that could be obtained, I was more fortunate
in finding access to the schools for girls. Not, however, without
painstaking. It is by no means a matter of course for any visitor to
knock at the door of a school-room for a call upon the school. The
coming of visitors is uniformly discouraged; the teachers saying that
the pupils are not used to it, and that their attention is thereby
diverted from their studies. A lady of my acquaintance, resident for
some years in Berlin, asked permission to visit the school which her
little daughter attended, and was refused. A professional educator
from abroad, especially a gentleman, if properly introduced, will find
little difficulty in obtaining access to the schools; but a lady, who
wishes to go unofficially, will need persistence and courage before
she effects her object.

A friendly acquaintance with two German teachers smoothed the way,
perhaps opened it, to a privilege I had hitherto sought in vain. At
supper one evening I made an engagement to meet one of these ladies in
the school to which she belonged, early the next morning. In the short
Berlin days of mid-winter one must rise by candle-light to be in time
for even the second hour of school, if living a half-hour distant. In
one of the largest hotels of Berlin I saw, the week before Christmas,
a little fellow, scarcely tall enough for seven years, departing for
school in the morning, with his knapsack on his back, an hour before
there would be daylight enough for him to study by. As he sturdily
went forth from the elegant rooms and brilliantly lighted corridors
into the cold gray dawn and the snowy streets towards the distant
school, I said, "There is the way to train Spartans!" The schools
begin at eight o'clock for girls, at seven for boys, though many go at
later hours. Those who are not able to pay for instruction attend the
"common schools," where tuition is free; but those who can must pay at
the rate of from about five to seven dollars per quarter, in the
schools denominated "public."

The school to which I went occupies a handsome modern brick edifice,
and accommodates eight hundred girls. It was ten o'clock, when the
recess which follows the stroke of each hour (ten minutes) is doubled,
in order to give time for the "second breakfast"--bread and butter
taken in basket or bag--by both teachers and pupils, to supplement
the rolls and coffee partaken of by candle-light in winter, which form
the first breakfast. The