An anecdote I must here relate, which shows on the one side great
brotherly love, and on the other may be viewed as expressing the
condition of a child's mind, that sways between the hope of lightening
an evil, and the fear of increasing it. One day as I came from school,
my eyes were all red with weeping, for which there was doubtless good
cause. My brother observed this, and asked the reason. At first I showed
some hesitation in answering; but at last I said, "I weep because we
dare not tell tales out of school." My brother understood me very well,
was extremely indignant at my teacher, and was going to read him a
lesson on the subject. I begged him however not to do it, because in all
probability the teacher would take his revenge on me for telling tales
out of school.
I must now say something of the condition of the Jewish schools in
general. The school is commonly a small smoky hut, and the children are
scattered, some on benches, some on the bare earth. The master, in a
dirty blouse sitting on the table, holds between his knees a bowl, in
which he grinds tobacco into snuff with a huge pestle like the club of
Hercules, while at the same time he wields his authority. The ushers
give lessons, each in his own corner, and rule those under their charge
quite as despotically as the master himself. Of the breakfast, lunch,
and other food sent to the school for the children, these gentlemen keep
the largest share for themselves. Sometimes even the poor youngsters get
nothing at all; and yet they dare not make any complaint on the subject,
if they will not expose themselves to the vengeance of these tyrants.
Here the children are imprisoned from morning to night, and have not an
hour to themselves, except on Friday and a half-holiday at the Newmoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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