Germany and the Germans from an American Point of ViewCollier, Price
History
Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View
Collier, Price
Germany; National characteristics, German
The summer colonies, called gartenlauben colonies, where the outlying
and unused land on the outskirts of the cities is divided up into
small parcels and rented for a nominal sum to the poorer working
people of the city, constitute a most sensible form of philanthropy.
You see them, each named by its proprietor, with a flag flying, with
the light barriers dividing them, and with the small huts erected as a
shelter, where flowers and fruits and vegetables are grown, often
adding no small amount to income, and in every case offering the
soundest kind of work and recreation. These colonies were started by a
woman in France, and the idea worked its way through Belgium to
Germany, and they are now supported and helped by the direct interest
of the Empress. The woman who put this scheme into operation ought to
have a monument! At Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, on a plot lent
by the city, there are thirteen of these colonies divided into over a
thousand plots.
There are three-quarters of a million women in Germany who are
independent owners and heads of establishments of different kinds, and
some ten million who are bread-winners. Of the increase in the number
of women students I have written in another chapter, and of their
increasing participation in the political, economical, literary, and
scholarly life of the nation there are many examples. Once or twice I
have even heard them speak in public, and speak well, while if my
memory serves me, this was practically unknown in my university days
here. The problem of domestic apprenticeship is also being worked out
by the women of Germany. In Munich, in Frankfurt-am-Main and elsewhere
this most difficult and delicate question is being partially answered
at least. Girls are apprenticed to families needing them, under the
supervision of a committee of women. The girls and their families
agree to certain terms, and the families agree also to teach them
household duties, give them proper food, eight hours' sleep, their
Sunday out, and so on. The German women's societies who have thus
boldly tackled this problem are plucky indeed, and prove easily enough
that there is a large and growing body of women in Germany, who have
minds and wills of their own and great executive ability.
Let me suggest to some of our idle women that they pay a visit to the
Hausfrauenbund at Frankfort and the Frauenverein-Arbeitererinnenheim
at Munich, before they pass judgment upon this chapter. For I should
be sorry to leave the impression that all the women of Germany are
listless, oppressed, and without any feeling of civic responsibility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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