With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 4

by Unknown

The cleanliness and order exceeds even that of England or Scotland, than which, until you come to Germany, you think nothing can exceed. If, for example, a gentleman in lighting a cigar throws a match on the street, it is picked up; a leaf from a tree, a bit of paper from a store, a blade of grass, all are at once removed, and by men, too, that are Germans; that is,—clean, respectful, reputable, and intelligent. Even in the business avenues, and around the wholesale stores, the pavements and streets are as clean as the white steps of the homes of Philadelphia. Most of the streets are as wide as our Broad Street, some wider; as, for example, Unter den Linden.

That you may see for yourself this noble highway of the capital, allow me to conduct you across. “When I speak of horses imagine that you see them.” Just suppose we are crossing together, and because of the many vehicles and people on horseback, I will take you by the hand, so. We have been admiring the trees and flowers in front of Prince Blücher’s palace, one of a series of palaces on each side of the street near the Brandenburg Gate; they stand back from the pavements, and have extensive flower-gardens in front, the only separation between these and the very wide pavement being a low hedge of delicate, almost thornless, magenta roses. You remember—or did I tell you?—with what genial pride the old gardener, yesterday, told us that this same was a perpetual bloomer,—summer and winter,—that it was a German creation,—the development of its efflorescent peculiarity having been begun away back; but that he himself it was, by crossing it with Rosa centifolia, that had added the apex to the temple of its perfection,—namely, duplication of petals, diminution of stamen, heliotropism,—turning its face towards the sun, by which acquired habit the winter bloom has become as profuse as that of summer.

Well, we have been looking over this two-foot-high blooming hedge-row, and have decided to cross to the gardens on the other side; so now hold my hand and fear not, for life is sacred in the Fatherland, and we are under the protection of the police. You see that the gardens in front of the palaces used by the nobility and foreign ministers are about as wide as Broad Street, the pavement for the public forty feet more. We leave this and cross a strip as wide as an ordinary avenue, paved with square blocks,—this is exclusively for wagons, drays, and all vehicles of trade,—then a row of trees; after this we cross a band about the same width, but as smooth and as hard as granite; this is for pleasure-carriages only; then another row of trees; then a road the width of an ordinary street, which is neither concrete nor Belgian blocks, but a mixture of loam and sand, soft enough to be easy for horses’ feet, and damp enough to keep it from being converted into clouds of dust; this is used by equestrians only, and a beautiful sight the lady and gentleman riders present every afternoon on their way to the park. We cross this soft way, and are in a wide promenade, perhaps eighty feet broad, arched over with the branches of lofty oaks, chestnuts, butternuts, lindens, beeches, and the like,—originally lindens only, hence the name “Under the Lindens,”—with elegant seats arranged along its entire length, on one of which we will sit down and rest, for we are half-way across the avenue, or rather series of avenues, which up here is flanked with lofty palaces and gardens of delight. On one side you go to, on the other you come from, the park. The lower part of this multiple avenue, instead of palaces and gardens, has the most magnificent residences, shops, and hotels that I have ever seen....

Germany seems one great family with no foreign help, where each member recognizes and respects the position of the other, and are united in the training of their children and the development of their own minds; but not as though, like other people, they had to resolve to be good; this, as a matter of course; virtue appears to come to them by nature. Everything they do seems a pleasure rather than a task, as if they said that industry and thrift are essential to happiness, labor the prelude to enjoyment; besides, they are never in a hurry. They take an hour to drink a glass of beer, and talk of heaven, earth, and the waters under the earth while sipping it. The gesticulating German, outside of books, I have not yet seen; what they do they do well; they enjoy doing it, and they do it that it may be a joy to others, and it always is. This feeling enters into every service, from the making of a pin to the concocting of a new system of theology, or a free-and-easy way of getting to heaven; and then the universality of culture that prevails, thanks to the standing army and the omnipresent public schools,—they have private schools too, to be sure, but then these snob and denominational affairs, unlike with us, just as the public schools, are under strict governmental inspection, and their managers are not permitted to teach what they please, unless what they please is for the good of the pupils, the country, and the people at large. It is because of this national surveillance that the private schools of Germany are said to be as good as those under the direct control of the government.

Familiarizing the pupil with music and the natural sciences is an important part of German education, especially the study of animal organisms, “birds, beasts, and reptiles,” as we used to say of Goldsmith’s “Animated Nature.” As an illustration at hand, since sitting here in front of a garden near the Kaiser’s palace, putting upon record the above traits, a workman watering a lawn noticed me looking up for a moment, just as he had enveloped the top of a lofty spruce with spray. Of course, as the sun was shining, and each particle of water becoming a prism, the disintegration of the white rays of light resulted in a rainbow, curved partially around the trees. I look at it, racking my memory at the same time for the word I need; he sees I observe it and am pleased; he nods, and says, “Schön” (beautiful); I reply, “Very.” In a few moments, dragging the hose towards me, throwing the water over a weeping birch, and making another rainbow, he points towards it. “Our Herr Professor Helmholtz,” pointing towards the University, “says there are but three prismatic colors, and yet I can now see seven, can’t you?—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet; and I suppose a Frenchman could see seventy, for it is said that they can see colors where other people only see shades.” He continues to water the grass, and I, having found my missing link, to write.

[Dr. Woods next describes what is to be seen within the German beer-gardens,—the music, the decorum, the absence of intoxication, the intelligence manifested in conversation. Then to out-door life again.]

Other traits. Houses have curtains on the outside of windows as well as on the inside, and windows are nearly always double, with a space of about four inches between. They open outward and inward, instead of up and down; when closed, all noise is shut out. Indeed, there is no noise on even the busiest streets, which are so smooth that no sounds are heard but those of horses’ feet; no screaming of papers or wares of any sort is permitted, and no chimes! Then, again, people in the most ordinary circumstances have fine lace curtains and beautifully woven fabrics hanging around in graceful festoons, portières, statuary, pictures, flowers, birds, and books; often the most beautiful things in the way of prints are pinned frameless on the walls; there are beautiful marquetry floors, but no carpets.

Again, the orchards throughout the country are without protecting walls, just as farms are. At each corner a stone marks the division, and when ploughing, a couple of reversed furrows from stone to stone serves both as a division and promenade, and crops are not only grown to this line of demarcation, but grow over it, so that at a distance there is no division at all. I have seen branches bent to the ground with ripe fruit, and children walking under them to buy from an old woman or man across the way, never apparently even thinking of molesting what is not theirs. This is one of the things that fill you with wonder. In Weimar, between the Goethe House and the principal school, a long branch loaded with red apples hung over the way, almost touching my head, and yet it was under this that hundreds of children passed daily to and from school.