curious habit of casting one eye upward and the other downward at the
same time,--'a faculty possessed also by some clergymen,'" added the
facetious old man, as though he had discovered a new fact in natural
history. Turning to a map of the Holy Land, Humboldt gave the young
guest minute directions for his contemplated journey, until the very
stones by the wayside seemed to grow familiar to the listener. "When
were you there?" asked Mr. Taylor. "I was never there," replied
Humboldt. "I prepared to go in 18--," naming a date thirty or forty
years before. In such preparation for work lies an open secret of
greatness.
In the little cemetery at Tegel, which has now no vacant place,
Humboldt's epitaph speaks to the living. His virtues and his faults
are left to the judgment of the Omniscient. In the gallery of her
great men Germany places the colossal figure of Humboldt beside that
of Goethe. More than one century must pass before the place of either
is finally determined in the perspective of history.
XII.
PHILANTHROPIC WORK.
This has many departments,--educational, humane, and religious.
Although the churches of Berlin are sufficient for only a very small
per cent of the population, many private and semi-public enterprises
carried on by Christian people show a true spirit of devotion to the
good of humanity.
The "Pestalozzi-Froebel-Haüs" was established some years ago by a
grand-niece of Froebel, who endeavors thus to carry out the principles
of her great-uncle, whose instruction and companionship she enjoyed in
her youth. Still in the prime of life, of gracious and winning
presence, full of noble enthusiasm in doing good and of love for
children; a devoted student of the principles and philosophy of
education, ably seconded by her husband, who is a member of the
Imperial Diet, and by other gentlemen and ladies of position and
influence, and with the faithful assistance of teachers trained under
her own supervision,--this lady already sees the ripening fruit of
this renowned system of education.
After struggling with obstacles at the outset, on account of limited
means and lack of accommodations, the enterprise was finally
established at No. 16 Steinmitz Strasse, by the generosity of two of
the gentlemen referred to; and from the time it had a settled home,
prosperity followed.
"We wish to show that all work is honorable," said the Directress to
me, "and our teachers are all _ladies_." The aim of the institution is
to develop healthfully and fully the children committed to its care,
and to prepare girls to be good mothers, Kindergarten teachers,
housekeepers, and servants. There is thus a Kindergarten proper, with
several departments; and a training-school with two grades, in one of
which young ladies are received who are preparing to be educators,
and in the other, girls to be trained for household work.
No distinction is made in receiving rich and poor. Having learned by
experience that the poor truly value only that for which they make
some return, the managers set a price upon everything, except help in
cases of sickness. In cases of extreme poverty some member of the
committee pays the dues; and in illness, appliances and comforts,
medicines, and the services of a trained nurse are furnished without
charge whenever there is need.
The Kindergarten had, at the time of my visit, over one hundred
children, between the ages of two and seven years. The price of
tuition is about twelve cents a month to the poor, and seventy-five
cents per month to those able to pay this larger sum. The children are
brought in the morning by the mothers or nurses, and taken away early
in the afternoon. They are divided into groups of about a dozen, under
supervision of the heads of the different departments, assisted by
those who are learning the system in the normal or training school.
Each group has, alternating with the others, garden-play and work, and
house-guidance and help.
We were first shown into a secluded walled garden-plot, covered only
with clean sand. The children are disciplined by freedom, as well as
healthful restraint. In this sand-garden they are free. With their
little wooden shovels and spoons, and with their hands, they revel in
the sand, as all healthy children do. They were no more abashed by our
presence than tamed and petted birdlings would be to feed from the
hand of those they had learned to love and trust.
In the next garden, radiant with spring sunshine, a lady was
surrounded by a group who were digging, planting, watering,--veteran
gardeners of three and a half years. They are not free, but must learn
obedience as well as gardening during the hour they spend here.
Pansies in bloom bordered the regular beds and trim walks, and some
were watering them from little water-pots. The stone wall around the
four sides of the enclosure was covered by a vine just bursting into
leaf. This had been trained, twig by twig, against the wall, by tiny
fingers under the guidance of the lady in charge. A rustic
summer-house contained a table, and seats of different heights. Here
were seeds and implements for immediate use. Every stray leaf and bit
of waste was brought by the children to a corner appropriated to it,
covered with earth, and left to become dressing for the beds; thus
teaching at once the chemistry of Nature and the value of neatness and
economy. To another corner the children were encouraged to bring all
the stones and shells they could find; and thus a rock-grotto was
growing.
From the gardens we went into the house. In the first room the
two-year-olds were on low seats before a long table, where each had
his six by ten inches of sand-plot, in which, with tiny wooden shovels
and rakes, they were laying out garden beds and sticking in green
leaves and cut pansies to make the wilderness blossom. Behind these
were seats and tables for those who were a little older and could do
real work. In a large tin dish-pan, two or three, under suitable
supervision, were washing flower-pots with sponges and tepid water;
others were filling the clean pots by taking spoonfuls of black loam
from another pan; others, having been shown pansy plants with roots,
and told that the plants took nourishment and drank water by means of
these root-mouths, were pressing them carefully into the earth-filled
pots and giving them water. In an anteroom two or three children were
helping to wash the leaves of ivies and other plants, having had the
office of the leaves simply explained. All was done with such care
that the clean faces and garments of the children were not soiled, nor
the floor and desks littered.
"We try to make one idea the centre of thought for the week,--not to
confuse the minds of the children by too much at once," said the
Directress. "This week it is pansies." In the garden children were
watering pansies in bloom, and pansies were cut and dug for use in the
house, where they were the materials for play and work. In one room
the children had cards in their hands, in which they had pricked the
outlines of pansies. Each had a needle threaded with a color selected
by itself, with which to work this outline. In another room they were
painting pansies. At Easter time the lesson was on eggs. We were shown
eggs colored by the children in their own devices, birds' nests,
feathers, etc. One treasure, I remember, was a blue card on which a
barn was outlined by straws sewed to the surface, showing roof,
hayloft, and stairs, mounting which was a lordly fowl cut from white
paper.
One room is called "the baby room." At a long low table sat nearly
twenty children, with dolls of every size and complexion, cradles,
baby-wagons, changes of clothing for the dolls, beds, a tiny
kitchen-range, with furniture, and every other accessory to doll life.
The bathing is a department by itself. Every child is bathed, as a
rule, when it is received. Then in the afternoon, once a week, many
are brought for the regular weekly bath, which is so conducted as to
make the children like it. The cost of the weekly bath is two and a
half cents, and the children who are old enough often remind their
mothers to save the small coin for this purpose.
All the children are given a luncheon in the middle of the forenoon.
Parents who desire it can have a dinner of good porridge also served
to their children, about noon, at a cost of a little more than one
cent.
As the children approach the age of six, they enter the elementary
class, where they have slates and pencils and a blackboard, and are
taught the elements of reading. This is the only school exercise, so
called, connected with the institution, and is to prepare the
children to enter the public schools. After they leave the
Kindergarten, some are received in the afternoons,--the girls to be
taught sewing, and the boys carpentering.
The last department shown to us was the music-room. Here the little
ones stood, and counted, and beat double time, under the direction of
a leader, to a slow, melodious air played on the piano. Then they
marched, keeping step, and still counting the time. After this they
took tambourines, triangles, drums, and clappers, and made a noise, in
perfect time and tune.
"Children like a noise," said the Directress. "Here they have it, but
under direction and limitation. Some of the boys, when they are
received here," continued the lady, "are so very, very naughty; but
when they come to the music-class and have this noise, then they grow
quiet and good. If it is taken away, they get naughty again."
A religious atmosphere is sought, as the only one in which
child-nature can normally develop. They have daily morning prayers and
songs, religious books and pictures, such as "Christ blessing Little
Children," and at Christmas time stories of the birth of Christ.
Benevolence in their relations to one another is sedulously
cultivated. The four-or-five-year-olds make little wooden spades and
rakes for the two-or-three-year-olds, saying gravely, "We do it for
the little ones."
Meetings are held by the Directress with the mothers, and in several
parts of the city three or four mothers have united in supporting
little Kindergartens for their own families. The teaching of the
Directress is also put in practice by mothers in their own homes,
where much more time is devoted to the children than formerly.
As applications are constantly on hand for more than can be received
to this institution, I asked if the revenue from fees and gifts were
devoted to the enlargement of the accommodations. "No; for
_perfecting_ the system and its methods," was the reply. And this
seemed to me to be the key to this most interesting undertaking. A
perfect development of child-nature is sought; and a Kindergarten
means here, "not several hours a day spent in much folding of papers
and braiding of pretty things," said the Directress, but a many-sided
and all-embracing culture of the whole being.
Having given this full account of the methods of the Kindergarten, the
description of the department for the training of teachers may be
omitted. Not so with the department devoted to the preparation of
girls who have left school for the duties of wives, mothers, nurses,
housekeepers, and servants. In this important department of the
Pestalozzi-Froebel-Haüs, over forty young women from the various ranks
of life were gathered. It was under the special patronage of the Crown
Princess, whose own daughters were its first pupils.
The lady who directed the teaching of washing and ironing kept a close
eye to the perfection of the work, which is all classified. At one
time table-linen is washed and ironed properly; at another, the best
methods of treating dish-towels are taught; at another, the washing of
flannels and the doing up of prints and ginghams; at another,
clear-starching, the cleansing of laces and fine materials; and so on,
until the whole round of a family laundry has been scientifically
taught and enforced by practice.
In one room a girl of fourteen or fifteen, formerly a pupil in the
Kindergarten, was washing windows and paint. Well dressed, she was
poised on a step-ladder, polishing a large pane of glass with a
chamois skin. Her pail of suds stood on the shining floor, with a bit
of oil-cloth under it, that not a drop of water should touch the
varnish. I involuntarily looked at the wall-paper along the edges of
the window and door casings and baseboards, and saw that no careless
washcloth had ever left its trail on a surface for which it was not
designed. As I glanced back at the maiden, she was folding her towels
and placing them in a covered basket, with a compartment for each.
We were now conducted to the kitchen. It was a large and pleasant
room, in the second or third story, with three double windows looking
out on a beautiful garden, the floor a marble or tile mosaic, and the
walls frescoed. Dainty curtains hung at the upper part of the windows,
in such a way as not to exclude light or air. Opposite the windows was
a large range, on which the dinner for the family and for various
ladies who statedly dine in the institution was cooking. Two of the
ten young ladies present were learning that difficult art,--the
management of a fire so as to produce desired and exact results in
cooking, themselves having the entire responsibility of feeding it and
regulating the draughts. On a thin marble slab another was cutting
fresh beef into bits, which she presently placed in a bottle for the
purpose of preparing nourishment for a member of the family who was
ill. The preparation of food for the sick is taught in all its
branches with utmost care. Two had evidently reached that branch of
the cooking art which involves the preparation of luxuries by delicate
processes. They were seated apart, each stirring, drop by drop, oil or
flavoring into a sauce.
One of the principles taught is that of the utmost economy of
material. The teachers, with the young ladies under instruction who
desire it, and the nurses, constitute the family, and have good and
wholesome food, all prepared by those who are learning cookery. The
making of delicacies and expensive dishes is also taught; and these
are served to certain ladies, who dine at the house to test these
dishes, for perhaps three months at a time, gladly paying for the
privilege. Shining tin and other utensils, wooden and iron ware of the
most approved patterns, in every size and variety, were systematically
ranged about the kitchen in a way really ornamental. At one side were
weights and measures, where everything brought in was tested. A map of
the world, showing the productions of every zone and country, hung
beside the sugar and spice table; and beside it was a glass cupboard,
containing phials showing the analysis of every article of food. One
small table was devoted to good and bad samples of household food
supplies, the samples being in cubical boxes about an inch and a half
each way, set into a large box with compartments, the whole so
arranged as to show easily the qualities to be desired and those not
to be desired by the purchaser. The book-keeper had her desk and
account-books, where the amount of every article purchased and its
cost were duly entered.
The superintendent of the kitchen, with fine and ladylike courtesy,
showed us her book of written questions, which those under her charge
were required to be able to answer both from a scientific and a
practical standpoint.
One department of this domestic school is the supervision of a
milk-route. The children of Berlin, like those of all large cities,
especially among the poor, suffer for want of milk, or of that which
is good. Here the milk of two or three large dairies in the country is
bought by the Kindergarten committee. It costs them, by wholesale,
much less than people in the city pay for poor milk. This good milk
is supplied at a low price by an attendant, who is directed to carry
the milk into the dwelling, instead of requiring the poor mother to
leave her children and go to the wagon for it, as is the general
custom.
In the sewing-room mending and darning alternate, on certain days,
with the cutting and making of plain garments. This department
supplements the teaching of sewing in the public schools by
instruction in only the higher kinds of plain sewing, and the surgery
required to make "old clothes almost as good as new."
Every part of the duty and work of an ordinary nurse is taught, like
all the other departments, with the utmost faithfulness and
excellence; and this department was supported by the Crown Princess.
As we passed from the bathing-department, we met a sweet-faced nurse
going out, who immediately returned with us, throwing off her alpaca
duster, and showing, unasked, her private rooms to the unexpected
American visitors with the greatest cordiality and the most ladylike
grace. Refinement and perfect order characterized the rooms. There
were closets with shelves filled with bed-linen and undergarments for
the sick in every size. This bedding and clothing is loaned to the
sick poor without charge, on the sole condition that they shall return
it clean. The washed and ironed articles neatly piled and folded
bespoke both gratitude and faithfulness on the part of beneficiaries.
Water-beds and other appliances for the use and comfort of the sick
were stored in another place, and in still another were garments kept
for gifts to the convalescent and particularly needy. As the nurse
kneeled to replace a water-bed she had been showing us, the Lady
Director lifted an ornament which she wore about her neck on a silver
chain. Her color deepened prettily, as we saw that it was the monogram
of the Crown Princess in silver, bestowed only for brave and specially
meritorious service in nursing.
If Germany is too slow, as we believe, in according to women the
opportunity for higher education, surely this institution sets a noble
example in that which to the world in general is of vast and
incalculable importance.
A mission to the cabmen of Berlin is conducted by a benevolent lady
with great modesty but with most eminent success. The Berlin cabman
is a picturesque object In summer he wears a dark blue suit with
silvered buttons, a vest and collar of scarlet, and a black hat with a
cockade and a white or yellow band. In winter, a great Astrakhan cap
with tassels surmounts his bronzed features, he is enveloped in a long
blue great-coat with a cape, and his feet are encased in immense boots
with soles often from one to two inches thick. The covered carriage
known as a drosky is a rather lumbering vehicle on four wheels.
Formerly every one rode in these droskies, the fares being very low.
But within a few years the tram-car, which is increasingly popular,
has diverted patronage from the cabs, and the times are hard for the
cabman. He must pay a certain sum to the company which controls the
cabs, for the use and keeping of the horse and vehicle; must purchase
his uniform at his own expense; and if his receipts bring him anything
over and above these outlays, he has the surplus for the support of
himself and family. How the average cabman in Berlin manages in this
way to live, is a mystery. His family must dwell in a cellar or attic,
or eke out their subsistence by taking lodgers, washing, or by any
other means which they can find. All must live on insufficient food;
and this, with constant exposure to the weather and enforced idleness
much of the time, is a constant temptation to drinking-habits.
Beer-shops are numerous near the cab-stands; and the small change in
the cabman's pocket often goes into their coffers, when it should be
saved for the poor wife and children in his wretched home.
About twenty years ago a German lady of noble birth, an invalid,
employed as her substitute in doing good among the poor a Christian
widow, whom she instructed to go out among the cabmen and their
families. This work is still under the supervision of the lady who
began it, and, now restored to health, she gives a large part of her
time and means to this mission, assisted by a deaconess and six
Bible-women under her direction, who reach the families of about eight
hundred cabmen. If possible, the cabman is won, often through his
family; and sometimes the long idle hours on his drosky-box are
beguiled by the memorizing of verses from the little Testament given
him to carry in his pocket. Then a circulating library is kept
constantly in use by the Bible-woman, who carries a book in her bag to
each house which she visits, leaving it until her round again gives
the opportunity of taking it up and putting another in its place. Best
of all is the friendship which springs up between these poor people
and their helpers. Doubt, anxiety, trouble, misfortune, all find
loving sympathy; and when serious illness comes, especially in
contagious and malignant diseases, when friends and neighbors flee,
then this mission brings light into the darkness. The deaconess is
also a trained nurse, to whom a yearly stipend is given, that she may
devote her entire time to the work; and she is constantly going from
one family to another, as scarlet-fever, diphtheria, and other
diseases call for her help.
As a special favor, I was allowed, with a few other American friends,
to be present at an evening tea-meeting, such as are held frequently
for the cabmen and their wives. An opening hymn, in which all joined,
was sung; a passage of Scripture was read, and prayer offered. A
"Gospel song" was well sung by a German gentleman as a solo, and then
there was a familiar address from the eloquent Court-preacher Frommel.
Another prayer followed, another song, and then the tea was served.
In a side room, separated by sliding doors from the audience, I had
noticed, when we entered, ladies flitting about long tables and
hovering over white china. The Countess Waldersee was there, in simple
apparel, helping to pass the tea and abundant cakes and sandwiches, as
were also two granddaughters of Chevalier Bunsen, and other
representatives of honorable and noble Christian families.
Meantime the Baroness who is the cherishing mother of this work was
helping, as occasion required; both she and her deaconess going from
one row of seats to another, speaking a friendly word here, bestowing
a greeting or answering an inquiry there, and unconsciously followed
by a wake of happiness everywhere. As the wounded soldiers in Crimean
hospitals turned to kiss the shadow of Florence Nightingale passing
them, there was surely gladness in hearts and on faces here that would
have counted it a privilege to kiss the place hallowed by the
footsteps of these Christian women.
About four hundred were present in the plain Moravian Chapel which is
always used for these tea-meetings. Fewer men than women were present,
as many of the cabmen must be at their posts until near midnight.
From time to time the Bible-woman at the door softly opened it for the
entrance of one who had thought it better to come late than not at
all. As these men in their picturesque garb came, cold and hungry,
into the warm and well-lighted room, I looked to see if their physical
wants were supplied before they were asked to partake of the spiritual
feast. To my great satisfaction I discerned that a well-filled table
had been spread just inside the entrance-door, from which they were
served as soon as chairs had been handed them; and from time to time
great motherly tea-pots went the rounds, to fill all cups a second
time. When they had been warmed and fed, they often moved forward to
be nearer the speakers; and when the exercises were over, one and
another found his wife in the audience, and together they went out. As
this was going forward, a parting hymn was struck, which seemed to
form no part of the programme. Inquiring, I was told that this was
always sung in parting, in remembrance of an occasion very sad, but
also very precious, to their benefactress.