122 SCHOOL FOR DEAF-MUTES. that their want of sight should not exclude them in any great degree from the pleasures of life, while it need not inevitably increase its sadness. The Corporation also maintain a separate institution for deaf-mutes. Here the children receive the same course of instruction as is followed in the common schools. It is to be noted that communication with the pupils is made exclusively by articulate speech-the children using the eye instead of the ear while attending to the teacher. For the maintenance of its whole school establishments, higher schools, common schools, continuation schools, and the others now described, Berlin is this year expending over £680,000. About £100,000 is derived from fees paid by the higher scholars and from sundry other sources of revenue. In the common schools the annual cost is nearly 53s. per scholar. In the higher schools, after deduction of fees, it is 60s. per scholar. Over all, the scholars attending the municipal schools of all kinds cost the city annually about 54s. per head. CHAPTER VIII. PUBLIC WORKS, FREE LIBRARY, FIRE-BRIGADE. The Buildings Committee-Hobrecht's work-Functions of Committee-Frequent breaking-up of streets-How avoided— Public markets-Leaders of municipal improvement-Central market-District markets-Parks and gardens-The Thiergarten-School of forestry-Flowers for hospitals— Botanical specimens for schools-Public library-Branch libraries-Classes of readers-Fire-brigade-Its discipline -Its effectiveness-Samaritan Society. ONE of the most important committees of the Corporation, and one which during the past twenty years has discharged most laborious duties, is that which is intrusted with the construction and oversight of the streets and public buildings (Bau-Verwaltung). It is composed of twenty-three members, partly councillors and partly magistrates, and it is presided over by one of the paid magistrates. It has been well 126 SPACIOUS THOROUGHFARES. for Berlin during the period of the rapid increase of its population that the entire business of supervising the laying out and construction of new streets has been committed to the care of one administration, and not to a number of vestries or district boards. The city is remarkable for the spaciousness of its streets, by which abundance of light and air is secured to the dwellings. Its roadways and footpaths are of superior make, and with its thirty miles of asphalted streets, it will compare favourably, in respect of its thoroughfares, with any European city. It is to Stadtrath Hobrecht, who has for many years directed this department, that Berlin is chiefly indebted not only for the excellence of its streets, but for the splendid engineering of its drainage system, and for its consequent superiority as a place of residence. Herr Hobrecht, the Hausmann of Berlin, is the son of a Scottish mother, a Johnstone of Annandale, who belonged to Ecclefechan, Carlyle's native place in Dumfriesshire; and he boasts that whatever energy he has been able to throw into his work he owes to his Scottish origin. The work of the department |