In and Around Berlin

by Minerva Brace Norton

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.