Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for AmericaBancroft, Jane M. (Jane Marie)
Religion
Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America
Bancroft, Jane M. (Jane Marie)
Deaconesses
Almost contemporary with the mother-house arose the normal school for
infant-school teachers. It had first started as a child's school, and
afterward young women who had taste for the care of children were
received to be taught their duties. Fliedner took great interest in the
instruction of children. He devised little games for them, and arranged
stories to be told. His simplicity and his child-like nature led him to
disregard formalities, and to think solely of the end he had in view.
On one occasion, when picturing the combat of David and Goliath,
reaching that point in the narrative when the young shepherd lad slings
the stone that brings the giant to the ground, he cast himself headlong,
to the great delight and amazement of his little audience, who enjoyed
to the full this object-lesson that made the story so vivid to them.
Then he took special pains that his teachers should learn to tell the
stories of the Bible so as to make them clear and interesting to the
youngest child. Every day a story was told in school, and each evening
the teacher whose turn it was to relate the story the following day came
to Fliedner and rehearsed it to him as though he were a child, afterward
receiving his suggestions as to how the narrative could be improved. The
work went along quietly, ever growing, ever advancing. "Among all
others, and more than all others, was Fliedner's wife his best help. Her
keen glance, made pure and holy by her Christian faith, preserved him
from mistakes. With the household virtues of cleanliness, order,
simplicity, and economy she united large-hearted compassion toward those
needing help of any kind, yet knowing withal how, with virile sense and
energy, to prevent the misuse of ministering love. She became a model
for the deaconesses, as well as a mother to them, and her name deserves
to be mentioned with honor, as one who had an important part in the
Protestant renewal of the diaconate of women."[30]
In 1842 a new building was erected for the normal school for
infant-school teachers. The publishing house of the institution was also
started, which issues religious books and tracts. The first work sent
forth was a volume of sermons, presented to the new enterprise by the
late Professor Lange, which went through several editions.
The same year the _Kaiserswerth Almanac_ appeared and a large picture
Bible for schools was published. In 1848 the magazine _Der Armen und
Kranken Freund_ was sent forth as an organ for the deaconess cause, not
only for Kaiserswerth, but for all the institutions that are represented
at the triennial Conferences. The publishing house is an important
source of income, as the institution has little in the way of endowment
beside the produce of the garden land attached to it. At present about
three fourths of the expense are met by the sale of publications and the
fees of patients; the remaining sum is given by friends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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