FIRST IMPRESSION OF LIFE AND LABOUR ON THE CONTINENT
One clear, cold morning, about the first of September, I took a train
at Bonar Bridge, in the north of Scotland, southward bound. There was a
cold wind blowing, and Bonar Bridge is about the latitude, as I learned
from looking at my atlas, of northern Labrador--farther north, in fact,
than I had ever in my lifetime dreamed of going.
I spent the next four or five hours looking out of a car window across
the bleak, brown moors, studying the flocks of sheep and the little
thatch-roofed cottages clinging to the lonesome hillsides.
Three days later I was in the beautiful mountain region below Dresden,
on my way to Prague, the capital of Bohemia. In many ways conditions in
the farming regions of Bohemia are quite as primitive as they are among
the crofters of northern Scotland. There are, for example, a larger
number of small farmers owning their own land in Bohemia than there
are in Scotland, but the Scottish crofter, although he remains a tenant
on a large estate, has, at the present time, a more secure position
on the soil than the man who rents his land in Bohemia. In other
respects the Scotch Highlanders, whose country I had just left, and the
Czechs, whose country I was just entering, are, I should say, about as
different as one could well imagine.
Among other things I noticed that the farming people in this part of
the world do not live apart, scattered about in the open country, as
they do in Scotland, and as is the case everywhere in America. On
the contrary, the Bohemian farmers live huddled together in little
villages, in the centre of the surrounding fields, from which they
go out to their work in the morning and to which they return in the
evening.
These different manners of settling on the soil are one of the marks by
which the people in the north of Europe are distinguished from those in
the south. The northern people settle in widely scattered homesteads,
while the southern people invariably herd together in little villages,
and each individual becomes, to a great extent, dependent upon the
community and loses himself in the life about him. This accounts, in
large measure, for the difference in character of the northern and
southern people. In the north the people are more independent; in the
south they are more social. The northern people have more initiative;
they are natural pioneers. The southern people are more docile, and get
on better under the restraints and restrictions of city life. It is
said, also, that this explains why it is that the people who are now
coming to America from the south of Europe, although most of them come
from the land, do not go out into the country districts in America,
but prefer to live in the cities, or, as seems to be the case with the
Italians, colonize the suburbs of the great cities.
Another thing that interested me was the sight of women working on
the land. I had not gone far on my way south from Berlin before my
attention was attracted by the number of women in the fields. As I
proceeded southward, the number of these women labourers steadily
increased until they equalled and even outnumbered the men. One of
these I had an opportunity to see close at hand; she was coarsely clad,
barefoot, and carried a rake over her shoulder. I had seen pictures of
something like that before, but never the real thing.
Outside of Italy I have rarely seen men going barefoot either in the
country or in the city, but in southern Europe it seems to be the
custom among the working women, and I took it as an indication of the
lower position which women occupy among the people of southern Europe
as compared with the position that they occupy in America. I saw many
barefoot women later in the course of my journey, both in the field
and elsewhere. I confess, however, I was surprised to meet in Vienna,
Austria, as I did on several occasions while I was there, women walking
barefoot on the pavements in one of the most fashionable streets of
the city. One day, in speaking to a native Austrian, I expressed my
surprise at what I had seen.
"Oh, well," he replied, "they are Slovaks."
How vividly this reminded me of a parallel remark with which I was
familiar, "Oh, well, they are Negroes!"
It was the tone of this reply that caught my attention. It emphasized
what I soon discovered to be another distinguishing feature of life in
southern Europe. Everywhere I went in Austria and Hungary I found the
people divided according to the race to which they belonged. There was
one race at the top, another at the bottom, and then there were perhaps
two or three other races which occupied positions relatively higher
or lower in between. In most cases it was some section of the Slavic
race, of which there are some five or six different branches in the
Austrian Empire, which was at the bottom.
Several times, in my efforts to find out something about these
so-called "inferior people," I made inquires about them among their
more successful neighbours. In almost every case, no matter what race
it happened to be to which I referred, I received the same answer.
I was told that they were lazy and would not work; that they had no
initiative; that they were immoral and not fitted to govern themselves.
At the same time, I found them doing nearly all the really hard,
disagreeable, and ill-paid labour that was being done. Usually I found,
also, that with fewer opportunities than the people around them, they
were making progress.
I was frequently surprised at the bitterness between the races. I have
heard people talk more violently, but I do not think I have heard
any one say anything worse in regard to the Negro than some of the
statements that are made by members of one race in Austria in regard to
members of some other.
I reached the city of Prague late at night, and awoke next morning
in a world that was utterly new to me. It was not that Prague looked
so different from other European cities I had seen, but the language
sounded more strange than anything else I had ever heard. I do not
pretend to understand German, yet it seemed to me that there was
something familiar and friendly about that language as compared with
Czech.
The Czechs are but one of the seventeen races of Austria-Hungary, each
one of which, with the exception of the Jews, who are an exception to
everything, is seeking to preserve its own language, and, if possible,
compel all its neighbours to learn it. Preserving its own language is
not difficult in the country districts, where each race lives apart in
its own village and maintains its own peculiar customs and traditions.
It is more difficult in the large cities like Vienna and Budapest,
where the different nationalities come into intimate contact with each
other and with the larger European world.
There is a region in northeastern Hungary where in the course of a
day's ride one may pass through, one after another, villages inhabited
by as many as five different races--Ruthenians, Jews, Roumanians,
Hungarians, and Germans. A racial map of the Dual Empire shows
districts in which one race predominates, but these same districts
will very likely be dotted with villages in which the fragments of
other races still survive, some of them, like the Turks, so few in
number that they are not separately counted as part of the population.
Under these circumstances travel in this part of the world is made
interesting but not easy.
Fortunately, I had letters of introduction to Dr. Albert W. Clarke,
head of the Austrian branch of the American Board of Missions at
Prague, and he introduced me to some of his native assistants who
spoke English, and kindly assisted me in finding what I most desired
to see of the city and the people. Through him I had an opportunity
to get inside of some of the tenements in which European people live,
and to see some of the working people in their homes. I did not have
an opportunity to explore the parts of the city in which the very poor
people live; in fact, I was told that there was nothing in Prague that
corresponded to the slums of our English and American cities. There is
much poverty, but it is poverty of a self-respecting sort--not of those
who have been defeated and gone under, but of those who have never got up.
I found the average Bohemian workman living in two rooms and working
for wages considerably less than the same kind of labour would have
brought in England, and very much less than the same kind of labour
would have brought in America. There is, however, very little use in
comparing the wages that men earn unless you are able to compare all
the surrounding conditions.
During my stay in Prague I had an opportunity to see something close at
hand of the life of the farming population. Under the guidance of one
of Doctor Clarke's assistants I drove out one day to a little village
where there were a number of people who had come under the influence of
the American Mission in Prague, and where I was assured I should find a
welcome.
It was not, perhaps, the best place to get an idea of what is most
characteristic in Bohemian country life. I had hoped to see something
of the local customs of the country people, but, though it was a
holiday when I made my visit, I did not see a single peasant costume.
There are still many places in Bohemia, I understand, where the people
take pride in wearing the national costumes, and there are still many
parts of the Austrian Empire where relics of the older civilization
linger. Indeed, I heard of places where, it is said, the peasants
are still paying the old feudal dues; in other places the old unfree
condition of the peasants is still continued in the form of peonage,
as it may still be sometimes found in our Southern States. In this
case the peasants have got themselves into debt for land. They are
not allowed to work off this debt, and this serves as a pretence
for keeping them bound to the soil. But education and the growth
of manufacturing industries have banished the traces of the older
civilization from the greater part of Bohemia.
In the village which I visited, as in most of the farming villages
in this part of the world, the houses of the farmers stand in a row
quite close together on either side of the street. In the rear are the
quarters of the servants, the storehouses and the stables, the pig-stys
and the cow-stalls, all closely connected, so that it was often a
little uncertain to me where the quarters for the servants left off and
those for the animals began. In fact, in some places no very definite
distinction was made.
One of the most interesting places that I visited during my stay in
this village was a dairy farm which was conducted by a Jew. He was
evidently one of those of the lower or middle class--a type one hears
much of in Europe--who, with very little knowledge or skill in the
actual work of agriculture, have succeeded by their superior business
skill in getting possession of the land and reducing the peasant to a
position not much better than that of a serf. This man not only kept
a dairy farm but he operated two or three brickyards besides, and had
other extensive business interests in the village. Although he was
a man of wealth and intelligence, he had his dwelling in the midst
of a compound around which were grouped houses for his labourers,
cow-stalls, a wheelwright and blacksmith shop, places for pigs,
chickens, and dogs, the whole in a condition of indescribable disorder
and filth.
The greater part of the work on the farm seemed to be done by women,
most of whom were barefooted or wore wooden shoes. I do not think
I have seen any one wearing wooden shoes before since the days of
slavery. They had remained in my mind as the symbol of poverty and
degradation; but they are worn everywhere in country districts in
Europe. In fact, I remember in one instance, when I visited an
agricultural school, finding one of the teachers working in the garden
wearing wooden shoes. The people who worked on this farm all lived, as
far as I could see, in one little ill-smelling and filthy room. There
was no sign in the homes which I visited of those household industries
for which Hungarian peasants are noted, and which should help to
brighten and make comfortable the simplest home.
I believe there are few plantations in our Southern States where, even
in the small one-room cabins, one would not find the coloured people
living in more real comfort and more cleanliness than was the case
here. Even in the poorest Negro cabins in the South I have found
evidences that the floor was sometimes scrubbed, and usually there was
a white counterpane on the bed, or some evidence of an effort to be
tidy.
Prague is one of the most ancient cities in Europe. A thing that
impressed me with the antiquity of the town was the fact that before
the beginning of the Christian era there was a Jewish quarter in this
city. Prague is also one of the most modern cities in Europe. Within
a comparatively few years large manufacturing plants have multiplied
throughout the country. Bohemia makes, among other things, fezzes, and
sells them to Turkey; raises beans, and ships them to Boston.
What is most interesting is the fact that this progress has been, to a
very large extent, made possible through the education of the masses
of the people. The Bohemians are to-day among the best educated people
in Europe. For example, among the immigrants who come from Europe to
America, 24.2 per cent. over fourteen years of age are unable to read
and write. In the case of the German immigrant not more than 5.8 per
cent. are unable to read or write. In the case of the Bohemians the
percentage of illiteracy is only 3 per cent. There is only one class of
immigrants among whom the percentage of illiteracy is lower. Among the
Danish immigrants it is 0.8 per cent.
There is no part of the Austrian Empire where education is more
generally diffused or where the schools are so well adapted to the
actual needs of the people. In addition to the ordinary primary
schools and the gymnasia (which correspond to our high schools) there
are several higher institutes of technology which prepare students
for industry and commerce. Besides these state schools there are a
large number of industrial schools that are maintained by cities
or by private associations. Some of these are located in the small
towns and are closely connected with the local industries. Sometimes
they are organized by the members of the different trades and crafts
as a supplement to the apprentice system. For example, in a town
where the inhabitants are engaged in the clay industry, there will
be found schools which give practical courses in the making of vases
and crockery. In some of the larger towns commercial and industrial
instruction is given in "continuation schools." In these schools
girls who have learned needlework in the elementary schools will be
taught sewing, dressmaking, and embroidery and lace work. There are
also courses in which boys are prepared to work in the sugar-making,
brewing, watchmaking, and other manufacturing industries.
In the two institutes of technology in Prague, one of which is
for Bohemians and the other for Germans, courses are given which
prepare students to be engineers, chemists, machinists, architects,
bookkeepers, etc. In connection with these courses there are also
special departments where students are prepared to be master workmen
in such trades as bricklaying, carpentry, cabinet-making, and stone
masonry.
There is much in the life and history of the Bohemian people that is
especially interesting to a race or a people like the Negro, that
is itself struggling up to a higher and freer level of life and
civilization.
Up to 1848 the masses of the Bohemian people were held in a condition
of serfdom. Until 1867 they were not allowed to emigrate from the
country, and were thus held, as are the Russian peasants to-day, to a
certain degree, prisoners in their own country. Most of the land was in
the hands of the nobility, who were the descendants of foreigners who
came into the country when it was conquered, a century or more before.
Even to-day five families own 8 per cent. of all the land in the
kingdom, and one tenth of the population owns 36 per cent. of the area
of the country. The Emperor and the Catholic Church are also large
landowners.
One of the effects of this new education and the new life that has
come with it has been to make the land held in larger estates less
productive than that which is divided into smaller holdings and
cultivated by the men who own it.
It was interesting to me to learn that the Bohemians in their own
country suffer from some of the same disadvantages as the Negro in
the South. For example, the educational fund is divided between the
races--the Germans and the Czechs--just as the money for education is
divided in the South between the whites and the blacks, but, as is true
in the South, it is not divided equally between the races.
For example, in the city of Prague there is one gymnasium (school) to
every 62,000 Czech inhabitants, while the Germans have one gymnasium
for every 6,700 inhabitants. Of what are called the real-schools, in
which the education is more practical than that of the gymnasia, there
is one for every 62,000 Bohemian inhabitants, while the Germans have
one for every 10,000 inhabitants. For a number of years past, although
the Bohemians represent 70 per cent. of the population, they have
received only a little more than one half of the money appropriated
for secondary education, both in the gymnasia and the real-schools.
The salaries of teachers in the elementary schools range from $155 to
$400 per year; in the schools in which the German language is taught,
however, teachers receive an added bonus for their services.
To overcome their disadvantages in this direction the Czechs have
supplemented the work of the public schools by industrial schools,
which are maintained by the contributions of the people in the same way
that the Negroes in many parts of the South have supplemented the work
of the public schools in order to increase the terms of the school year
and to introduce industrial training of various sorts.
More than this, the masses of the people in Bohemia are limited and
restricted in all their movements in ways of which no one in America
who has not passed through the hands of the immigration inspectors at
Ellis Island has any comprehension. For example, the people of Austria
have had for a number of years freedom of conscience, and, in theory at
least, every one is allowed to worship according to his own inclination
and convictions. Nevertheless, it seems to be as much a crime in
Austria to say anything that could be construed as disrespectful to the
Catholic Church as it would be to insult the name of the Emperor. I
heard a story of a woman who ran a small store in which she was using
copies of a Catholic newspaper with which to wrap up articles which she
had sold to her customers. She was warned by the police that if she
continued to use this paper for that purpose she would be liable to
arrest. Afterward packages were found in her store which were wrapped
in this paper; she was arrested and the case was carried to the highest
court, but the sentence which had been imposed upon her stood, and she
was compelled to serve a term in prison as punishment for this offence.
It was only with the greatest difficulty, Doctor Clarke informed
me, that he succeeded in getting permission from the Government to
establish a branch of the Young Men's Christian Association in Prague.
I myself had some experience of these restrictions when I spoke before
an audience composed largely of young Bohemian workmen in the rooms of
this same Young Men's Christian Association. In order that I might be
permitted to make this address it was necessary to announce the subject
to the officers of the Government three days before I arrived in the
city, and at the meeting I had the unusual experience of having my
words taken down by a Government official who was present to see that I
did not say anything that would disturb the public peace.
Not knowing what else I could say to this audience that would interest
them, I told briefly the story of my own life and of the work that we
are trying to do for our students at Tuskegee. I told them also that
the institution (Hampton Institute) in which I had gained my education
had been established by the same American Board of Missions which was
responsible for the existence of the Young Men's Christian Association
in Bohemia.
In order that my hearers might understand what I said, it was necessary
for the secretary of the association, a Bohemian who spoke very good
English, to translate my words sentence by sentence. In spite of these
difficulties I do not think I ever spoke to an audience of labouring
people who were more intelligent or more appreciative. It was a great
pleasure and satisfaction to me to be able to speak to this audience.
I felt, as I think they did, that we had something in common which
others, perhaps, could not entirely understand, because each of us
belonged to a race which, however different in other respects, was the
same in this: that it was struggling upward.