Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/175

172 We passed the Poste and lost our clew, so I resorted to my usual resource, a bookseller, who directed me up a steep, narrow street, and told me to ask for the "Klein Kinder SchuleInfants School [sic]." I went on, confident in my "open sessime," but nothing could be more ludicrous than my stupefaction when the good people to whom I uttered my given words, not doubting that one who could speak so glibly could also understand, poured out a volume of German upon me; up—up we went, half the people in the street, with humane interest, looking after us, till we came to the window of an apartment that opened on to a court where the little urchins were sealed. The appearance of visiters was a signal for the cessation of their studies. There was a general rising and rush to their plays; but first the little things, from two years old to six, came, unbidden, to us with smiling faces, to shake our hands. It puzzles me as much to know how this quality of social freedom gets into the German nature, as how the African's skin became black! If a stranger were to go, in like manner, among our school children, and they were forced forward by a rule, they would advance with downcast eyes and murky looks, as if the very demon of bashfulness stiffened their limbs. The infant-school is supported by charitable contributions, and conducted much like our infant-schools. The children stay all day, and the parent pays a kreutzer for the dinner of each—less than a penny. We followed them to their plays, and as I looked at them trundling their little