It is not probable that the practice of bringing up children in this exclusion from social intercourse tends to improve their morals or manners. On the contrary, it makes matters worse. In well-ordered households, where the virtues are inculcated in the first lessons that youthful minds receive, and where parental example, more powerful than lessons or discipline, is such as children may safely follow, it will be found that as boys and girls are apt to be mixed up in the family, so they should be in social life.
Helsingfors.
CHAPTER XXXII.
FINLAND (Continued).
AT the close of a delightful day’s sail along the coast of Finland, we reached the harbor of Helsingfors. The distant sight of the city is imposing, and one’s admiration is doubtless heightened by the surprise he feels when first finding such splendid structures in this part of the world.
The Fortress of Sweaborg, commanding the approach to the city, is rather a series of fortifications than a single fort. The works of nature have been turned to as good an account at this point as in the Straits of Gibraltar. Seven islands were placed by the Great Maker in just the right position for the purpose of being fortified to protect the city, and they have been so strongly fortified as to defy the force of any foe. The combined fleets of France and England tried their guns upon it in 1855, and retired from the trial, quite content to get away.
Peace is reigning now. The fortress fell into the hands of the Russians in 1808, after the garrison was reduced to the last extremity by famine, and it was the last stronghold that Sweden held in Finland. When this was gone, all was gone, and the Finns changed masters. But their subjection is rather nominal than real, as we shall see when we enter the town. On the shore where we land is the “Society House,” or, as we should call it, “The Company’s Hotel;” and we find similar houses in many parts of northern Europe. They are hotels built by the company running the steamers, or by associations, and they combine many of the features of the first-class hotels at watering-places in England or America. Near it is the palace in which the Emperor of Russia, who is also the Grand Duke of Finland, resides when he makes his brief visit, now and then, to this remote and “outlandish” part of his empire. His accommodations here are very narrow, but just as comfortable as those in the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg, holding five thousand people.
On the ship we had formed the acquaintance of a gentleman of Helsingfors, whose pleasant manners and intelligent conversation had greatly interested us during the voyage. As we had now reached his home, and were going ashore, he gave us a warm invitation to his house, which, of course, we declined, and then he insisted upon being our guide to see the famous old town. It is one of the richest in historical interest in the north.
On a grand square stand the chief public buildings, and they present an appearance that would be commanding in Paris or London. The senate-house stretches across one side of the square, the Lutheran church adorns another, the university fills a third, and from the fourth a broad avenue opens, half a mile long, to the foot of a hill crowned with an OBSERVATORY.
The University of Finland! In our ignorance, we had associated Finlanders with the Laps and the Esquimaux, and had never thought of letters and science and art in connection with this race. Among the pleasures of a visit to Finland we had not reckoned an introduction to a venerable university, endowed, sustained, and flourishing on a par with those of Germany. In fact, very few of the German universities have accommodations and advantages equal to this at Helsingfors. It would be considered first-class in England or France, and there is nothing comparable to it in the United States. It has a magnificent stone edifice of architectural proportions and finish, that make the building a perpetual lecture on the beautiful and sublime in art; and within is the most complete system of rooms for every department of knowledge here pursued,—for museums, laboratories, lectures, recitations. The professors were in session in the great audience-room as we entered it; the place was adorned with a full-length portrait of the Emperor Alexander I., who is styled, in the Latin inscription, “the father of his country and the university.” The prophecy is added that art will preserve his features, and his fame will fill the whole earth. The professors seemed an earnest set of men, mostly young, all fine-looking and well dressed. I took them to be happy and successful in their calling, and I wished much that I understood their language, so as to enter into the sympathies of a set of scholars giving their lives to the pursuits of science in Finland.