran Church and that of Rome, the former retained
some customs which Puritanism discarded. Pews fill the central part of
this cathedral, and the broad aisle skirting the side at the left of
the front entrance has a few seats for the delicate and infirm of the
throng which always stands there at the time for the morning service.
It was in this church that the departed Emperor William I. lay in
state for the great funeral pageant when his ninety-one years of life
were over. Here in the vaults many members of Prussia's royal family
repose, and here many stately ceremonies have taken place. At the door
of this cathedral Emperor William I., then Prince Regent, stood with
uncovered head to receive the remains of Alexander Von Humboldt, which
here lay in state in May, 1859, after the great scholar "went forth"
for the last time from his home in the Oranienburger Strasse.
We attended a service at the oldest of the Berlin churches, the
Nicolai Kirche, and found the sparseness of the audience in striking
contrast with the crowds which frequented most of the other churches
where we went. Standing-room is usually at a premium in the Cathedral,
the Garrison Church, and the place, wherever it may be, in which
Dryander preaches; and in nearly all the churches unoccupied seats are
hard to find. This is due, not to the large numbers of church-going
people in Berlin, but to the comparatively limited church
accommodations. It is not too soon that the present Emperor has given
order that the number of churches and sittings be immediately
increased. In this city of about a million and a half inhabitants,
there are only about seventy-five churches and chapels, all told; none
very large, and some quite small. It is said that Dryander's parish
numbers forty thousand souls, and that there are other parishes
including eighty thousand and one hundred and twenty thousand each.
Only about two per cent of the population attend church. Ties to a
particular church seem scarcely to exist in many cases; those who go
to Divine service following their favorite preacher from place to
place as he ministers now in one part, now in another, of his vast
parish, or going to the Court Church to see the Imperial family, or to
some other which happens to offer fine music or some special
attraction for the day. Churches do not need, however, to offer
special attractions nor to advertise sensational novelties in order to
be filled, and of course there are many humble and devout Christians
found in the same places from week to week.
The Nicolai Kirche dates from before 1250 A.D. and the great granite
foundations of the towers were laid still earlier. At this period the
savage Wends and the robber-castles of North Germany were yielding to
the prowess of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, and the powerful
Hanseatic League was uniting its free cities and cementing its
commercial interests, of which Berlin was erelong to be a part,--a
League which was to sweep the Baltic by its fleets, and to set up and
dethrone kings by its armies. Already the Crusades had broken the long
sleep of the Dark Ages, and stirred the people with that mighty
impulse which brought the culmination, in the thirteenth century, of
the great church-building epoch of Europe in the Middle Ages. No
great churches which they could not live to finish were begun by he
frugal burghers of Berlin; but they had a style of their own in the
brick Gothic, which is the most truly national architecture of North
Germany. The Nicolai Kirche is a representative of these early times
and of this national architecture, but its interior decorations show
every variety of adornment which prevailed during five centuries after
its founding. Not alone the history of art is represented on the inner
walls of this venerable and unique edifice, but the municipal history,
and the history of the "Mark of Brandenburg," and the Kingdom of
Prussia as well.
Almost as ancient as the Nicolai Kirche is the Heiliggeist Kirche,
behind the Börse. Near this is the Marien Kirche, with its high spire,
its Abbot's Cross--the emblem of Old Berlin--before the entrance, and
on the inner walls its frescos of the Dance of Death, painted to
commemorate the plague which ravaged Berlin in 1460. Adjoining this
church, in the Neue Markt, Berlin's statue of Luther is to be erected.
Of the same old time, and in the same old heart of Berlin, is the fine
Kloster Kirche of the Franciscan monks, who had once a monastery
adjoining. A morning's stroll or two enables one to inspect all these
interesting old churches,--passing first to the Nicolai Kirche from
the end of the tramway in the Fisch Markt, and then, by a convenient
circuit, to each of the others, returning by the Museums and the
Lustgarten. The Jerusalems Kirche, about three quarters of a mile
south, is said to have been founded by a citizen at the end of the
Crusades as a memento of his journey to Palestine; but its present
ornamented architecture belongs to a modern reconstruction. An
effective architectural group is formed by the two churches in the
Schiller Platz, with the great _Schauspielhaus_, or Royal Theatre,
between them,--a view which soon becomes familiar to one passing often
through the central part of the city. The French Church, on the north
side of the Theatre, we did not enter, and of the "New Church"--a
hundred years old and recently rejuvenated--our most abiding memories
are of an exquisite sacred concert given there in aid of a local
charity. We made a pilgrimage to see the effect of this group by
moonlight, but, perhaps because it had been too highly praised, we
found the view rather disappointing. But we shall long remember a
walk at evening twilight through this place, when early dusk and
gleaming gas-jets around and within the square had taken the place of
departing sunlight, which still bathed in radiance the gilded figures
surmounting the domes in the clear upper air. Few of the hurrying
multitudes stopped to look upward, but those who did could hardly fail
to gain an impressive lesson from the inspiring and suggestive sight.
Frommel, the good man and attractive preacher who usually officiates
in the Garrison Church, is one of the four Court-preachers, each of
whom is eminent in his way. We sat one morning, with many others, on
the steps to the chancel in the Garrison Church, as the house was
crowded in every part. The spacious galleries were filled with
soldiers in Prussian uniform, and many also were in the pews below.
The soldiers were not there merely in obedience to orders. They
listened intently, for Court-preacher Frommel has a message to the
minds and hearts of men. His oratory is eloquent, scintillating; from
first to last it holds captive the crowded audience. Never have I
witnessed gestures which were so essentially a part of the speaker;
hands so incessantly assisting to convey subtle thought and feeling
from the brain and heart of the orator to the magnetized audience,
whose faces unconsciously testified to a mental and spiritual
uplifting. It was told me that the aged Emperor never travelled from
his capital without the attendance of this chaplain, as well known for
his simple Christian integrity and his ceaseless good deeds as for his
wonderful eloquence.
Trinity Church, where for a quarter of a century Schleiermacher
preached and wrought, is now ministered to by the worthy Dryander and
his colleagues, who faithfully do what they can for the spiritual
welfare of the immense parish. The edifice, of a peculiar model,
stands in a central portion of Berlin, almost under the shadow of the
lofty and famous hotel known as the Kaiserhof. On the Sunday mornings
when Dryander preaches here, aisles, vestibules, and stairways are
crowded until there is no standing-room, much less a seat, within
sight or hearing of the popular preacher. His manner is simple, but
very forceful and sympathetic, his earnest face and voice holding the
audience like a spell.
The finest religious music in Berlin is rendered on Friday evenings at
sunset, in the great Jewish synagogue in the Oranienburger Strasse,
built at a cost of six million marks, and said to be the best in
Europe. The spacious interior seats nearly five thousand, with pews on
the main floor for men only, and galleries for the women. Three
thousand burning gas-jets above and behind the rich stained glass of
the dome and side windows give an effect remarkable both for beauty
and weirdness. The building without loses much by its close
surroundings of ordinary houses, but the Moorish arches and
decorations within are unique and effective. Over the sacred
enclosure, where a red light always burns, and which contains the ark
"of the law and the testimony," a gallery across the eastern end holds
the fine organ, and accommodates the choir of eighty trained singers.
Christmas eve happened in 1886 on a Friday; so, before the later
German Christian home festival to which we were invited, we wended our
way to the Jewish weekly sunset service. Neither among the men nor the
women was there much outward evidence of devotion. In the female
countenances around me in the gallery the well-known Jewish
physiognomy was almost universal. While the rabbi read the service,
with his back to the audience, most followed in their Hebrew books;
but one by one many men slipped out, as though they were "on 'Change"
and did not care to stay any longer to-day. The women remained, but
with a slightly perfunctory air in most cases. One old crone before me
seemed touched with the true pathos which belongs to her race and its
history. She followed the service intently, swaying her body back and
forth in time with the beautiful music, and ever and anon breaking
forth in a low, sweet, plaintive strain with her own voice. Oh the
longing of such lives, waiting to find through the centuries the
realization of a hope never fulfilled and growing ever more and more
dim! My Puritanism had been scarcely reconciled to the crucifix and
the candles of the Protestant churches in Berlin, but now, if my life
and hopes had depended on the religion of this Jewish ceremonial, I
would have given worlds to find a crucifix in the vacant space above
their Sacred Ark. These sweet strains of exquisite music seem to give
voice without articulation to the unrevealed, imprisoned longing of
the Jewish heart for something better than it knows. I could only
compare the feeling, in this cold, mechanical worship of the
Fatherhood of God, as it seemed to me, with the vague disappointment
of climbing stairs in the dark, and stretching out foot and hand for
another which is not there. The Christmas torches were burning in the
Schloss-platz and the market-places without, crowded for days and
nights past with a busy multitude, making ready for the
Christ-festival which was to light a Christmas-tree that night in
every home in Germany. Even Jews could not resist the gladness; and
their homes, like the rest, had every one its Christmas-tree and its
fill of cheer, paying their tribute to the world-wide joy, even though
they would not. But as I sat among them and went forth with them, I
thought also of their ancestral line stretching back to Abraham
through centuries of the most wonderful history which belongs to any
race. Beside these Israelites, how puerile the fame and deeds of the
Hohenzollerns! The sixty or seventy thousand Jews of Berlin hold in
their hands, it is said, a large part of the wealth of the city; but
they are proscribed, and it is thought by many, unjustly treated
before the law.