In telling me these things, even at this late day something like righteous indignation came over Simon Eichelkatz, usually so tranquil and unruffled. "And all that the Khille owed him, too!" he exclaimed. "He improved our speech; through the power and beauty of his sermons he awakened in us the endeavor to cultivate a better, more refined language than the jargon we then spoke. Even now, when we get excited over what we're saying, it sometimes comes back to us. The younger generation had it easy; it glided right into the newer, better times. It was harder for us older men--we had little time for learning; but whoever wanted to understand him, he could--he could. "I was already a married man when he came here. I had my business, and unfortunately I couldn't go to school any more; yet I did learn from him--to speak, Herr Kreisphysikus, and perhaps to think--though that came much later. Working and attending to business, you can't get to it. But I saw and heard everything the new rabbi undertook, and I followed it with interest, even though at that time I couldn't have a say in congregational affairs. And do you know what he did then? He started a school, a Jewish school, with nothing but trained teachers, the boys' school separate from the girls'. And you learned everything there, just as in the Christian schools. When he delivered the address at the opening of the school, he said that we were enjoying the blessings of the year 1848, which had brought us Jews the liberty, as citizens, to make use of all the privileges of culture and progress. And around him were the boys and girls dressed in their holiday clothes, and the parents full of gratitude. But the 'Saints' turned against him in these spiritual efforts, too, and the word 'progress' was like a red rag to a bull with them." Simon Eichelkatz had a specially good day to-day. He related everything so vividly. It was as though the struggles of that time were still stirring in him. Naturally, the young business man, already the head of a household, placed himself entirely on the side of the liberals, who adhered to the rabbi, while the "others" spoke of the "new-fashioned" Rav with scorn and fanatical virulence, and made every attempt to overturn the institutions he had introduced.