The summer colonies, called gartenlauben colonies, where the outlying and unused land on the outskirts of the cities is divided up into small parcels and rented for a nominal sum to the poorer working people of the city, constitute a most sensible form of philanthropy. You see them, each named by its proprietor, with a flag flying, with the light barriers dividing them, and with the small huts erected as a shelter, where flowers and fruits and vegetables are grown, often adding no small amount to income, and in every case offering the soundest kind of work and recreation. These colonies were started by a woman in France, and the idea worked its way through Belgium to Germany, and they are now supported and helped by the direct interest of the Empress. The woman who put this scheme into operation ought to have a monument! At Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, on a plot lent by the city, there are thirteen of these colonies divided into over a thousand plots.
There are three-quarters of a million women in Germany who are independent owners and heads of establishments of different kinds, and some ten million who are bread-winners. Of the increase in the number of women students I have written in another chapter, and of their increasing participation in the political, economical, literary, and scholarly life of the nation there are many examples. Once or twice I have even heard them speak in public, and speak well, while if my memory serves me, this was practically unknown in my university days here. The problem of domestic apprenticeship is also being worked out by the women of Germany. In Munich, in Frankfurt-am-Main and elsewhere this most difficult and delicate question is being partially answered at least. Girls are apprenticed to families needing them, under the supervision of a committee of women. The girls and their families agree to certain terms, and the families agree also to teach them household duties, give them proper food, eight hours' sleep, their Sunday out, and so on. The German women's societies who have thus boldly tackled this problem are plucky indeed, and prove easily enough that there is a large and growing body of women in Germany, who have minds and wills of their own and great executive ability.