Letters from Palestine
(From our Palestine correspondent, Miss Helena H. Cohen.)
The Gymnasium Examinations
While I am sitting at my writing-desk, I hear a young voice singing happily a Hebrew folk-song. I know why that voice sounds so happy: it belongs to one of the young men who were pupils in the highest form of the Hebrew Gymnasium at Jaffa and who have yesterday learned the results of their final examinations. There were 32 candidates for those examinations this year—15 girls and 17 young men and not one of them failed. Dr. Mossinsohn, the principal of the Gymnasium, who was extremely sorry that he had to take a sick-leave before the end of the term will be very glad when he receives the news of this excellent result at Neuengahr, where he is undergoing medical treatment.
This is the second generation of young men and women who have gone through the upper-class of the Gymnasium and go out in the world taking with them a thorough Hebrew education and that larger national spirit which prevails in the modern Hebrew schools of Palestine. A number of the graduates wish to stay another year in the country before they take up their studies aboard. They wish to work as laborers in the Zionist colonies —this voluntary one year's service being in a way related to the compulsory military service of other nations. Most of the girls do not intend to study abroad, but wish either to take up teaching or some other profession in the country, or else to continue their studies privately in the houses of their parents or future husbands in Palestine.
The Hebrew Language
The "Gymnasiasts" have recently given another proof of their enthusiasm for the Hebrew language and culture by strongly protesting against certain attempts at the promulgation of the Yiddish language by means of lectures in Yiddish and theatrical performances in Tel Aviv. There may be different opinions as to the methods used by the young students, but it should
be remembered that the propagation of any but the Hebrew language in the center of Hebrew culture must necessarily be regarded as a provocation. Other nations whose individualities are so firmly established that foreign influence cannot shake them can afford to ignore such things, but with us whose revived language is not yet a tradition it is otherwise; though we may seem intolerant.
The question of Hebrew schools will again become acute at the meetings of the Palestine teachers and the Agudath Hachinuch, which are going to take place at Haifa, on the 26th Ab. It is expected that a Jewish board of public education in Palastine will then be established, to have control of schools of the Odessa Committee, of the Ica and of the Zionist organnization A great number of Palestinian members of the Agudah will probably be enlisted.
Fine Arts
The fine arts were not neglected either during the last school-term. This was shown at the occasion of the examinations held in the Music Schools at Jaffa and Jerusalem. These fine institutions have been making headway in the few years that have elapsed since they were founded. Palestine has now a number of young musicians who, at their occasional musical recitals, remind the Palestinians who are far removed from the artistic opportunities of more developed countries, that art exists. Unfortunately, the means of these music schools are but very limited, and unless some friends abroad, appreciating the value of art in the hard lives of the young Palestinians, come to its rescue, it will hardly be possible to make arrangements with new teachers for the coming term.
Speaking of art, I should not forget to mention the new acquisition which the Bezalel has made in the person of Herr Strich, who has just come from Russia as a new artistic advisor of the Bezalel Institute. Herr Strich, a very clever artist who has studied fine arts in Paris on a scholarship granted to him by the Rus-