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No. 19. / Vienna, 9 May 1902. / 6th Year

Once More the Activity of the "Alliance."

By Dr. A. Elias (Mülhausen).

Against the arguments of my last article on the activity of the "Alliance" various objections have been raised, from friendly quarters and from hostile ones. It was said: The "Alliance" has not only the purpose of bringing help to the distressed Jews; it is also an educational institution, and as such it has worked veritable wonders through its schools. That it has not hitherto been able to lessen the misery of the Jews does not prove that its methods are worthless. Let it but develop them; let it but continue upon the path it has trodden; let it but be better supported by the Jews, and the hope is not excluded that it will at last put an end to want and oppression. As a field for emigration it chose now this country, now that, according as the conditions of settlement in a country improved or grew worse. For the colonists it could not do much, because its means are limited.

In point of fact the "Alliance," according to its statutes, has not only the purpose of rendering effective help to those who suffer in their character as Jews; it is also to labour for the equality and the cultural progress of the Jews.

The "Alliance" schools are meant to serve the education and cultural elevation of the Jews; they have, however, scarcely attained this end. Proof: the degree of education and the thirst for education among the Jews of Russia, where there are no "Alliance" schools, are far greater than among the Jews of those regions in which the "Alliance" maintains most of its schools. The "Alliance" schools, moreover, can do but little to further education, because their programme contradicts the most elementary demands of pedagogy.

As Leven reports in an account of the year 1873, the "Alliance" seeks to introduce in its schools, "together with the programme of our European schools, the serious study of the Hebrew language, one or two European languages, and the language of the country." What is to be understood by the programme of the European schools is shown by the Bulletin of the year 1895. According to it, there are taught in the "Alliance" schools, besides the languages, general and Jewish history, and further geography and the sciences. By the sciences are to be understood mathematics and the natural sciences.

In the "Alliance" schools, then, as many subjects are taught as in a German Real- or Oberrealschule, or even more. So far as their programme is concerned, they stand on the same level as our Realschulen. If one considers, however, that the teachers are only elementary teachers, and that the number of pupils in proportion to the number of teachers is far too great, they will bear comparison only with our elementary schools. If one further takes into account that the instruction is given in a foreign tongue (French is the language of instruction in most of the "Alliance" schools), then the "Alliance" school sinks far below the level of our elementary school.

That under such circumstances the results cannot be brilliant is self-evident, and is in part admitted even by the management of the "Alliance." Of an educated man one demands first of all that he should command the language of his country. In 1893 the "Alliance" was obliged to admit in its report that in Turkey, where it has most of its schools, the teaching of the Turkish language shows only defective results. In one subject alone, the teaching of French, do the results appear to be quite splendid, although a command of the French language is as good as worthless for future artisans, peasants and small traders in the East, nor is it the necessary attribute of the educated non-Frenchman.

French language and French methods, moreover, play so great a part in the "Alliance" schools that a French traveller in Palestine, Gabriel Charmes, could express the hope, in a work published in 1884, that France would, through the agency of the "Alliance" teachers, acquire a Jewish clientèle which would attach itself to the Catholic French clientèle.

This hope is well founded. It corresponds, however, neither to the tendencies which in the "Alliance" statutes