e where they can have respectable
surroundings, came from Pastor Vermeil, the founder of the deaconess
house at Paris. When Fliedner visited the Paris house his heart was
touched by what he saw. He thought of the thousands of girls coming
annually to Berlin from the provinces, and of the exposures and
temptations to which they were subjected. He knew that many of them in
their ignorance and inexperience were ruined body and soul in the
lodging-houses to which they resorted, and drifted away on the streets
of the city, only to find a place eventually in the hopeless wards of
the great hospital, La Charite.

He determined to do what he could to provide a remedy, and, as was his
wont, "without money and without noise" he set to work. In the north of
Berlin, at quite a distance from the railroad stations, he hired a small
house on a street then called "The Lost Way"--a street well named, as it
was unlighted and unpaved, and so poorly kept that when the queen came
to visit the home, shortly after it was opened, her carriage, in spite
of the strong horses, got stuck in the mud.

By the aid of some ladies in the city the home was furnished with twelve
beds; three deaconesses were put in charge, and after perplexing
difficulties the authorization to open a registry for servants was
obtained. The idea at first met with derision. It was said that such an
institution was rightly located on "The Lost Way," for no one would ever
come to it. But they came. In two years the number of beds increased to
twenty, and the same year Fliedner purchased the entire court in which
the house stood, containing five houses and a fine garden. Queen
Elizabeth of Prussia became the patroness of the institution, and it
grew in favor with the people. A training-school was added in which the
girls were taught to wash, iron, cook, and sew, and also to work in the
garden and to care for cows, the last two branches of domestic service
being required of servant-girls in Germany. Later an infant school was
added in which nursery girls were practiced in taking charge of
children, a pleasant, helpful demeanor being made one of the requisites.
Over two hundred children, mostly coming from the poorest and gloomiest
homes, are in daily attendance. About three hundred and fifty more
attend the girls' school for children of the working classes. In the
home and training-school for servants about eight hundred girls are
received annually, and sixteen thousand have b