In September of 1833 he began his experiment by preparing with his own hands an old summer-house, some twelve feet square, which stood in a retired part of his garden as a refuge for discharged female prisoners. He protected it from wind and rain, made it clean and habitable, and placing there a bed, a table, and a chair, prayed that God would direct some outcast wanderer to its shelter. One night a poor forlorn woman presented herself, and the pastor and his good wife led her to the room prepared. This destitute creature housed in the old summer-house was practically the inauguration of the now famous Kaiserswerth institution. In the course of the winter nine other women voluntarily sought the refuge, and the work went forward until a new separate building was erected near the pastor’s house, having its own garden and field and affording accommodation for twenty women. Madame Fliedner, the founder’s wife, and Mademoiselle Göbel, a voluntary helper, had charge of the penitentiary. Some of the women had children, and Pastor Fliedner’s next step was to start an infant school on very much the same lines as a modern kindergarten. Now it was that the children’s games and songs which it had been his hobby to collect during his tramps abroad when a college student became of use. Teachers were needed for the increasing school, and in course of time a Normal school for the training of infant-school mistresses was started. [Illustration: MISS NIGHTINGALE. (_From the bust at Claydon._) This bust was presented to Miss Nightingale by the soldiers after the Crimean War, and was executed by the late Sir John Steele. [_To face p. 61._ ] However, the idea which most actively dominated the pastor’s mind was the training of women in hospital work and to tend the poor. In his parish of Kaiserswerth there was much poverty and incompetence amongst the people and no provision for dealing with disease. Three years after he had founded the penitentiary for discharged female prisoners, as already described, he started his more important venture of founding a hospital for the reception of poor patients and for the training of nurses or deaconesses.