Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/575

1858.]

“ you like to spend a day at Horn and visit the Rauhe Haus?” inquired my friend, Herr X., of me, one evening, as we sat on the bank of the Inner Alster, in the city of Hamburg. I had already visited most of the “lions” in and about Hamburg, and had found in Herr X. a most intelligent and obliging cicerone. So I said, “Yes,” without hesitation, though knowing little more of the Rauhe Haus than that it was a reform school of some kind.

“I will call for you in the morning,” said my friend, as we parted for the night.

The morning was clear and bright, and I had hardly despatched my breakfast when Ilerr X. appeared with his carriage. Entering it without delay, we were driven swiftly over the pavements, till we came to the old city-wall, now forming a fine drive, when my friend, turning to the coachman, said,—

“Go more slowly.”

“The scenery in this vicinity we Hamburgers think very beautiful,” he continued, turning to me.

To my eye, accustomed to our New England bills, it was much too flat to merit the appellation of beautiful, though Art had done what it could to improve upon Nature; so I assented to his encomiums upon the landscape, but, desirous of changing the subject, added,—

“This Rauhe Haus, where we are going, I know but little of; will you give me its history?”

“Most willingly,” he replied. “You must know that our immense commerce, while it affords ample occupation for the enterprising and industrious, draws hither also a large proportion of the idle, depraved, and vicious. For many years, it was one of the most difficult questions with which our Senate has had to grapple, to determine what should be done with the hordes of vagrant children who swarmed about our quays, and were harbored in the filthy dens which before the great fire of 1842 were so abundant in the narrow streets. These children were ready for crime of every description, and in audacity and hardihood far surpassed older vagabonds.

“In 1830, Dr. Wichern, then a young man of twenty-two, having completed his theological studies at Gottingen and Berlin, returned home, and began to devote himself to the religious instruction of the poor. He established Sabbath-schools for these children, visited their parents at their homes, and sought to bring them under better influences. He succeeded in collecting some three or four hundred of them in his Sabbath-schools; but he soon became convinced that they must be removed from the evil influences to which they were subjected, before any improvement could be hoped for in their morals. In 1832, he proposed to a few friends, who had become interested in his labors, the establishment of a House of Rescue for them. The suggestion met their approval; but whence the means for founding such an institution were to come none of them knew; their own resources were exceedingly limited, and they had no wealthy friends to assist them.

“About this time, a gentleman with whom he was but slightly acquainted brought him three hundred dollars, desiring that it should be expended in aid of some new charitable institution. Soon after, a legacy of $17,500 was left for founding a House of Rescue. Thus encouraged, Wichern and his friends went forward. A cottage, roughly built and thatched with straw, with a few acres of land, was for sale at Horn, about four miles from the city, and its situation pleasing them, they appropriated their legacy to the purchase of it. Hither, in November, 1833, Dr. Wichern removed with his mother, and took into his household, adopting them as his own children, three of the worst boys he could find in Ham-