Part 10

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-Haues, 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.