In and Around Berlin

by Minerva Brace Norton

The Academy of Arts and the Academy of Science are housed in the conspicuous building opposite the palace of Emperor William I. and adjoining the University. The Science Academy is organized in four sections, physical, mathematical, philosophical, and historical, and has valuable endowments and scholarships. The Academy of Arts has one section devoted to higher instruction in painting, engraving, and sculpture, and one to music, eminent specialists in each branch composing the Board of Direction. The imposing building of the Institute of Technology, near the extremity of the Thiergarten, has a fine Technological Museum, and accommodation for two thousand students. Its organization grew out of the union of two previously existing institutions for the promotion of architecture and trade. It has now five sections, in which about one thousand students pursue the study of architecture, civil engineering, machinery, ship-building, mining, and chemistry.

Instruction in the science of war is given in all its departments, as might be expected. The War Office of the Government is in the Leipziger Strasse, adjoining the Reichstag, with one of the finest of ancient parks behind it, covering a space equal to several squares in the heart of the city. This park is elaborate and finely kept, but it is surrounded by high walls, within which the public is rarely admitted. Even its existence is unsuspected by most visitors. The large and elegant building of the War Academy in the Dorotheen Strasse has a war library of eight hundred thousand volumes and magnificent accessories. Its object is to educate army officers. There are three courses of study, promotion from which to the General Staff is made by examinations. The business of the General Staff is, in war, to regulate the movements of the army and to attend to the correct registration of material for war history. In peace, the time of the officers who compose it is devoted to a profound post-graduate study of the science and the art of warfare.

An important accessory to the privileges of the University is the Royal Library, opposite the main building and adjacent to the palace of Emperor William I. in the Opera Platz. It is possible, though not common, for ladies to be allowed the privileges of this library, consisting of over a million volumes and thousands of valuable and curious manuscripts. A card of introduction to the Director from an influential source gave me the great pleasure of the use both of the library and the fine reading-rooms. Considerable time was consumed in the preliminaries, and there was red tape to be untied, but in general no unnecessary obstacles were thrown in the way even of a woman. On my first visit, before the requisite permission to use the library had been obtained, I was treated as a visitor, and most politely shown the treasures of the institution by intelligent officials. A young man who spoke excellent English was given me as a guide by the distinguished Director-in-Chief. Classification of the books is carried to great minuteness, and it is but the work of a moment, to one familiar with its principles, to turn to any book of the million. The apartments are plain and crowded, although some of the rooms of the adjoining palace had recently been turned into the library, which is fast outgrowing its accommodations. The young librarian who acted as our guide was eager for information concerning American libraries, asking particularly about the size and classification of the Boston Public Library. It was a pleasure to respond to one so intelligent and interested, and I felt sure he would make good use of every scrap of trustworthy information. He showed us his books with pride, and gave many interesting particulars. He also displayed to us some of the treasures kept in glass cases and usually covered from the light. Here were Luther's manuscript translation of the Bible, Gutenberg's Bible, the first book printed on movable types, the ancient Codex of the time of Charlemagne, miniatures, illuminated missals, and other things of much interest. As my dinner-hour approached I begged off for that day from the cordially offered inspection of the celebrated Hamilton manuscripts. It is said that the highest-priced book ever sold was the vellum missal presented to King Henry VIII. by Pope Leo X., which brought $50,000. The missal was accompanied by a document conferring on the King the title of "Defender of the Faith." It is now in this collection, having been given by King Charles II. to an ancestor of the Duke of Hamilton, whose manuscripts were purchased by the German Government in 1882.

The tables of the reading-rooms for periodicals are well filled with magazines in all languages, and equal politeness is shown by officials. The apartments are in the second story, reached by a stairway ascending from a paved court off the Behren Strasse, in the rear of the Imperial Palace. No lovely spring-time memories are to us more vivid and attractive than those of the library reading-room, in the second story of the Library building, looking on the Opera Platz. Here, among many students of all nationalities from the University, I was wont to spend long delicious afternoons at a table of my own choosing, to which attentive officials brought the books of my selection, and where I was free to turn to books of reference on the shelves beside me. The room would accommodate perhaps two hundred, similarly employed. Among those I frequently met there were a German lady and an American gentleman whom I was so happy as to number among my friends. Intercourse between our tables was by smiles and nods, seldom crystallizing into words, but these were not wanted. Four centuries looked down upon us in portraits from the walls, and forty centuries were ours in the books below them. As the season advanced, the room was not full, and the long French windows stood open. Before them was a balcony facing the Platz, with its fountains, its shrubbery, and its flowers. The breath of spring and early summer was perfumed by mignonette and English violets, as it floated away from the murmur and the brightness of the brilliant scenes beyond up through every alcove of this quiet scholar's retreat.

Books in English, as in other languages, are many and finely selected, though some departments are incomplete. A month's preparation here for a trip to Russia and the far North was one of unalloyed pleasure; and many volumes from the library were, under the rules, kindly permitted to reach and remain on the study-table of my own room while I needed them. The department of Scandinavian travel was, however, much more scantily represented than Russia. Long shall I have reason to remember with gratitude the generous "open sesame" and the rich privileges of this library, which, more than most things that enjoy the epithet, truly deserves the name Royal.

As no woman can enter the Berlin University as a student, neither is it practicable for a lady, either as student or visitor, to find access to the Gymnasia, which, in the German sense of this term, are somewhat in the line of our American colleges. My windows looked into those of a fine new building across the street, devoted to the instruction of German youth. In through its doors there filed, every week-day morning, long lines of German boys and young men for the various grades of instruction; and a natural desire arose in the mind of an old teacher to "visit the school." But on application to an influential friend long resident in Germany, for a note of introduction to the Director of the Gymnasium, his hands were lifted in unaffected astonishment at the nature of the request, "A woman in a boys' school! oh, never! Ask me any other favor but that! Oh, it is impossible!" A German lady was more hopeful. She was intimate with the wife of the Director, and thought she could gain for me the coveted permission. But weeks lengthened into months, and still the right to enter even the enclosure sacred to the education of German boys was not obtained. So I studied the educational system at first on paper, and found many facts of interest. Attendance at the common schools is compulsory, all children of both sexes being required to attend, in separate buildings, from the ages of five to fourteen. Beyond this, the High School offers a training for practical life and business, and the Gymnasium a classical and scientific training leading to the special studies of the University. The course of study in the Gymnasia is similar to those of our colleges, some of the studies of the latter, however, being relegated to the University. A boy at nine years of age enters the Gymnasium for a course of nine years, in which Latin and Greek receive the chief emphasis. The same great division of opinion as to the comparative merits of linguistic and scientific training which exists in the rest of the world, agitates the German mind. The Gymnasium with its classical training is the child of the present century, and its growth all along has been disputed by those who claim greater advantages from a curriculum which lays chief stress on science, omitting the Greek and half the Latin, for a part of which modern languages are substituted. This has given rise to what are called the Real Schools, corresponding to our Scientific Schools. These receive their inspiration from the people rather than the learned classes, and are regarded as still on trial. Meantime, until quite recently, the graduates of the Gymnasia have had a monopoly of competition for positions as teachers and opportunity to practise the learned professions. A recent change allows graduates of the Real Schools to compete for teacherships. The graduates of Gymnasia only are allowed to enter the professions of Medicine and Law. The Prussian Gymnasia are about two hundred and fifty in number, and the Real Schools somewhat over one hundred. In point of military service, these schools are all on an equal footing, a pupil who completes a course of six years in either being obliged to serve but one year with the colors. It is said that a large number of those who graduate in these schools do so for the sake of thus shortening their term of military service. I was present at an evening entertainment offered by the older students of one Gymnasium to the friends of the school. It was a rendering, in Greek, of the Antigone of Sophocles, with considerable adjuncts of scenery, costume, and Greek chorus. A brief outline of the play in German was distributed to the audience. For the rest, a knowledge of Greek was the only key to what was said by experts to be well done.

But if this one personal glimpse of the scholarship of the higher schools for boys was all that could be obtained, I was more fortunate in finding access to the schools for girls. Not, however, without painstaking. It is by no means a matter of course for any visitor to knock at the door of a school-room for a call upon the school. The coming of visitors is uniformly discouraged; the teachers saying that the pupils are not used to it, and that their attention is thereby diverted from their studies. A lady of my acquaintance, resident for some years in Berlin, asked permission to visit the school which her little daughter attended, and was refused. A professional educator from abroad, especially a gentleman, if properly introduced, will find little difficulty in obtaining access to the schools; but a lady, who wishes to go unofficially, will need persistence and courage before she effects her object.

A friendly acquaintance with two German teachers smoothed the way, perhaps opened it, to a privilege I had hitherto sought in vain. At supper one evening I made an engagement to meet one of these ladies in the school to which she belonged, early the next morning. In the short Berlin days of mid-winter one must rise by candle-light to be in time for even the second hour of school, if living a half-hour distant. In one of the largest hotels of Berlin I saw, the week before Christmas, a little fellow, scarcely tall enough for seven years, departing for school in the morning, with his knapsack on his back, an hour before there would be daylight enough for him to study by. As he sturdily went forth from the elegant rooms and brilliantly lighted corridors into the cold gray dawn and the snowy streets towards the distant school, I said, "There is the way to train Spartans!" The schools begin at eight o'clock for girls, at seven for boys, though many go at later hours. Those who are not able to pay for instruction attend the "common schools," where tuition is free; but those who can must pay at the rate of from about five to seven dollars per quarter, in the schools denominated "public."

The school to which I went occupies a handsome modern brick edifice, and accommodates eight hundred girls. It was ten o'clock, when the recess which follows the stroke of each hour (ten minutes) is doubled, in order to give time for the "second breakfast"—bread and butter taken in basket or bag—by both teachers and pupils, to supplement the rolls and coffee partaken of by candle-light in winter, which form the first breakfast. The teacher whom I knew was waiting for me in the corridor, where the busy hum of hundreds of young voices filled the air. Handsome and substantial stone staircases fill the central portion of the edifice, lighted by a skylight, by windows where a transverse corridor reaches to the street, and by ground glass in the double doors leading to some of the class-rooms. It was a dark morning, and so the corridors were dim enough. Most of the pupils are in school from eight to one o'clock. Some of the younger ones come at nine, or even ten, and go home at twelve. I was told that instruction as to what to do in case of fire in the building is carefully given, but saw no fire-escapes, except the stairways. There was provision for ventilation in the class-rooms,—a register near the floor admitting pure warm air, and another near the ceiling giving exit to impure air. But this mode was quite insufficient to secure good air in most of the rooms. I was conducted to the Director of the school, without whose permission I could not enter. He was standing in the corridor on the third floor, surrounded by several girls, with whom he was talking in the manner of a paterfamilias,—an aged man, with a shrewd but kindly face. I was introduced, and the object of my visit stated. Bowing and leading the way to his office, he made a slight demurrer as to the profit I should reap, but freely accorded the permission, after making an entry, apparently from my visiting-card, in his register. My friend again took me in charge, and conducted me to another room, where I was introduced to the "first instructress," and to five or six other lady teachers, all of whom sat, in wooden chairs, around a plain wooden table, partaking of their luncheon. Two or three good photographs—one of the Roman forum—were in frames on the walls; a large mirror and a set of lock-boxes gave the teachers toilet accommodations; while baskets of knitting and other belongings bespoke this as the retiring-room of the lady teachers. The chief of these, a kind-faced matronly woman, spoke English imperfectly; but several of the younger ones spoke it very well, and one or two were of charming manners and appearance.

From a schedule hanging on the wall, I was shown the names and number of recitations for the day. "What would I like to see? How long can I remain? Will I come again to-morrow?" If the permission to visit a school be often difficult to gain, once received, it covers every recitation, and as many hours or days as the visitor chooses to devote to it. I was first conducted to a recitation in arithmetic. The room contained accommodations for fifty pupils, and the seats were filled by girls about thirteen or fourteen years of age. Wooden desks and seats (the outer row for three pupils each, the central for four each), a slightly raised platform for the teacher, with a plain desk and two chairs, several cases of butterflies and beetles, on the walls a map or two, a small blackboard behind the teacher's desk, in grooves, so that it may be elevated or lowered at pleasure, make up the furniture of the room. The light, as in every room I visited, was from one side, to the left of the pupils. The teacher—a man with gray hair and beard, but young enough as to vivacity and enthusiasm, and a gentleman in manners—bowed me to the chair he offered, and with a wave of the hand bade the children, who had risen on our entrance, be seated. The lesson was wholly oral and mental. Addition, subtraction, and multiplication were carried on by means of numbers, given out with so much vivacity and judgment that every eye was fastened on the teacher and every mind alert. Most of the right hands were raised for answer to every question, with the index finger extended; and the pupil selected was chosen now here, now there, to give it audibly. Rank was observed from left to right, the lower changing places with the higher whenever a failure above and a correct answer below paved the way. Large numbers were often used; for example, adding or subtracting by sixties, and multiplying far beyond twelve times twelve,—all apparently with equal facility. The second half of the hour was devoted to a visit to a class of younger girls. Another arithmetic class, taught by a younger gentleman; the pupils were in the eighth class, or second year at school,—age about seven. The room accommodated the same number, and was lighted and furnished in a similar way. Here figures were written on the blackboard by the teacher. The early part of the lesson had evidently been in addition; now it was subtraction, which was carefully explained by the pupils, and the hour closed by a few mental exercises in concert. In the ten minutes' recess which followed, I again chatted with the teachers in their private room. Thirty teachers are employed to teach these eight hundred girls,—twenty gentlemen and ten ladies. I said that in America the lady teachers largely outnumbered the gentlemen. The lady with whom I was conversing replied that the upper classes in girls' schools were all taught by gentlemen, as the ladies were not prepared to pass the required examinations for these positions. "The gentlemen have a course in the Gymnasium about equal to that in your colleges," she said, "and then pursue a course in the University, in order to fit themselves for teachers." "The expense of this is too much for ladies?" I inquired. "Yes; and they have not the opportunity. They are not admitted to the University of Berlin, and then—women have not the strength for such hard studies"! "How many recitations do you hear?" I asked. "The lady teachers, twenty-two per week; the gentlemen, twenty-four." "The salaries of the gentlemen are higher?" "Oh yes, much higher. They have families to support; and then, the ladies are unsteady,—they often marry."