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We are pleased to state that the various articles
which we have from time to time written upon the momentous subject of
training the youthful mind, have not failed to awaken public attention,
and to elicit some inquiries as to the mode of accomplishing the
manifest duty devolving upon all Israelites in the premises. It is
evident to the most careless observer, that a change is gradually
working its way upward to the contemplation of American Israelites, and
if not now at once, the time is approaching when they will demand to be
taught more clearly than hitherto the ways of the Lord. We repeat, in
passing, that a native of this country never had a good opportunity of
penetrating into the recesses of our literature; the Mishna, Talmud,
Possekim, commentaries, and grammatical works, have always been to them
sealed books, and but few had even an opportunity of making more than a
mere entrance into the field indicated—one of so vast an extent that a
lifetime scarcely suffices to cultivate it as its merits and importance
deserve. Every scrap of information is sought for from Europe; any ideas
above the mere reading of the Hebrew and a little translation, has to
come to us from over the water.
Much praise, we acknowledge, is due to the natives
of this land, and especially to the female portion, for their generally
pious feelings, and unostentatious devotion to the religion of their
fathers. Still no one can deny that very large numbers have fallen off
into irreligion or association with gentiles, which to a certainty would
not have occurred, if we may judge from accompanying circumstances, had
their education been different. We think that we have remarked before,
but it will not be amiss to repeat it here, that the great holiness of
our religion is demonstrated in the strongest manner by the fact that,
despite of the neglect of its professors in this country, it has gone on
increasing, and taken deeper root in the heart of many, though not a few
have become tired of bearing the burden of the faith of Jacob. But does
this admission prove that our predecessors were right in neglecting
education? that they were justified in leaving it, so far as they were
concerned, to mere chance whether their children should learn Judaism,
Christianity, or some vague, philosophical dogmas as their monitor
through life?
Look at the hours, nay years devoted to the
acquisition of a very moderate proficiency in music and drawing, to a
graceful manner of dancing, to an imperfect knowledge of French and
ancient languages: and then tell us, if you can, whether our blessed
religion receives any thing like a fair proportion of care and study. We
do not wish to open a crusade against the pleasures of life; we do not
desire to deprive it of the graces which embellish social intercourse;
we are not of those who endeavour to look upon every thing as sinful
which appertains not to eternity or its concerns. But we candidly say,
without any fear of giving offence, that worldly things engross too
much—yes, beyond measure—the attention of Israelites. It would be
regarded as mean in a wealthy father not to give his daughters an ample
opportunity, at least, to acquire the science of music, and to learn
French, say for a space of ten years at the smallest calculation; we
will not mention at what an expenditure of money, for all know at what
price these and other like acquirements are purchased. But how many are
there who are willing to spend as much time and treasure to teach their
sons and daughters the noble science of fearing God, and the elevated
language in which our blessed Scriptures are composed? And yet what is
of more consequence, that a young lady should bear herself gracefully in
a ball-room, or be wise in the all-important business of salvation? that
a young gentleman should converse in a foreign language with ease, or
that he should be able to explain to himself why he is a Jew? We do not
denounce a knowledge of worldly accomplishments, we repeat it, not to be
misunderstood; we only require that they are not all which our younger
branches have a legitimate right to demand at our hands.
There may be many a parent now—yes, we do not doubt
the fact, therefore we will correct our expression—there is many a
parent now living, who blames his child for having left the Synagogue by
either one of the ways in wich apostacy is accomplished; and still he
felicitates himself in his heart that he has taught his offspring that
they should value themselves as Jews, and be consistent in their
religious conduct. But let us ask such a one, whether he has fulfilled
his duty by this grand amount of religious education. His daughters he
allowed to hold exclusive intercourse with non-Israelites; either
poverty or wealth has thrown them in circles unfavourable to Judaism;
and what had these young, inexperienced females to cling to as a defence
for their religion? If poor, they perhaps had never the chance of
obtaining any instruction in Hebrew, or the simple elements of the
Jewish faith; and you wonder that their conduct does not correspond with
the requirements of the religious life of an Israelite! If rich, the
unfortunate victim of fashionable folly is early thrown into the midst
of flatterers, of men and women whose chief business seems to be to
corrupt the understanding and to destroy the noble feelings of the
youthful heart. And how is she to resist the dangerous assaults thus
levelled against her? Her head is filled with schemes of pleasant
dissipations; her whole training has been to render her brilliant at the
piano or harp; she has been compelled almost to seek excellence at the
execution of an Italian bravura, to torture her voice to produce certain
unnatural combinations which some intricate composer has written for
stage actresses; she perhaps converses in French or Italian; she may
also draw like a school artist, and her dancing may be upon the model of
some celebrated foreign master who has acquired fame and fortune by
teaching “the poetry of motion;” she has perhaps heard her father or
mother say that the Jews of her town are not worthy to seek an alliance
with one so highly born, so honourably connected, so gifted with wealth,
so skilled in accomplishments; and what is the result? Nothing less
than you might expect; for whilst Jews are carefully kept from her
father’s house, others are freely admitted; men and women of fashionable
training; the children of wealth and family pretensions, are gladly
welcomed, perhaps with sonic obsequiousness, as the price for being
received into such an exalted sphere; and the young lady, ignorant of
religion, spoiled by flattery, instructed by all the circumstances
which surround her to despise those of whose religion she nominally is a
member, escapes clandestinely from the paternal roof, and unites herself
for life to some votary of fashion, the admired of many a respectable belle, and loses as
his wife all love, all desire for the faith of her fathers. And should
she sooner or later discover that she has wedded herself to misery, that
the man of her giddy choice has no sympathy with her feeling, that he
despises the Jewess and hates her prejudices, though he vowed to love
and protect her through joy and through sorrow; should she mourn when
her sense of duty is re-awakened, after the fascination of a few months
or years of trifling pleasure have faded away, in the bitterness of
anguish at seeing her children taken from her, and instructed in a
belief which her very soul loathes: who, we ask, was the cause? who is
to blame? is it the unfortunate who pines away in splendid misery, or
the sinful parents who, in hypocritical self-sufficiency, blame their
unhappy child for disobedience to parental authority, and forgetfulness
of her ancestral religion?
No one can understand us as saying that we hold the
transgressors themselves as guiltless; God forbid that we should, by any
expression of ours, excuse any deficiency in duty, since the Bible is so
accessible to all, that if even parents do not their full duty, the
children have nevertheless some opportunity, at least, to learn what is
required of them. We only mean to exhibit the natural consequences of
well known causes, and to show how readily and legitimately parental
neglect or inability to provide proper food for the mind leads to great
transgressions on the part of the children. We have only slightly
sketched two simple cases; we could add a hundred more; and do they not
bear out fully our proposition, that there is danger to leave the spirit
without a proper guide in the troubled scenes of life? If our lot be
one of poverty, we require a strong, well-defined trust in Divine
Providence, a firm persuasion that in the path of duty we are always
safe, though the world around us may present but few bright spots for
our eyes to dwell upon. And when this conviction has become intimately
bound up with our existence, we can be virtuous though poor, respectable
though humble. And the working man, the labouring female, although in
the service of their fellow-mortals, and receiving mere wages for their
daily toil, lack nothing whatever of rising high in the scale of merit,
of that acceptability before their Divine Father, which if the highest
attribute of perfection which human nature can reach, a position far
outweighing, because more valuable, all earthly greatness. But if divine
goodness has given us ample means, then we require, equally as much as
in poverty, the support of well-founded religious hopes and assurances
of mercy from above. No life is free from vexation; through the
ordaining of supreme Wisdom, no house is exempt from the visitation of
sorrow and disease; every thing is unstable; the joy of to-day may be
the heart-rending grief of tomorrow; how necessary is it, then, to
become acquainted, under these circumstances, too, with the healing
balm, with the priceless medicine which the religion of God so
bountifully offers to all who will but put forth their hand and accept
the same—so to say, pluck the fruit of the tree of life, which stands
invitingly for them in the garden of existence, and eat and live for
ever.
To accomplish this, however, the mind must be
trained to appreciate the beauty of holiness; the soul of man is
susceptible of every impression, just like the ductile wax or the melted
metal will receive the impress of any figure stamped on their surface.
Man is inclined to religion; he feels his powerlessness at every step of
life; still it is certain that he can be made to imbibe one principle as
well as the other. It all depends upon the colouring, if we may
apply the word in this connexion, which he receives in his infancy and
younger years. There are, no doubt, very often changes wrought, after
men and women have grown up to maturity—some opinions are adopted whilst
others are rejected by persons of mature intellect. But the process is
difficult, the occasions rare, comparatively speaking, where it is
radically accomplished. So many sweet illusions linger round the ideas
inculcated in infancy, even errors of early years seem to be so invested
with the halo of truth, that the mind is naturally unwilling to
disembarrass itself from their embrace; we therefore fold them the
closer to our heart, when we fancy that a stronger light shed upon them
would compel us to let them part from our spirit for ever. A Jewish
child can, therefore, become corrupted by the doctrines which we older
Israelites justly deem false and erroneous, as that of any other
parentage. The Law is indeed our inheritance; but it is like lands
fit for cultivation, which must be carefully plough and tilled, if
they are not to bring forth thorns and thistles instead of wholesome
food for the sustenance of man. No agriculturist will leave to the care
of the birds of heaven the sowing of his furrows, though they may, by
chance, in their flight, bear in their mouth nobler seed than he is able
to obtain for propagation. So it is ever with education;—chance is a
poor guide, even if it offers the hope of brilliant results. It must be
the business of all having an interest in the human family—and where is
the misanthrope, or solitary hermit even, who has not?—to do their
utmost to diffuse, in their circle at least, what they believe to be
truth and holiness; and as in our case, to provide the means that the
children of Jewish parents may become Jews by conviction no less than
Israelites by birth. We repeat, that if our children are freely allowed
to go to gentile schools, they will acquire so many shadings of other
religions, that the splendour of their own will be obscured; for,
granting even that our children should not he required to read the Koran
or New Testament, and listen to the commentaries which gentile teachers
will naturally offer, they will still be subject to the constant
influence of fellow-scholars of a contrary faith, who, as may readily be
expected, throw ridicule upon our views, or apply persuasion (for even
young children are often missionaries, or rather, imbued with a
missionary spirit) to cause them to depart from their own faith. We do
not denounce our acquiring knowledge in the high-schools in the sciences
and languages, nor do we wish to say that our small children should grow
up in ignorance where there are no Jewish elementary schools; we are
only arguing as to the necessity of having, especially the latter, of
our own, that our offspring may enter them as uninstructed infants and
quit them full of the spirit of wisdom, which wisdom is the fear of the
Lord, because they will have listened, from day to day, to the words
which fell from lips of men who know their Creator and delight to call
themselves by the name of Jacob. We want establishments where the rich
and the poor can both assemble, and have one shepherd to guide them on
the pleasant path of truth—one approved and faithful servant of our
great Master, who will honestly inform them the way they should go and
the deeds which they should do. And then, when the time arrives for the
boy to go to his trade, to his farm labours, to his business, or to his
study, or even to his menial service, if that be the lot assigned to him
by Providence, he will be willing and able to discharge whatever duties
may devolve on him in his calling, and carry with him, through his whole
existence, that monitor which he has laboured to acquire in his
school-years, and be, therefore, a fitting associate for all who are
good, and who deem moral excellence the paramount passport to
considerations, and he will honour the name of Israel because he
observes, from an inward conviction of their truth, the duties which his
parents taught him in his early years.—And the girl, too, if she has
enjoyed a similar education, let her lot be humble or high, will enter
upon life with different sentiments from the one who knows religion only
by name; she will be ready to meet cheerfully the trials and labours
which all must encounter; and be in every respect capable of treading in
the footsteps of those thrice-blessed women who dwelt in the tents of
the Patriarchs, and became the mothers of the tribes of Israel. Is not
such a position one to be envied much more than to be for a brief season
the admired beauty of a fashionable circle, to be soon cast aside before
the bloom of youth has commenced to fade, in order to make room for a
new reigning belle, whose empire will again speedily terminate? But
social pleasures need not be neglected because the soul has drunk in
wisdom, and because the heart is daily lifted up with adoration to God.
We can be thankful amidst the festive throng, and all pleasures can be
truly hallowed when presided over by that adoration for our Father which
is ever present to the feelings of the truly wise.—All this can be
accomplished by a combination of the energies of the people, who, if
once made sensible of their permanent interest, will not rest satisfied
with any thing less than a complete revolution in our system, or rather
want of system of educating our children. No one who understands life
will venture to assert that all evils will or can be avoided by the
course we have indicated, if even every child in America were from the
cradle brought up in the strictest manner and early instructed in our
faith. This is not to be expected; for, as ever, there will be wicked
persons in despite of all human efforts; but on the other hand, it is
unquestioned and unquestionable that much can be effected by the means
at our disposal, if we do not fritter them upon sectional plans and
premature measures. Without wise deliberation and a union of efforts
every plan must fail: it is not within the range of possibility, that
crude notions can bear practical fruits, nor that opposing whatever is
proposed by one party, merely because thus proposed, can result in any
thing but failure. Let, however, the friends of Judaism, be they of what
country and sectional denomination, or standing in life they may, unite
heart and hand in the good work; let them ask counsel of each other, and
bear with each other’s prejudices till these can decently fall before a
better enlightened public opinion: and there can be no doubt but—nay
there is a certainty, that we shall see in this country, in every
section of the large cities, schools spring up as if by magic, where our
children will enjoy that education for which we have always been an
advocate from our first commencement. The writer of this has himself
felt so strongly the importance and benefit of such a training, he owes
so entirely to it alone, under Heaven, what he is, and even that that he
is permitted to speak to his fellow Israelites in this article in the
manner he does, that he deems himself impelled by every rule of duty, by
all the inducement of a holy and pleasant impulse, to urge upon all the
practicability of providing for all Israelites the same means of
benefiting themselves and others. There is mind among us, perhaps
to a greater extent than in any other family of mankind; this is no idle
boast, but the candid admission of many able writers and investigators;
and it is but requisite that we should elicit it, and it will shine with
a brilliancy of which we ourselves are perhaps ignorant at this moment.
Nearly all the systems of education adopted in Europe may safely be
pronounced as defective;—the force of circumstances has naturally
imposed upon Jews many a thing of which they would gladly rid themselves
if they were able; still the oppression which weighs them down keeps
them reaching after fancies and impracticable notions, which they would
disregard, were there limbs, so to say, freed from the fetters of
outward forces. But here we have ample verge; no controlling
circumstances, free room for the largest extension of our system. Let us
hope then, that it will not be long before our religion will have
its halls of learning and its primary schools, so that not one child
will be left in ignorance of what it ought to be the first informed of,
and continue in acquiring till the moment its education is finished.—The
means are at hand; will they be employed?—We cannot answer this
question; we leave it to our readers; to them belongs its solution. Will
they be active in it? We trust that they will neglect nothing to
accomplish it; and many blessings will attend them, and an approving
conscience will assure them in their dying hour, that they have
accomplished a task which their God has enjoined on them in his law. |
