The Jewish advance., November 08, 1878, Page 4, Image 4

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The Jewish Advance.
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HENRY GERSONI, - - Editor.
MAX STERN, Publisher.
Chicago, November 8th, 1878.
G E S J
By Henry Gersoni,
Js the title of a Novel, descrip
tive of American Jewish Life, i
which will begin with the Second
Volume of the Jewish Advance,
in the issue of December 13th, and
be continued in the succeeding
numbers. Those who are inter
ested in the style of the author j
of “ The Kaleidoscope“ The
Thoughts and FanciesThe
Diary of a Superfluous Manfl
etc., etc., and may desire to see the
FATA MORGANA
which the same author has created
for them, will please send in their
Subscriptions at their earliest con
venience, as we pr int only as many
copies of the Jewish Advance as
we need for immediate purposes,
and bach-numbers will be hard to
procure. The Publisher. j
Adolpli Cremieux Pleading- the
Cause of Education.
At the general meeting of the Alii- \
a,nee Israelite Universelle. which took j
place on August 12th, the veteran
French Senator, President of the Alli
ance, Adolph Cremieux, pleaded the
cause of instruction for Jewish youth in
most eloquent terms. He opened his
discourse with the announcement that
there was liberty of conscience for the
Jew in all Eastern countries, every
where save in Russia, but he hoped that
the time was not distant when even that
great empire will submit to the demands
of civilization. He spoke of the glorious
teachings of Judaism, and explained the
first two passages of Decalogue as the
finest models of oratory ever produced.
He touched upon the subject of the
Alliance, which works for the union of
all Jews in the world, no matter in what
clime they were born, and in what habits
reared. And then he proceeded in the
following strain :
“ Shall 1 tell you now what ambition
we ought to pursue ? I have often
heard people complain that our old Jews
will not give up their old habits. Thus
it was argued : How should we consider
as colleagues such men as do not want
even to change their old clothes ? ”
"The old clothes ! Our old men are
(nothing more nor less than) old,* and
they hold much of their old clothes,
their old habits. But this way they go
toward heaven, their hope—and they are
making room for the young. For the
young we ought to interest ourselves—
to make of them earnest men, and wor
thy to partake of life with such as are
noble and grand on earth. We ought to
occupy ourselves with the education of
our children, ladies and gentlemen,
since we are equals in the rights of citi
zenship with our neighbors. Aye ! That
our children will be their equals in in
telligence, I will give my pledge for
that ! But it is necessary that they
should be their equals also in practical
life and in love of labor; that they
should equal them in knowledge, and
eventually surpass them in their prog
ress. Herein, friends, lies the grand
duty of a man of family ! ”
"Schools! schools!”
“ Schools arc the first, the most im
perative necessity of our times ! And
you, my friends, who have knowledge,
who live in the world, you will best
understand what it means to have re
ceived an education ; how education has
placed you in the position you are justi
fied to take ! The children of those who
have recently obtained the rights of
citizenship, require to be elevated, en
lightened and instructed. It is there
fore necessary that the Jews of the Ori
ent do all that is in their power to have
schools established. And those schools
should be secular.”
“ Beloved Israelites ! Let us be Jews
in our homes, in the preparatory schools
where our children are to learn the pre
cepts of our sacred Law—but send those
children to secular schools in order that
they may learn from their infancy, that
there is no difference between men of
various ret igio us profess ion s.''
-:«• * * -x- *
“ My friends, keep in your houses the
little piece of parchment with the name
of the Almighty on it (Mesusah). Make
your children kiss it in the morning
when they arise, and in the evening when
they go to rest. But send those children
to secular schools where they can learn
how to become worthy of the century
in which they live. Mothers of families!
You should tell your children about the
i omniscence and the goodness of Grod! ”
“ And you, our religious chieftains ;
you who are the true perceptors of our
large Jewish family! tell ye to the poor
fathers and- mothers who have not the
means to send their children to school,
and who have up to the present time,
left them in idleness and without educa
tion, as though they had lived in a desert
—tell them that we (the Alliance Israel
ite UniverseUe and not the American
Nabobs) will furnish the money for the
instruction of the poor ; that we will
take their children under our protec
tion.''
" Oh, how (fod blesses such benevo
lence ! How lie watches over those who
promote it! How He instills into
* All the parentheses are made by the trans
lator partly for the sake of the idiom, and
partly for a practicable application to our own
affairs. We have omitted the notices of ’‘ap
plause,” which arc very frequent in the origi
nal.—Ed. Jkw. Adv.
their hearts gentle comfort and satisfac
tion ! When the school children pass
before the houses of their patrons, who
see them streaming along with other
children of better circumstances and of
various religious professions, what joy
ful emotions must warm the hearts of
those patrons of whom each one can say
to himself: '‘It is 1 who help them to
their standing at school ; who insure
their presence ; who prepare them for a
future standing in society, of which they
will become worthy ! ” It is therein, my
friends, where unspeakable joy lies. You
(the members of the Alliance Israelite,
etc.) experience it ; you will feel it the
more when you will have consecrated for
this object a part of your income, if you
are rich ; and if you will have contribu
ted your mites, if you live only on your
manual labor! ”
Thus spoke our beloved veteran
brother of France. The fire of (rod
animates his heart. Maya spark of that
living fire kindle the hearts of our breth
ren in America, and the bright flames of
benevolence disperse the shadows of
poverty and ignorance which are so
dense around us.
NOTES AND COMMENTS.
They have it all their own way at
New Haven. A wise committee
of Protestants and Catholic Bible
in-the-Schoolists have put their heads
together (think not of wild horses per
ceiving danger) and have resolved that
the children of the public schools should
be fed on the spiritual manna “from in
any one of thirty selections ” of King
James’ Bible, that the sweet strains of
Veni Spiritm {ergo: God, No. 3) be
wafted toward heaven, that the ten com
mandments, the Golden Rule (not ^‘Jus
tice, justice shalt thou pursue”) the Lord’s
(God No. 2) Prayer without the Dox
ology he taught the children, and that at
the special request of Catholic parents
separate religious exercises after the
Catholic fashion may be held, the Ave
Maria, sung, etc., etc.
The good Protestants and the Cathol
ics are thus happy at the expense of the
public funds.
Now the Jew should come and ask for
his rights. He pays taxes as well as the
Catholic and the Protestant. The Gov
ernment expends on him less than on
the latter, because he furnishes less
criminals to be tried, no drunkards at all
to be provided for in police stations, al
most no prisoners to be guarded and fed
in the prisons, and, above all, no politi
cians to steal the public funds and to
endow churches with the same. He does
not enjoy the delicacies of gods Nos. 2
and 3, nor the worship of Venus for his
children, and he cannot conscientiously
send them to schools where such abnor
mities, demoralizing abnormities, are
taught. What then has he for his heavy
taxes? Not even a secular school
whither he can send his children without
remorse.
The items of news about the Russian
Jews we have always preferred to take
from Russian exchanges. We have been
very careful in gleaning from German or
French exchanges news items concern
ing the intolerance of Russia toward its
Jewish citizens. We know that a great
deal more is said on that subject than is
really true. The Ilamelrz fully justifies
our precaution. It states that t he para
graph which has been circulating in the
German press to the effect that the Em
peror had issued an edict that no Jewish
student be admitted into the Technolog
ical Institute, is utterly false and has no
foundation whatsoever. On the contrary,
the average number of Jewish students
in that Institution is very large, the stu
dents are held in high esteem and enjoy
all the college honors according to their
capacities. Not only does not the Gov
ernment think of excluding the Jews
from any institution of learning, but it
even gives them all encouragements to
pursue learned professions. u Such false
reports,” continues the Hameliz, " does
us great harm, inasmuch ss our enemies
bring them before the Russian public as
evidences of the ungratefulness and lack
of veracity on our part. They say that
we are bent upon calumniating the Rus
sian Government before the public and
invent all sorts of falsehood for that
purpose.”
Pope Loo XITT. does not like the
limitations of his temporal power any
better than his predecessor did. It cha
grins him to find himself unable to crush
with his right hand those at whom now
he can only hurl anathemas. Might under
the shadow of St. Peter’s are Protestant
Christain school. Mow the Montiff aches
to get those teacheis and preachers over
his gridiron. ‘‘ It is greatly to be de
plored,” he says, "that in this our Romm
the center of Catholicism, august seat of
the Vicar of Jesus Christ, it is permitted
heterodox sects to erect temples, open
schools, and diffuse corrupting publica
tions among the people, while to us it is
not given to oppose, as we would do, an
efficacious remedy against inundating
impiety.” History remembers but too
well what is meant by papal “ efficacious
remedies. ’ ’—Advance.
Quoth the Alliance:
“ The Afghanistan invasion has been defer
red till spring and ten thousand men have got
a tew months’ lease of life. But unless diplo
macy shall meanwhile achieve a victory,
another season will see many better men
doomed to death than the Anglo-Hebraic
dreamer who would dazzle England as he is
dazzled himself by a vision of Oriental con
quest and Oriental empire.”
"The Anglo-Hebraic dreamer" is good,
as far as the phrase is concerned. As to
the man, he is one of the most promi
nent historical figures our century will
boast of; a reality which no fine-spun,
malicious or envious phrase-making will
ever be able to turn into an empty
dream.
re-assuring
BY A
111.
THE MATERIALS.
In one of his lectures. Prof. Felix Ad
lev has made the sweeping assertion,
that the ministers are only like " the
white caps on the waves,” produced by
the religious stirring of the multitudes.
He thereby intended to rob the minis
ters of all individual purpose in their la
bors. But this is not so, at least as far
as Judaism is concerned. Our ministers
(I speak of the real ones) have always
had an object in view which was higher
than that conceived by the masses. Ap
parently yielding to the demands of the
multitudes, they have only used conces
sion as a means to lead the people to
something higher and better.
And they have prevailed.
This is nowhere more apparent than
in America, and in the present state of
the reform congregations. The reform
ministers have given the people all that
they demanded; an unbounded liberty