Another eminent woman, Luise Otto, of Meissen, Saxony, a strong and able
champion in prose and poetry for woman's rights, developed a definite
programme for the movement: she demanded a profounder, a more national
education, a closer connection of the German maiden with the affairs of
the fatherland, through instruction in history, her education in schools
of a high order, if possible leading up to the university standard, a
training giving "solid moral strength, a religious mind, German depth of
feeling." And these qualities must be instilled in the maidens of the
people, of the proletariat as well as in those of the middle and upper
classes. Luise Otto demanded that education to the very highest point be
given to those able to receive it; that woman be raised to economic
independence, that she may escape the necessity of a degrading marriage
"for material caretaking only," or downright shame, to which so many
daughters of the people have fallen. In a similar way did Luise Btichner
attempt the solution of the all-important question of woman's
independence. The active Central Union for the Welfare of the Working
Classes, under Lette's presidency, was founded to extend the field of
female activity, but it excluded explicitly the aims of political
emancipation and equality of woman with man. The Universal German
Woman's Association, founded in Leipzig, proposed to itself a broader
scope, namely, the raising of the moral status of the sex. Admission to
the universities and participation in communal or municipal service were
first mooted upon the initiative of Frau Henriette Goldschmidt, Marie
Calm, Auguste Schmidt. Hundreds of other collective societies followed,
and entered upon the discussion of the entire range of sex problems with
marked results.
To protect the poor, especially the women and children, whose supporters
went to the wars, the so-called "popular kitchens" (Volkskucheri) were
founded. This great service was rendered to Berlin by Frau Lina
Morgenstern, aided by noble men like Virchow, Lette, and Holtzendorff.
Intellectual needs came to be supplied by excellent schools of a high
grade: the Victoria School for higher studies, presided over by Frau
Ulrike Henschke; the Victoria Lyceum, founded by a Scotch lady, Miss
Georgina Archer, in 1868, to give courses parallel to those of the
university. These institutions derive their names from the late empress,
then Crown Princess of Prussia, who was their protector.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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