on the shore of every land, now rising, now lulling, but every day
drawing nearer. The simple chapel of this scene is little more than a
stone's-throw from the palace of the Chancellor of the German Empire.
Here, in sympathy and helpfulness, and not there, in absolutism, will
be heard the Voice which only can say, "Peace, be still!"--the Voice
which says to-day, as of old, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
The Young Men's Christian Association of Berlin has the hearty
sympathy and assistance of Count Bernsdorff, lately an officer of the
Empress Augusta's household and well known in diplomatic circles, of
Court-preacher Frommel, and others widely known in other spheres of
influence. Its intelligence-office has had nearly fifty thousand calls
for advice and help in a single year, and twenty committees from its
membership actively co-operate in different lines of work. Besides its
various religious meetings, daily and weekly, at which there was an
aggregate attendance of between fifteen and twenty thousand in one
recent year, it maintains a well-equipped reading-room and library, a
hall for gymnastic exercises, and fine reception-rooms. Tea-meetings
are also frequently held here; and two courses of lectures in English
and two courses in French are given, besides courses of instruction in
stenography and book-keeping. A male quartette gives frequent musical
entertainments, and in one winter thirteen "musical evenings" held
forth manifold attractions to this music-loving people.
The Committee of Ladies co-operating in this work assists in obtaining
positions, manages tea-meetings, etc.; and the management asserts that
it increasingly realizes "how important is the eye and hand of woman
in all its work." The magnificent gardens and park attached to the War
Department were, during our visit to Berlin, opened on a beautiful May
afternoon and evening, by the co-operation of the Countess Waldersee
and under the patronage of the Prince and Princess William, to a
promenade concert for the benefit of this Association. Two of the
finest military bands alternated in rendering popular and classical
music; and few who were present will ever forget the striking scene,
where, amid the flower-bordered lawns, under sunset skies slowly
fading through the long twilight into the gayly lighted evening,
hundreds of ladies and gentlemen, some in bright military uniforms,
some with the insignia of rank, and some with only the stamp of
Nature's noblemen, gathered about the refreshment-tables, chatted in
groups apart, or sauntered along the fine old avenues under the
towering trees or beside the lakes and fountains, the hours seeming
all too short under the inspiration of the place and the music. Prince
William, always in uniform, and the charming Princess, on this
occasion in the simplest and plainest dress, mingled quietly with the
company. As we passed out through the great gateway between nine and
ten o'clock, the steeds of their State carriage were champing, and
pawing the pavement of the quadrangle, held in check by the officials
who were awaiting their return.
The Crown Princess Frederick was the patroness of nearly every
undertaking in Berlin for the good of women and children, and, with
her noble husband, often visited among them. "On one occasion," said a
German lady to me, "some one asked of the Crown Prince the particulars
of a certain benevolent enterprise. 'Ask my wife,' replied the Prince;
'she knows everything,'" It is certain that, from Kindergarten and
other schools, to cooking-schools, training-schools for nurses,
hospitals, and a school for the daughters of officers who would be
taught art, literature, science, as a practical help in the battle of
self-support, there seemed to be no enterprise which could not count
as its chief patron the Crown Princess Victoria. The aged Empress
Augusta was also the patron of girls' schools and soup-kitchens, to
the number of more than a dozen, and was counted by many the especial
friend of the very poor.
One of the most interesting institutions to which we had access was
founded upwards of twenty years ago by Dr. Adolph Lette, of Berlin,
whose plans have since his death been faithfully carried out by his
daughter, Frau Schepeler-Lette, who devotes nearly her entire time to
its supervision. It was also under the patronage of the Crown
Princess. Its object is to promote the higher education and practical
industry of women, and to render single and friendless women the help
and protection so much needed in all large cities. Many English and
some American girls have reason to bless this institution, which knows
no rank, no nationality, but only need, as the password to its
gracious and abounding ministries.
One of its departments is the Charlotten-Stiftung, intended to help
destitute daughters of German noblemen and military and civil officers
to earn their own livelihood by giving them a practical education,
especially in dress-making, cooking, and the management of a
household. This department was founded and endowed by a noble German
lady with property yielding an annual income of nearly twenty thousand
dollars.
Another department is the Bank of Loans. Its object is to assist
unmarried women in establishing and maintaining shops, especially
those who wish to establish business in some art-industry. No
individual loan is to exceed one hundred and fifty dollars, and each
is to be repaid in small instalments at five per cent interest. One
per cent of the loan is to be repaid within four weeks after it is
made, and the remainder in small specified sums fortnightly. The
annual income of the "Bank of Loans" is about two thousand dollars.
These departments, though most successful, are subordinate in interest
to the main work of the Lette-Verein, as at present conducted, which
has a commercial training-school, a school of industry and drawing,
and a school of fine arts.
The commercial school offers two courses, of one and two years
respectively. Girls and women, married or unmarried, are there offered
the advantages of thorough instruction in writing and stenography,
commercial reckoning and correspondence, book-keeping, knowledge of
goods, commerce, banking affairs, and money matters in general.
Lessons in French, English, and German, in Grammar, Geography,
Correspondence, and Conversation, are also given. The fee for tuition
is about forty dollars per annum.
We were much interested in the School of Industry. Here were girls and
women, mostly young, in bright, cheery, and well-lighted rooms, going
through all stages of graded and scientific instruction in the cutting
and making of dresses, mantles, and underwear, plain needlework, and
in all kinds of embroidery and lace-work. The use of a sewing-machine
is taught in a term of two months, six lessons each week. Millinery in
all branches, the making of the finest artificial flowers by French
methods, glove-making by machinery, and hair-dressing are practically
carried on for the instruction of those who wish to learn these
industries.
A school of cookery, in which we were allowed to inspect the
scientific classification and analysis of provisions and to test the
appetizing results of numerous ladylike pupils in various stages of
proficiency, impressed us with the inestimable value of its training.
In all these departments the pupils are expected to pay moderate fees,
varying from twenty-five cents to one dollar per week; and entrance to
any department can be made on the first of every month.
Two lessons per week are given in the science of teaching, for a term
of six months.
The Employment Bureau has a vast correspondence, and is an agency of
great good, as a medium of communication between women and girls in
want of positions, and the employers of labor.
A school and lodging-house for the training of servant-girls has been
much called for, and has lately been started.
The Drawing-School has a seminary for the training of teachers, and a
school for teaching the different branches of industrial drawing.
There are free-hand drawing from copies and plaster models,
perspective and geometrical drawing, the drawing and painting of
ornamental and practical designs, and flower-painting on wood, china,
and paper, with thorough courses of one and two years in the History
of Art. Modelling in clay, wax, and designs for gold and silver
industry, bronzes, etc., are given eight hours in each week.
There is also a school of type-setting in connection with the Berlin
Typographical Company, in which female compositors over the age of
sixteen may be received, to the number of thirty-six, under the close
supervision of the Lette-Verein, and at which, after an apprenticeship
of six months, all pupils are paid for their work.
There is a boarding-house, called the Victoria-Stift, in connection
with this institution, with a _café_ or refreshment-room, where the
tables are supplied, to ladies, at economical prices, from the
cooking-school. It has also a lending-library and a Victoria Bazar,
where all kinds of needlework done by the pupils are offered for sale,
and orders are taken for family sewing.
XIII.
AROUND BERLIN.
Berlin, on account of its general healthfulness and its combination of
economical and other attractions, is esteemed by many experienced
travellers as, on the whole, the continental city best adapted to an
extended residence abroad. To the visitor with limited time, the city
itself and Potsdam--"the Prussian Versailles"--monopolize the
attention. But to those who can spend more time there, the attractive
environs and places which may be seen within the limits of a day's
excursion are many and varied.
Grünewald, not far beyond Charlottenburg, is the seat of a royal
hunting-lodge, and its fine old woods are most attractive. It may be
reached by railway and steam-tram, and also, in summer, by water. The
extensive forest occupies a great stretch of country below the
junction of the Spree with the Havel, which here, on the west, loiters
and meanders and turns upon itself; now spreading out into wide lakes,
now narrowing to a thread, but finally reaching in its dubious course
the wide-flowing Elbe. The great bay into which the Havel here expands
has pretty islands and shores. Pichelsberg, at the northern extremity
of the bay, is a place of popular resort, where observation of Nature
is rather concentrated on that branch known as human nature. Wansee,
at the southern extremity, is picturesque and rural,--a delightful
place in which to spend a quiet day in early summer.
Spandau, eight miles west of Berlin, at the junction of the Spree with
the Havel, has much historical and military interest. Here, surrounded
by immense fortifications, is the workshop of the German army; and
here in the citadel, or old "Julius tower," are kept "the sinews of
war," in the form of a reserve military fund of from fifteen million
to thirty million dollars.
The railway toward Hanover leads on from Spandau to the long-settled
region near the crossing of the Elbe, which here flows northward
between high banks. Not far from the Elbe is the railway station of
Schönhausen, some two hours' ride from Berlin. The estate of
Schönhausen had been in the Bismarck family two hundred and fifty
years, when the Chancellor was born there in 1815. Later, this old
family inheritance passed to other ownership; but the numerous friends
and admirers of the great diplomatist repurchased it, and presented it
to him on his seventieth birthday, April 1, 1885. The great
gratification of possessing this ancient home hardly induces Prince
von Bismarck to spend much time there. Possibly it is within too easy
reach of his cares in the capital. The distant Friedrichsruh in the
forest of Sachsenswald, within a dozen miles of Hamburg, and more than
one hundred and fifty miles northwest of Berlin, is his favorite
residence; and Varzin, upwards of two hundred miles to the northeast,
in Baltic Pomerania, sometimes wins him to its still greater quiet and
seclusion. Here Bismarck received our countryman, the historian
Motley, and his daughter, with the delightful welcome to companionship
and the simple and informal family life so charmingly portrayed in
Motley's correspondence.
The whole region of Schönhausen was as early settled as Berlin itself.
Fine old churches, castles, and mediæval town walls mark the
neighboring towns of Stendal and Tangermünde, the latter the long-time
seat of the Margraves of Brandenburg.
A short détour from the main line to the northwest of Berlin brings
one to Fehrbellin, where the Great Elector defeated a Swedish army
double the size of his own. In the same region are Neu Ruppin and
Rheinsberg, each connected with many memories of the youth of
Frederick the Great. At the Castle of Rheinsberg he spent the
comparatively happy years of his unhappy married life. His neglected
queen, who never saw his favorite palace at Sans Souci, and who was
wife and queen only in name for many long years, said that the early
days at Rheinsberg were her happiest. Though these places are hardly
more than thirty miles northwest of Berlin, lack of railway
connections renders it impracticable to visit them in a single day.
The most direct thoroughfare to Copenhagen, that by way of Rostock,
passes, outside the elevated railway known as the Ringbahn, the
village of Pankow, also reached by tramway, and also once the
residence of the Queen of Frederick the Great. This road leads north
from Berlin, at first through a country dotted with lakes. Our memory
of these is of beautiful sheets of water, surrounded by the green of
mid-June, and over-arched by the blue sky and the fleecy cumuli of a
perfect summer day. The characteristic North German landscape was here
seen to fine advantage. The color of the cottages and farm-houses
harmonizes or contrasts beautifully with the landscape. Roofs of brown
weather-beaten thatch or of dull red tiles, in the midst of embowering
trees and shrubbery, formed for us pictures of beauty long to be
remembered. Frienwalde, to the northeast, has mineral springs in the
most attractive part of Brandenburg, and is growing as a place of
summer resort. The fine old monastery, and the ruined early Gothic
abbey-church of Chorin on the Stettin Railway, the burial-place of the
Margraves of Brandenburg, are interesting to all students of
architecture.
An eastern suburb of Berlin is Köpenick, in the château of which the
youthful Frederick the Great was tried for his life by court-martial,
by order of his tyrannical father; and in the same direction, an hour
from Berlin by express-train, is Cüstrin, whose strong castle was the
scene of his subsequent imprisonment, and where, in sight from his
window, his noble friend, Lieutenant von Katte, was beheaded on the
ramparts for no other crime than fidelity to his young master.
Another most interesting excursion is that to Frankfort-on-the-Oder,
two hours eastward of Berlin. This largest city of Brandenburg outside
the capital has a varied history, dating from before the time when
this region was won from the heathen Slavs to Germany and
Christianity. This old stronghold of the Wendish race saw many
vicissitudes in the great wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, being the last important place on the great trading-route
from Poland to Berlin. It has annual fairs which are relics of these
olden times, interesting mediæval churches, and a town-house bearing
on its gable the device of the Hanseatic League,--an oblique rod
supported by a shorter perpendicular one.
To the southeast, a few miles out on the Görlitz Railway, is
Wusterhausen, in the picturesque region of the frequented
Müggelsberge,--itself made memorable by an episode in Carlyle's pages.
No more fascinating trip can be taken in summer, after Berlin and
Potsdam have been visited, than to the wild and beautiful
Spreewald,--a combination of forest and morass not yet wholly redeemed
to the civilization of Europe, but holding in its remoter depths a
genuine relic of the old barbarism. The Görlitz Railway skirts this
forest for twenty-five miles before reaching Lübben, some two hours
from Berlin in a southerly direction. This is the best point of
departure from the train for a visit to the forest, which is cut by
more than two hundred arms of the Spree, some parts of the wood only
to be reached by boats or skates. Here, in their villages reclaimed
from the swamps, live the descendants of the aboriginal Wends, who
have preserved intact their language, their manners, and their modes
of dress. This Venice of North-central Germany has for streets the
water-ways of the Spree, and for palaces the log huts of the
aboriginal race; but no views of Nature are more exquisite than some
of those in the Upper and Lower Spreewald.
Twenty-two miles west of Potsdam, on the Havel, is the city of
Brandenburg,--the old Brennabor of the Slavic people who fortified it
before the beginning of modern history. The Castle of Brandenburg may
share with the celebrated and beautiful one of Meissen, near Dresden,
the honor of being the oldest in Germany. Conquered from the original
owners by the Emperor Henry I. in 927, it was by them retaken. More
than two centuries afterwards, Albert the Bear captured and kept it,
and thenceforth styled himself First Margrave of Brandenburg. For six
hundred years this old town shared in all the strifes of that
turbulent and passionate time between the midnight of the Dark Ages
and the dawn of modern history, and its old buildings will tell much
of its forgotten story to any one who lays his ear beside their
ancient stones to hear.
At Steglitz, a southwest suburb, may be seen the mulberry plantation
and the one silk manufactory of Berlin. It was not our lot to find the
large nurseries and hot-houses which make the flower-shops and
market-places of Berlin exquisitely radiant with blossoms at all
seasons,--beyond even the famous Madeleine flower-market at Paris in
the season when we visited it--and, if so, surpassing in this respect
all other cities.
One of the two routes to Dresden and Leipsic passes Lichterfelde, five
miles from Berlin, where conspicuous buildings are the seat of the
chief cadet-school in Germany. Here are accommodations for eight or
nine hundred cadets, the flower of German youth. Neither pains nor
expense has been spared in the erection and embellishment of these
extensive buildings. The "Flensburg Lion," erected by the Danes to
commemorate a former victory in Schleswig-Holstein over the Prussians,
and later captured by the latter, stands here before the house of the
Commandant.
Five or six miles farther on is Gross-Beeren, a Napoleonic battlefield
where Bülow won a victory over the French in 1813; and about an hour
and a half from Berlin, in the same direction, is the little city of
Jüterbok, with interesting old edifices. The student of the
Reformation will feel most interest in this place as that where Tetzel
was selling his famous "indulgences" when Luther, protesting in
righteous wrath, nailed to the door of the Wittenberg Church the
ninety-five theses which set all Germany ablaze. One of these
"indulgences" is kept for inspection in the Nicolai Kirche of
Jüterbok. Near by are the old Cistercian abbey of Zinna, and another
battlefield, Dennewitz, an important strategic point in one of the
campaigns against the First Napoleon, where the victory of Bülow over
Ney and Oudinot saved Berlin from the hands of the enemy.
No student of history--especially no Protestant--can afford to visit
Berlin without an excursion to Wittenberg, which may either be
compressed into a single day, with a few hours in this old University
town which was the cradle of the Reformation, or may be pleasantly
prolonged to days full of musing on the manifold phases of that
unparalleled movement in the history of religious thought, amid the
very scenes with which they were most intimately associated. Not alone
that Germany is to-day what Luther, more than any other man, has made
it, but as heirs to the inheritance which he bequeathed to all lands
and ages, are Americans called to the profound study of the epoch
which Luther shaped, and of which our age is but a part. Of all
intense pleasures, none to us was greater than a humble pilgrimage
through Germany where our feet were set in the footprints of the
Reformer.
Quaint Eisleben, with the house where he was born, and that in whose
chamber he was suddenly stricken with mortal pain, while his companions
watched with awe the passing to higher service of that valiant soul, we
had visited before we looked upon Wittenberg. Mansfield, too, with its
flaming forges and its vast cinder-heaps,--where Hans Luther, the
miner, toiled to feed his wife and babes,--we had seen; and historic
Erfurt, with memories of the University where he studied and the
monastery into which he went, taking with him, of all his books, only
his Plautus and his Virgil, to study the Latin Bible chained to its
post, and to fight that mental battle which toughened his sinews for
the world-conflicts awaiting him; and whence he emerged at the call of
his Superior, a young priest of twenty-five years, to take the
professorship offered him at the new University of Wittenberg. At
lovely Eisenach we had tarried for days; had entered the door of the
once grand house of the burgomaster Cotta, before which little Martin,
with the other charity boys of the school near by, had sung Christmas
carols for his bread, and where he had been taken to the heart and the
home of Mother Ursula; had peeped into the room there that was his,
and been driven up the mountain-side beyond the village whose crown is
the fine old castle of the Wartburg; had stood at the solitary casement
of the room where he fought with the devil, and looked out over the
magnificent panorama of wooded mountains and beautiful valley where he
looked forth day after day of those ten months of mysterious
imprisonment, into which friendly hands had thrust him from the thick
of the fight,--where he saw the miracle of spring-time creeping over
the hills and waving trees far beneath him, and heard and felt the
wintry winds howl around his solitude. He was only thirty-five, but he
had already come into conflict with the mightiest power on earth, and
his life was forfeited, when here he slowly came to know that God had
thoughts of good and not of evil concerning him; and here he began
another work,--the translation of the New Testament,--for which he
never would have had time if left to himself. Eisenach, with its
dramatic situation, perhaps lingers longest in the memory of men of any
place connected with that great story. But if it bore a more poetic
share, it was not the most important. It was neither at Leipsic nor at
Heidelberg, at Nüremberg nor at Speyer, at Augsburg nor even at Worms,
that the great drama had its chief location, though memories of Luther
were to us among the conspicuous attractions of these places.