made in synagogues and at Jewish celebrations, and the stamps can be attached to allcorrespondence. Zionist organizations especially should make a point of affixing astamp to all their ordinary correspondence,and they should likewise stamp all their tickets for social and other gatherings. In this
way the Fund will grow rapidly.
In answer to inquiries, we may mention that in this matter the office of the Federation is setting an example, and we find that the postal authorities raise no objection to the affixing of the Jewish national stamps on envelopes.
The Forum MODERN JEWISH EDUCATION
NOW and then one hears complaints in the public prints that the trend of modern education is toward an ideal purely materialistic; that while the youth is fitted for the battle of life, he has hardly any idea of the godliness of life; and that his ethical and moral culture is either neglected or left to the Sunday-school, or, still worse, to the uncertain influences of a fickle literary taste. Now, while the ideal of the modern educator seems to be expressed in the word character, little else is meant by it than a respect for one's own physical and mental powers, together with a due respect for the corresponding powers in others. This is neither the Old-Testament Hebrew ideal, nor the New- Testament Christian ideal: it is the pagan ideal. This pagan ideal may be good enough for a young nation where man has only to conquer Nature. But those happy times have passed. The competitive system of our time, together with the pagan ideal of the modern educator, tend only to brutalize the race.
The so-called successful man is put up as a hero and a prophet. The successful money-grabber, the successful bank-breaker, the successful prize-fighter, the successful gambler, murderer, is put up on a pedestal as hero of the hour in the glaring calcium-light of a sensational press, whose sole aim is to gain the largest circulation.
Not that this brutalization of the race is left unopposed; there are the various Y. M. C. A.'s, the Christian Endeavor Societies,
etc. There are also the Sunday-schools and the Salvation Army. But with all these efforts we, as Jews, have nothing to do. For it is the same old story: "I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you," and so following; "but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you." Now, these words seem to contain the alpha and omega of the possible relationship between the Jew and his Christian fellow-citizen, as long as both remain what they are. As to companionship in praying, it has always ended in both, Jew and Christian, giving up their prayers altogether. And even minus their prayers, Jew and Gentile seem to drift apart; for, historically speaking, assimilation of the Jew by the Gentile world has always turned out to be a half-hearted affair. And so the Jewish youth, educated in the public schools and colleges, may be left as devoid of ethical and moral backbone as a Hun. In the public schools he may learn his "three R's"; in the colleges he may learn his profession; but the ethics, morals and ideals of the civilized world may remain a sealed book for him. It is true we have our synagogues, temples, and even cheder, but their influence on the modern Jewish youth is almost nil. For what good will the most beautiful sermon do if the listener has no sympathy with, and no understanding of, the stern spirit and ethics of the Old Testament? And what lasting good can the cheder instruction