Solomon Maimon an Autobiography - 1888 Author:Salomon Maimon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Jewish Schools—The Joy of being released from them causes a stiff foot. My brother Joseph and I were sent to Mir to school. My brother, who was... more » about twelve years old, was put to board with a schoolmaster of some repute at that time, by name Jossel. This man was the terror of all young people, " the scourge of God ;" he treated those in his charge with unheard of cruelty, flogged them till the blood came, even for the slightest offence, and not infrequently tore off their ears, or beat their eyes out. When the parents of these unfortunates came to him, and brought him to task, he struck them with stones or whatever else came to hand, and drove them with his stick out of the house back to their own dwellings, without any respect of persons. All under his discipline became either blockheads or good scholars. I, who was then only seven years old, was sent to another schoolmaster. An anecdote I must here relate, which shows on the one side great brotherly love, and on the other may be viewed as expressing the condition of a child's mind, that sways between the hope of lightening an evil, and the fear of increasing it. One day as I came from school,my eyes were all red with weeping, for which there was doubtless good cause. My brother observed this, and asked the reason. At first I showed some hesitation in answering ; but at last I said, " I weep because we dare not tell tales out of school." My brother understood me very well, was extremely indignant at my teacher, and was going to read him a lesson on the subject. I begged him however not to do it, because in all probability the teacher would take his revenge on me for telling tales out of school. I must now say something of the condition of the Jewish schools in general. The school is commonly a small smoky ...« less