The Maccabaean

guages; and for the higher schools, modern literature as well. This work is very extensive and will require decades for its accomplishment. Translations should be made as far as possible from original sources, or when that is not possible should at least be compared with the original. Not only should the translation be well done, but the appearance of the book should also be attractive and the price moderate, so that the reader who understands Hebrew shall prefer to turn to the Hebrew translation rather than to one in another lansnace.

-- 0-9 This literature of translation will also serve as a great help in the study and mastery of the Hebrew language to all such as find it difficult to acquire a knowledge of Hebrew by the slow method of language text-books, but find it easier to read a classic book in comparison with the course or with another translation. For this purpose there will be a need of rather exhaustive dictionaries, in which each word appears in Hebrew and in its foreign translation. The translation of the most important books in the various branches of science will further enrich and dignify the language. Particularly helpful would be popular books of science which would enable the individual teacher to perfect himself in his profession and would also be of service to the intellectual class senerallv.

Translations should not in any way discourage original work. This is self-evident. On the contrary, we must pay special regard to every evidence of original talent, in order to encourage, strengthen and develop it. And this not only in poetry, but also in scientific research and even legal disputation. Not a grain of Jewish thought that can be presented in a pleasant and interesting manner ought to be neglected. We must guard as the apple of our eye evidence of potential originality and every promise of genius. But even with our limited resources we can do much in the field of translation if we apply ourselves systematically to the work.

At the present time few may realize the necessity of all this work since by means of other languages (many of which are spoken in Palestine) the best of the world’s literature can be obtained. But the need will become greater as time goes on, and unless we prepare for our youth and for the people in general the spiritual food which they crave while yet there is time, they will be compelled to seek pasturage in foreign fields, and all our educational efforts in the land will have been in vain. We have for some time observed with pain the lack of proper reading matter for children, and in the higher grades we were compelled to reveal to the pupils the sad secret that we had no books for them. And to a much greater extent was this shortage felt in the intermediate schools, where, instead of presenting to them a systematic course in literature, we could not even show them literary models in our own language, but had to refer them to Russian, French or German literature.

DANGERS ARISING FROM LACK OF BOOKS IN HEBREW

This condition of affairs is not only unnatural but also dangerous from two points of view: the one truly human and the other national. The danger from the general human point of view is that the majority of students are not sufficiently familiar, nor will they ever be sufficiently familiar with a foreign language to enable them not only to understand the contents of a book but also to feel its beauty and the unique spirit that breathes in every phrase. In this way the Hebrew lad will get to understand only the

external meaning of the words without being able to penetrate into their inner spirit. He will become accustomed to interest himself only in the events narrated while the important thing is the form, style, and spirit of the book. This inability to penetrate into the very heart of what he reads will make him superficial, banal, insipid. He will be like a tree that is outwardly beautiful but inwardly shows symntome of rottennese and deray.

הק ד וו וו וו וו וו 0000200 But the national danger that is lurking is even greater. When the boy will grow up he will see how poor and inane is our own modern literature, because for anything really beautiful and exalted he has to resort to a foreign language. What impression will this make on him? Will he not feel ashamed of his mother tongue and abandon it? Furthermore, the habit of constantly consulting books in foreign tongues will develop a preference for them and will at the same time cause further estrangement from his own pople. It is no rarity to hear from some of our most educated men who were brought up on Hebrew literature that they can no longer read a Hebrew book because they are unaccustomed to itnow. This is a defect that can be corrected by an extensive literature of translations. Translations, if well executed, will find their way into the literature of a living people and become “bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh.” Such instances are many. Russian literature was for a long time fed upon translations or adaptations more or less successful, and in the field of science it has still to resort to translations. We can scarcely measure the influence that translations have upon the development of a language. The translations of Frishman, “Mendele,” and Berkowitz (Sholem Alehem)—particularly those of the last two—are suff- cient proof of the value of translations in this regard.

We are complaining, and justly I believe, of the lack of vitality and vivacity in our spoken language, and we are covered with shame when we see that the Hebrew which some of our Maskilim speak is nothing more than a jumble of words and colloquial phrases frequently corrupt, so that gradually there is coming into existence a peculiar kind of a jargon which is, to be sure, made up of Hebrew words, but lacks the distinctive quality of a language which so many generations have endowed with their spirit and upon which they have set their seal. The translations referred to prove that the fault does not lie in the language itself, but rather in our ignorance of its usage and in the absence of the two principal sources from which a living tongue derives its strength: popular usage on the one hand and the language of literary creation on the other. Daily use of the language by the masses of our people is, as yet, beyond our power, but the influence that the literary language exerts upon the spoken tongue could be made available if we earnestly strive 10 put into the hands of our youth and of all the people literature adapted to their spiritual needs.

Thus we see that the urgent need for translations has grown out of the recognition that without such a literature there can be for us no real general culture nor without it would our national development and the revival of our language in the full sense of the term be possible. It is true that translations into Hebrew have already been attempted on a large scale as for example in the publication of the "Tushiah." But these have failed, partly on account of financial considerations, but mainly because of the failure clearly to apprehend the aim of such activity. That the aim was misunderstood is seen from the lack of unity in the choice of subject matter selected for translation. The whole work seems to