This seems the proper place also to insert some details about schools
like those at Kaiserworth, which I could not procure in an authentic
form in 1858. The Kaiserworth school opened under Dr. Fliedner, in 1822,
with "one table, two beds, a chair, and one discharged prisoner"! In
1852, the King of Prussia laid the foundation of a home for the aged
deaconesses who have served as teachers and nurses.
The school at Strasburg, under Pastor Härber, began, in 1842, with one
sister from a higher rank of life. It undertakes to train servants, and
is chiefly under women's control. Assistance is also given to clergymen
in seeking out cases of temporal and spiritual distress, in detecting
imposture, in attending the sick in their own houses, in teaching the
poor how to nurse and how to cook, in promoting the attendance of
children at school, in co-operating with charitable institutions to
superintend sewing and mending schools, in influencing, for good,
factory girls and servants; and, in the hospital at Mühausen, the women
taught here make up bandages and prescriptions, cook for the poor and
sick, receive the patients, and do out-door visiting. At Basle, there is
a Deaconess House, under the charge of a daughter of a Basle
manufacturer. It looks after the laboring classes, and provides for the
sick.
The house opened at St. Loup, under Pastor Germond, in 1842, takes
charge of sick children. At Geneva, a deaconess has had charge for six
years; through whom five hundred servants get their places, and with
whom they find homes when out of health or work. In 1859, twenty-one
were nursed in the institution.
A house in the Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris, was proposed by M. Vermeil,
in 1830. In 1840, Mademoiselle Malvesin offered to conduct it; her
letter to Vermeil, and his to her, crossing each other. Holland and
Sweden have opened several of these schools. In our own country, the
Rev. Mr. Passevant, a Lutheran minister of Pittsburg, Pa., is
establishing hospitals in every State, under the care of women. They are
supported by contributions in all the city churches, except the
Catholic. These hospitals are under the care of a sisterhood, who
cannot, _as yet_, compete with the Sisters of Charity. It seems to me,
that Mr. Passevant has erred in a most noble work, by drawing his
sisters from the _uncultivated_ classes. Such a work should bear the
right stamp in the beginning. In Western Pennsylvania, also, Bishop
Kerfoot has begun the noble work of endowing his whole diocese with
suitable high schools for girls, where they may obtain at home, for one
hundred dollars annually, what it would cost five times as much to
procure at a distance.