RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Beaconess
of hands, and promise obedience and fidelity in their work.*
The Kaiserswerth Institute supplies not only many hospitals, orphanages, and other establishments in Germany with deaconesses, but has under its control hospitals in foreign lands, e.g., in Jerusalem (founded 1851), Constantinople 3. Other (1852), Smyrna (1853), Alexandria Institu- (1857), Florence (1860), Cairo, etc. In tions. 1861, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Kaiserswerth Institute, the number of daughter institutions in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Holland, France, England, Scandi-
*More detailed information is given in the article Diakonen- und Diakonissenhduser by Theodor Schafer in the Hauck-Herzog RE as follows:
The conditions for admission are the same to the minutest degree for all establishments, and an extract from those of the house at Altona may serve as an example. The future deaconess must be of unblemished reputation, and is required to offer evidence of the facts of her life and her relations to family, employers, and ail others under whose authority or influence she may have come. Sound health is a rsquirement, but it is recognized that women of slight physical constitution have shown themselves capable of excellent service in charitable work. Eighteen and thirtysix are set as the age-limits, but the rule may be waived in exceptional cases. Candidates are supposed to possess a common school education, and it is desirable that they shall have had some experience in housework. The documents to be submitted in applying for admission comprise a short autobiography of some minuteness, evidence of permission granted by parents or guardians, a testimonial of moral character supplied by the applicant's pastor, medical, baptismal, and confirmation certificates. Statistics have shown that the great bulk of candidates come from the peasant and artisan classes and the class of small officials, but large numbers, too, are the children of clergymen, professors and teachers, merchants, and landed proprietors.
Successful applicants are retained conditionally for a few weeks, after which they enter upon a year of actual probation. During this year the neophyte is brought to a thorough understanding of the conditions confronting her in her future calling, the chief object being to discern the existence of inclination and adaptability for the work. In most houses the hospital is the first and most important school of practise. Parallel with practise in the hospital runs theoretical instruction under the direction of the head physician. Where necessary, instruction is given also in elementary subjects. The religious side is not neglected; in many institutions a few hours are devoted every week to religious instruction in which as many of the younger sisters as can be spared from their daily work participate. Under the head of religious instruction is included instruction in the theory and history of charitable work, while the religious factor proper is supplied by a study of Bible history and geography, church history, the catechism, and the liturgy.
After the completion of the probationary year the candidate is admitted to the novitiate, and after a further training, ranging from two to six years, there follows the dedication. In this the deaconess promises obedience, faithfulness, and devotion in her chosen calling and to remain in it so long as it shall please the Lord to allow her. This is not a vow such as is taken in the Roman Catholic orders. From the day of her dedication the neophyte has full rights of membership in the sisterhood. She has become the daughter of the house which is to be her actual home through lite, her guide, and her provider in sickness and in old age. Long before her dedication, the future deaconess may be despatched on service to any post which the authorities of her house may select; and such service is in fact a part of her preparation. She is never assigned to any permanent position, but is subject to whatever arrangements the sisterhood may make for her services. Marriage is not allowed for practical reasons purely. The list of institutions wherein the deaponesses have been active includes hospitals, poorhouses, orphan asylums, elementary schools, industrial schools, rescue-homes, homes for fallen women, and prisons.
navia, Italy, and the United States was twentyseven. Among the earlier ones were the home in Paris (1841), St. Loup near Lausanne (1841), Strasburg (1842), Dresden and Utrecht (1844), Bern, and Bethany in Berlin (1845), Stockholm (1849), Riehen near Basel (1852), Stuttgart (1854), St. Petersburg (1859), Copenhagen (1863). In 1904 there were in Germany forty-six institutions connected with the Kaiserswerth mother house. The yearly expenditure of the mother house averages 700,000 marks. A triennial conference of homes has been instituted. Many institutions have become members of the association which are not the direct daughters of the Fliedner mother house, for example the Milwaukee Lutheran Deaconesses' home. In 1905 the conference included seventyfive institutions with 14,501 deaconesses.
Independent deaconesses' institutions have also been founded in different cities of Germany which have adopted the Kaiserswerth idea, e.g., the Elizabeth hospital and Deaconesses' home in Berlin founded by Gossner in 1840; Sarepta in Bielefeld (1869), where the eminent philanthropist Friedrich von Bodelschwingh assumed the superintendency in 1872; in Neuendettelsau by the philanthropist Wilhelm Lohe (1854); Stuttgart (1865); Altona (1867); etc. The Moravians established one at Niesky in 1842. The Methodists of Germany agitated the matter in the sixties and in 1876 opened their first house at Frankfort and then in Berlin (1883), Hamburg (1886), Magdeburg, Munich, Vienna, Strasburg, Zurich, and other cities. They also have a home in Gothenburg, Sweden, founded 19!30. The Evangelical Association in Germany has homes at Berlin (1887), Hamburg (1888), Strasburg (1889), Elberfeld (1890), Stuttgart (1896), and Carlsruhe (1900). The German Baptists have the deaconesses' home, Bethel, in Berlin (1887).
b. England: The influence of Kaiserswerth upon the Protestant Churches of England and Scotland resulted in a general discussion of the subject of deaconesses and in the establishment of deaconesses' institutions. With Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale (qq.v.) the permanent efforts at organization may be said to have begun, and they came under the immediate influence of Pastor Fliedner and the Kaiserswerth work. Miss Nightingale went through a thorough course of training at Kaiserswerth before taking charge of the female sanitarium in London, and Mrs. Fry, after a visit to the German town, established the first English institution for the training of nurses in London in 1840. In 1846 Fliedner brought four deaconesses to the German hospital in London.
A new development was furnished in the sisterhoods established within the pale of the Anglican Church. These were due in some measure to the Anglo-Catholic movement led by Pusey and the Tractarians, and it is not improbable that with the high reverence which this party had for Roman Catholic institutions they would have
1. Sister- established sisterhoods even if the hoods. deaconess movement had not gone before. The first Protestant sisterhood was established or consecrated by Dr. Pusey in 1847 in Park Village near London. The same year
Deaconess