Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-03-21
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GERMAN WAYS,
Management of Schools and Stores in
That Progressive Country.

The people of Germany Impress me
as very aggressive and progressive
| people. They feel their superiority
and have tendency to look down on
the Englishman as back number. as
a people who have been, but are de-
cadent. There are, as | have said
many signs visible that this has some
| foundation. The continental people
| live better. either have more food. or
| know better how to prepare it. There is
not the same samcness to meals here
that met us in London and everything
| is more palatable, or at least nearly
lcverything. Again, there seems to be
a scientific spirit il the air shown in
the better planning of the meals, both
to secure variety ana to have food
values so arranged as not to have all
starches, for example, at the same
time.
The appearance of the children on
their way to school is much more at
tractive in Germany than in England
or America either for that matter.
They seem to go as if they we're
anxious to get to school. Each one
has his or her little book knapsack on
the back. showing that home study is
done On pleasant days one sees
school after school of children (from
8 to l. or 14) on the streets with
their teachers, tramping from place to
place studying things in store win
dows, trees, etc, or taking train for
some outlying suburb for exercise and
to learn from Nature. The children
are under no seeming restraint, but
keep together, pay no attention to
passersby, are always extremely con-
siderate, yet they talk and laugh as
they go from place to place. School
hours seem to be from to IL or 1,
and it is extremely interesting to be
on the streets at 100 to to see them
lined almost with the children on their
way to school, and never lettering as
far as | have seen, and l have been on
the streets every day at this time for
two weeks now, as l take a morning
constitutional of three miles from 7
to s.
than in England, where no one except
manual lahorers begin work till 3, and
even most kinds of manual labor do
not get under way early. One thing
one sees on the continent that is not
lOuHu III Eng CT III AUleIlCd--ll0
laboring woman. Here large part
of the coal. for example, is carried
from the sidewalk into the houses by
women, as a rule those past middle
! life. In fact, have yet to see the
first young woman doing this kind of
manual labor. although they do deliver
milk bread, etc. The coal baskets
are filled with great rapidity, then put
on the back with straps over the
shoulders; they have heavy pads on
the back to protect them. | am sure
| / should not like to compete with them
| in speed and endurance. The stores
| here as in England are generally small,
| the department stores playing almost
no part here, and a much less part in
England than in America. The clerks
are largely girls or young women.
| am told their wages are small. less
| than they could get in factories: yet
| they are in possession. Clerks SAL
aries in the higher positions are good.
one woman here in this pension get
! ting 300 or more marks per month
Prof. H. W. Caldwell in State Journal,
| Lincoln, Neb.