Impelled by a desire to benefit both the servant and the mistress, by improving the qualities of the one, and adding thus to the comfort of the other, this Swedish lady, with charity equal to her countrywoman Jenny Lind, or Fredrika Bremer, established this school. Girls of good moral character, who wish to go out to service, are received, and, under the direction of a competent matron, are made adepts in the sublime mysteries of the kitchen and laundry. The establishment takes in washing and baking and cooking for private families, hotels, and restaurants, and the money thus earned goes far toward paying the current expenses. The girls are taught to put their hands to every thing that must be done in the household. By turns they wait upon table, and the matron is at its head to give instruction, that they may become expert in serving the dinner as well as in cooking it, and those who sit at table may also learn to be decent in eating it.
And it was pleasant to learn that admission to this training-house is regarded as a great privilege. It is even secured as a reward for proficiency in the free schools; so that a young woman who has distinguished herself for good conduct in school, is entitled to still further education in this house as a reward of merit. These young women are in constant demand by families, who are ready to pay them higher wages, because they are graduates of a training-school where they have learned the theory and practice of household labor.
One of the greatest enjoyments of wanderings in foreign lands has been found in the discovery that there are good people all over the world; that they are toiling and praying for the good of their fellow-creatures, trying to make society better, the burden of the poor more easy to be borne, and this by helping them to help themselves. The future of these northern countries is more hopeful because of the enlightened philanthropy of such as the friends I have just met.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
NORWAY.
UP in this part of the world you must be very careful to look out for yourself, in all matters that require certainty as to times and ways of travel. It was hard to learn when a steamer would go north from Gottenburg, and all that we did learn from captains and porters and landlords proved to be erroneous. But at last it was settled that a boat would be along the next morning from Copenhagen, bound to Christiania, and if we were at the wharf at four A.M. we could go! We were called at three, and it was just as light as noonday. The luggage was taken by hand-carts, and the travellers, a goodly company, trudged to the wharf, a sleepy, grumbling set of Americans, who were sore vexed at being waked so early; four families, who met at Gottenburg, and were now embarking on the German Ocean to visit Norway. We suffered on deck from the cold, and were obliged to seek shelter in the cabin, but every berth, settee, chair, and peg, were occupied, so great was the crowd of passengers on the Viking to-day. Breakfast was served early, beginning with Norwegian cheese, quite equal to basswood, followed by eggs, caviar, beefsteaks, salt fish, and other things, and by the time this was over, the day was fairly opened; one of the brightest and most beautiful, with its cool, bracing, stimulating air, that we had ever seen. The Skager-rack (we had been familiar with the Skager-rack and Cattegat in the geography from school-days) stretched away to the horizon, seemingly to our own loved land in the west.
At Freidericksvern we landed a large number of our passengers. This is a naval station, and the residence of officers with their families. The hills about the picturesque town are attractive to the mineralogist, and the “crystals of shining feldspar are seen at a distance.” I did not see them. Entering a bay, and keeping near to the rock-bound coast, we steamed up a river for several hours, touched at Moss, crossed over to Hosten, a great naval station, and found a host of people on the wharf, to wait the steamer’s arrival. Here the fiord, or bay, divides into two, one leading to Dremmen, and the other, which we pursue, to Christiania, the capital of Norway. The mountains on the left are bold; sometimes lofty perpendicular rocks rise from the water. The sight is striking, grand indeed. Night approaches, but not darkness. It is nine, ten, eleven o’clock, and still the daylight lingers. At midnight we arrived at our destined port. We have been steaming almost due north twenty hours. Our baggage must be searched, for Norway has its own customs, though under the same crown with Sweden. But the search was slight and soon over. Perhaps you will be as much surprised to hear as I was to see that the city of Christiania is so much like other cities; if I had awoke out of sleep and found myself in it, I would not have supposed myself in the northernmost kingdom of Europe, and on the confines of the frozen zone. It has indeed a frigid look, a barrenness of ornament, a precise, severe, and perfectly plain style of building, if that may be called a style which is no style at all. But there is nothing about it to excite observation, except it be that it is more of a city, with greater attractions in objects of interest to visit, than one would look for in Norway.
The house at which I am stopping, Hotel du Nord, has rooms for two hundred guests; it is a hollow square, with a balcony on the four sides of the quadrangular court within, and each room on the balcony has a door opening upon it. On the piazza of the central building is a platform covered with awning, and surrounded with shrubs and flowers, with a fountain of water playing in the midst. I find in these hyperborean regions the people take pains to adorn their houses with plants and blooming flowers, to cheat themselves with the pleasing delusion that they are just as well off as those who dwell in more genial climes. This is true of the dwellers in the cities, and in the rural villages also, where I have noticed that windows are filled with plants exposed to the sun and the passer’s eye.
The stove in my room is of cast iron, and wood is the fuel. As it is now midsummer (July 6), we do not intend to use it, but it is a curiosity. It is four stories high, the lower one for the fuel, and the others are chambers to hold dishes for warming, and also to increase the surface for radiation of heat. We enjoy the sight of it, hoping that in the dreadful weather to come some of our successors may enjoy the heat thereof.
This morning we took our first breakfast in Norway, and, according to our usual custom of giving you a bill of fare in each country, to let you know how we live in strange lands, I will just mention that we had for our simple repast coffee, cold lobster, beefsteak, ham, tongue, corned beef, fried sole, boiled salmon, herring, with bread, butter, cheese, strawberries, and all other things needed to make out a meal.
The city has about fifty thousand people in it, and makes progress very slowly. It has a palace, which I positively did not visit, having made a resolution not to be tempted to go through any more, and a museum, which greatly entertained me for an hour or two.