SCHOOL DAYS IN BOHEMIA
AFTER arrangements had been made for Jozef to live with some distant
relatives, his godfather bade him good-by.
[Illustration: "HE USED TO WANDER ... TO THE FORTIFICATIONS"]
"Learn all you can, the better to help your native land," he said to
him in parting.
It was not long before Jozef felt quite at home. The boys at first
teased him about his dialect, but it was such good-natured teasing that
he did not mind it. Once when the teacher overheard them, he said:
"Do not care. Your language may not be as literary as ours, but it is
softer and more musical, and hence much more pleasing."
Jozef became very fond of the city. With a "heretic" friend, he used
to wander over the curiously arranged, toothed old streets, to the
fortifications that still stand, or to the river that surrounds the
city on three sides. Or they would stand and stare and discuss the
statues of Jan Hus, the religious martyr, of his marvelously eloquent
friend, Jerome of Prague, of Jan Zizka, and of Prokop the Great. These
and many historic relics were in the odd, triple-gabled Town Hall,
finished in 1521, in the big market square.
The statue of Zizka had an especial fascination for them. They could
see him walking right there in the Square, surrounded by armed
warriors, looking just as here represented, with expressive bent head,
long mustache, and heavy fur coat over his shirt of mail. In one hand
he held a sword, in the other, that terrible weapon that they knew was
once called by the fanciful name of the morning star.
Besides the Town Hall there were other interesting irregularly built
buildings, with peculiar ornamentation, in the Square. Before one of
them still stood one of the stone tables on which the Taborites took
communion in the open air.
How very different Bohemia seemed to him from Slovakia! Here every
one was proud of his nationality, which despite heavy taxes and many
other oppressions, the people had retained through the efforts of great
unselfish leaders who ceaselessly battled for their rights. He forgot
the humility that he used to feel when meeting a contemptuous Magyar.
Soon he held his head as high as the Czech boys did when they came
face to face with Germans who through wrong training, in their wicked
conceit, looked upon every nationality not their own, as far below
them. In Tabor this was not at all hard with all the voiceless eloquent
teachers around that reminded of past greatness and resistance to
injustice.
Jozef soon felt one of the family in the excellent home in which he
boarded. Nothing pleased the good-hearted house mother more than his
usually hearty appetite, and she seldom failed to applaud it by some
quaint folk saying, as "A hearty eater is a hearty worker." She had no
patience with fussiness about selection of food, and if she saw any
would exclaim: "He who is fussy about his food, may learn to think any
cheese would be good."
In the first days of his stay, Jozef accompanied her once to a
market day in the Square. The farmers seemed to him to have brought
a little of every kind of food that one could wish for. There was
sweet home-churned butter, cottage and other cheese, eggs, poultry,
vegetables, fruit, honey, mushrooms, poppy seed for cakes, and grain of
all kinds.
In school Jozef was now in what was called the Lower Gymnasium. He
had to be in the school building, which was not far from his boarding
place, at a quarter to eight in the morning. Sundays and Thursdays
were holidays. The school exercises began by all the pupils repeating
the Lord's Prayer and Ave Maria. After that the time was devoted to
the regular studies. The classes were named by Latin numerals, prima,
secunda, etc. to octava.
At ten o'clock came a short recess, in which the children of the Lower
Gymnasium played ball; those of the upper thought it below their
dignity to do so. Sometimes instead, the pupils indulged in a little
lunch by buying buttered bread, cheese, or fruit from the janitor.
Whenever a Professor entered the room or left it, all the children
stood up as a sign of respect.
Jozef soon came to share the devotion of the children to the teacher,
a man of delicate health but great spiritual vision, who constantly
called the attention of the pupils to the idealism found in Bohemian
(Czech) history. Through him the pupils learned, too, that Austria
was largely parasite, living on Czech wealth; that the Czechs paid
sixty-two per cent of all the taxes in Austria to support passive
non-Slav lands; that eighty-three per cent of Austrian coal was mined
in Bohemia; that sixty per cent of the iron was found there; that
ninety per cent of beet sugar factories were located there; that
textile and other industries were important. They also learned that the
renowned Bohemian glass employs over fifty thousand workers; that there
are excellent highways, extending to ten thousand miles, and several
important railroad lines; that one-third of all the gold and silver
mined in Hungary is mined in neglected Slovakia. Jozef was particularly
impressed by the fact that despite all the discrimination of the
Government against the Czech schools, the Czechs were by far the most
literate people of the monarchy.
History came to be Jozef's favorite study. He devoted much time
particularly to the glorious reign of Charles I, known also as Emperor
Charles IV, who probably did more for Bohemia than any other monarch.
One of the teacher's favorites was King George (Jiri) of Podebrad,
sometimes called the "Heretic King of Bohemia." Jozef did not
appreciate his full significance and was more interested in the stories
told of his jester, whose name was Palecek.
Palecek was no ordinary jester. He was an educated man of noble birth,
who by playing the fool could often tell truths other courtiers dared
not utter. Because he addressed every one, even the King with his
permission, as "Brother," he himself came to be known as "Brother
Palecek." One thing Brother Palecek felt as a particular duty was to
keep the King in lively humor, for the cares of state were very heavy
at the time.
Once the King gave a large dinner. At his table sat the Queen, princes
and princesses, and the highest nobles of the realm. The younger
nobles and others who served the King sat at a table apart. When
Brother Palecek arrived, he was not very well pleased at being placed
at this lower table. Soon he had another grievance; big fish were being
passed to the King and those around him, while only little fish with
many bones, came to the table at which he sat.
Gaining the attention of those about him, he took up one of the fish
and held it to his ear and asked it: "Little fish, do you know anything
about my brother?" and then placed it down again.
Then he took a second fish and asked: "Little fish, do you know
anything about my brother?" Again he laid it down and took up a third.
The young people about him burst into laughter, so funny did Palecek
look while doing this. The King asked what was amusing them.
"If it please Your Majesty," one of them answered, "Brother Palecek is
conversing with the fish."
"Brother Palecek," said the King, "what are you doing?"
"Brother King," replied Palecek, "I'll tell you. I had a brother
fisherman who was drowned in the river. So I am asking these little
fish if they know anything about him."
"And what do they tell you?" asked the King.
"They tell me," returned Palecek, "that they're still too young and
small to know anything about it, but that I'd better ask those bigger,
older fish that are on your table."
The King laughed and ordered the largest fish of all to be placed on
a dish and given to Palecek. These the jester accepted gracefully and
shared, amid general good cheer, with all at his table.
There were various boys' associations, which Jozef was soon invited to
attend or was asked to join. One was a boys' orchestra. In this land of
music, it was very natural that all who formed a part of it should have
been enthusiasts. As an encouragement to its members, the orchestra
received free tickets to all the purely national concerts given in
the city. Thus Jozef came to know better the works of the great Czech
composers, Antonin Dvorak, Bedrich Smetana, and Zdenko Fibich. He thus
also had an opportunity to hear Jan Kubelik, the renowned violinist,
and Emmy Destinn, the prima donna.
Now and then the school children were taken to a national art exhibit.
One of Vaclav Brozik, whose "Columbus at the Court of Queen Isabella"
is known to all American children, and one of Alfons Mucha, known also
in America for his poster work, but renowned in his own country in
other lines as well, were followed by one of Joza Uprka, the Moravian
Slovak, whose paintings of his beloved country folks, with their riot
of color, and his passionate portrayal of the action and joy of life,
made Jozef for a time quite homesick for the simpler, more picturesque
life of his mother's home.