and actors obliged to conform to the rules of decorum
and morality. The plays and performances were under the immediate
supervision of men of grave morals, who allowed nothing corrupting
to appear; and the effect of this administration and restraint is to
be seen in Berlin even to this day. The public gardens are full of
charming little resorts, where, every afternoon, for a very moderate
sum, one can have either a concert of good music, or a very fair
dramatic or operatic performance. Here whole families may be seen
enjoying together a wholesome and refreshing entertainment,--the
mother and aunts with their knitting, the baby, the children of all
ages, and the father,--their faces radiant with that mild German light
of contentment and good will which one feels to be characteristic of
the nation. When I saw these things, and thought of our own outcast,
unprovided boys and young men, haunting the streets and alleys of
cities, in places far from the companionship of mothers and
sisters, I felt as if it would be better for a nation to be brought
up by a good strict schoolmaster king than to try to be a republic."

"Yes," said I, "but the difficulty is to get the good schoolmaster
king. For one good shepherd, there are twenty who use the sheep only
for their flesh and their wool. Republics can do all that kings
can,--witness our late army and sanitary commission. Once fix the idea
thoroughly in the public mind that there ought to be as regular and
careful provision for public amusement as there is for going to church
and Sunday-school, and it will be done. Central Park in New York is a
beginning in the right direction, and Brooklyn is following the
example of her sister city. There is, moreover, an indication of the
proper spirit in the increased efforts that are made to beautify
Sunday-school rooms, and make them interesting, and to have
Sunday-school fetes and picnics,--the most harmless and commendable
way of celebrating the Fourth of July. Why should saloons and
bar-rooms be made attractive by fine paintings, choice music, flowers,
and fountains, and Sunday-school rooms be four bare walls? There are
churches whose broad aisles represent ten and twenty millions of
dollars, and whose sons and daughters are daily drawn to circuses,
operas, theatres, because they have tastes and feelings, in themselves
perfectly laudable and innocent, for the gratification of which no
provision is made in any other place."

"I know one ch