In and Around Berlin

by Minerva Brace Norton

These departments, though most successful, are subordinate in interest to the main work of the Lette-Verein, as at present conducted, which has a commercial training-school, a school of industry and drawing, and a school of fine arts.

The commercial school offers two courses, of one and two years respectively. Girls and women, married or unmarried, are there offered the advantages of thorough instruction in writing and stenography, commercial reckoning and correspondence, book-keeping, knowledge of goods, commerce, banking affairs, and money matters in general. Lessons in French, English, and German, in Grammar, Geography, Correspondence, and Conversation, are also given. The fee for tuition is about forty dollars per annum.

We were much interested in the School of Industry. Here were girls and women, mostly young, in bright, cheery, and well-lighted rooms, going through all stages of graded and scientific instruction in the cutting and making of dresses, mantles, and underwear, plain needlework, and in all kinds of embroidery and lace-work. The use of a sewing-machine is taught in a term of two months, six lessons each week. Millinery in all branches, the making of the finest artificial flowers by French methods, glove-making by machinery, and hair-dressing are practically carried on for the instruction of those who wish to learn these industries.

A school of cookery, in which we were allowed to inspect the scientific classification and analysis of provisions and to test the appetizing results of numerous ladylike pupils in various stages of proficiency, impressed us with the inestimable value of its training.

In all these departments the pupils are expected to pay moderate fees, varying from twenty-five cents to one dollar per week; and entrance to any department can be made on the first of every month.

Two lessons per week are given in the science of teaching, for a term of six months.

The Employment Bureau has a vast correspondence, and is an agency of great good, as a medium of communication between women and girls in want of positions, and the employers of labor.

A school and lodging-house for the training of servant-girls has been much called for, and has lately been started.

The Drawing-School has a seminary for the training of teachers, and a school for teaching the different branches of industrial drawing. There are free-hand drawing from copies and plaster models, perspective and geometrical drawing, the drawing and painting of ornamental and practical designs, and flower-painting on wood, china, and paper, with thorough courses of one and two years in the History of Art. Modelling in clay, wax, and designs for gold and silver industry, bronzes, etc., are given eight hours in each week.

There is also a school of type-setting in connection with the Berlin Typographical Company, in which female compositors over the age of sixteen may be received, to the number of thirty-six, under the close supervision of the Lette-Verein, and at which, after an apprenticeship of six months, all pupils are paid for their work.