Independent Bohemia - An Account of the Czecho-Slovak Struggle for Liberty by Vladimír Nosek
page 162 of 185 (87%)
page 162 of 185 (87%)
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Germans.
Persons knowing how to write and read 95-1/2% 92% 40% Persons knowing how to read only 3% 1% 4% Illiterates 1-1/2% 7% 56% The Czechs have accomplished this by their own efforts, as is shown by the fact that 151 Czech schools are kept up by a private Czech society. These 151 schools have altogether 287 classes and 522 teachers, and are attended by more than 15,000 children. The unjust treatment of the Czechs in regard to schools is further shown by the fact that 9,000,000 Germans in Austria had five universities, 5,000,000 Poles two universities, while 7,000,000 Czechs had only one. The German University in Prague had 878 students in 1912, the Czech University 4713. The Germans in Prague number some 10,000 (_i.e._ 1-1/2 per cent.), yet they have their public schools and even a university; while the Czechs in Vienna, numbering at least some 300,000 (_i.e._ over 15 per cent.), are deprived even of elementary schools, to say nothing of secondary schools and universities. The Slovaks of Hungary were, of course, in an absolutely hopeless position in view of the terrible system of Magyar oppression. The Magyars consider the schools as the most effective means for magyarisation. In the 16 counties inhabited by the Slovaks there are only 240 Slovak schools, and even in those schools Magyar is taught sometimes fully 18 hours a week. The number of Slovak schools has been systematically reduced from 1921 in 1869 to 440 in 1911, and 240 in 1912, and these are attended by some 18,000 children out of 246,000, _i.e._ 8 per cent. The Slovaks opened three secondary schools in the early seventies, but all three were arbitrarily closed in 1874. They have, of course, no university. Thus they were |
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