Still more interesting and, for our purpose, more important were their
public and private institutions of learning. Jews have always been noted
for the solicitous care they exercise in the education of the young. The
Slavonic Jews surpassed their brethren of other countries in this
respect. At times they wrenched the tender bond of parental love in
their ardor for knowledge. With a republican form of government they
created an aristocracy, not of wealth or of blood, but of intellect. The
education of girls was, indeed, neglected. To be able to read her
prayers in Hebrew and to write Yiddish was all that was expected of a
mother in Israel. It was otherwise with the boys. Every Jew deemed
himself in duty bound to educate his son. "Learning is the best
merchandise"--_Torah iz die beste sehorah_--was the lesson inculcated
from cradle to manhood, the precept followed from manhood to old age.
All the lullabies transmitted to us from earliest times indicate the
pursuit of knowledge as the highest ambition cherished by mothers for
their sons:

Patsché, patsché, little tootsies,
We shall buy us little bootsies;
Little bootsies we shall buy,
To run to heder we shall try;
Torah we'll learn and all good ma'alot (qualities),
On our wedding eve we shall solve sha'alot (ritual problems).[39]

To have a scholarly son or son-in-law was the best passport to the
highest circles, a means of rising from the lowliest to the loftiest
station in life.

It is no wonder, then, that schools abounded in every community. At the