"
* * * * *
No man without the support and encouragement of friends, and having proper
opportunities thrown in his way, is able to rise at once from obscurity,
by the force of his own unassisted genius.--_Pliny's Letters_.
* * * * *
RABBIS
Constitute a sort of nobility of the Jews, and it is the first object of
each parent that his sons shall, if possible, attain it. When, therefore,
a boy displays a peculiarly acute mind and studious habits, he is placed
before the twelve folio volumes of the Talmud, and its legion of
commentaries and epitomes, which he is made to pore over with an
intenseness which engrosses his faculties entirely, and often leaves him
in mind, and occasionally in body, fit for nothing else; and so vigilant
and jealous a discipline is exercised so to fence him round as to secure
his being exclusively Talmudical, and destitute of every other learning
and knowledge whatever, that one individual has lately met with three
young men, educated as rabbis, who were born and lived to manhood in the
middle of Poland, and yet knew not one word of its language. To speak
Polish on the Sabbath is to profane it--so say the orthodox Polish Jews.
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