I have still so much work in hand, that I fear my letter is hurried and ill-written, but I hope you will kindly excuse this.
To-morrow I am taking Miss Carpenter to all our different schools, that she may see how the different systems in use work. Some are good, but none particularly so; there is much to improve.
Louis is gone to Mayence to-day for the inauguration of the Memorial which the town has erected to the memory of dear excellent Waldemar Holstein, for so many years its beloved Governor.
Darmstadt, October 24th.
You must indeed miss dear Aunt much, and feel your thoughts drawn to her, whose precious intercourse was such a solace and comfort to you. It is nice for you to have Louise a little to yourself. * * *
You ask, if my mother-in-law talks with me about the different woman’s work in which I am interested. Of course she does. We are so intimate together, that even where we differ in opinion we yet talk of every thing freely, and her opinion is of the greatest value to me. She had ever been a most kind, true, and loving mother, whom I respect and love more and more. She was much pleased and interested in the success of the meeting, but is of course as adverse as myself to all extreme views on such subjects.
I have joined to my Nursing Institute an Association for watching over the orphans who are boarded-out by the State into families, where some poor children are unhappy and ill-used. The use of such meetings as this one was consists mainly in the interchange of experience made in the different branches in other places, which it is impossible to carry on by correspondence.
The schools are entirely different throughout Germany—good and indifferent; and those here do not count among the best, as every thing, through the long misrule of the late Government, is not what it ought to be.
Uncle Louis has a new Ministry now, which gives every one cause for hope.
Darmstadt, November 3d.