Czech language forming a part of the curriculum of the gymnasia, but later it was forced out by the enemies of the Czech people on the ground that it was taking up too much time that could be used for other subjects. If the professors voluntarily gave two Czech lessons in a week, they were denounced as Panslavists, Russian agents, modernists, abusers of religion and contaminators of morals. The memorandum backs up its demands with a quotation from Herder: “Civilization cannot be forced upon a nation in a foreign tongue. It can only thrive on its own national soil, in the language inherited by the people. The heart of a nation can be reached only through its own language.”
The noble task of the Austrian rulers, according to the memorandum, is to lead the nations entrusted into their care to a true civilization, each of them in its own peculiar way. These were the arguments supporting the Czech demands in the “Denschrift über den gegenwärt Zustand des böhmischen Sprachunterrichtes an den Lehranstalten Böhmens.”
The answer came in October, 1835. It summarily rejected the Czech demands. On the whole it amounted to saying that the grammar schools must be German to prepare the pupils for the high schools and the high schools must remain German because the pupils from the grammar schools already know German. From this answer of 1835 down to 1848 nothing was done for the Czech language in schools or in the public offices. There was both an opportunity and a demand for it. When in 1844 Professor Exner of the Prague University was called to the Imperial Commission of Studies, he proposed that in the gymnasia also the Italian and the Slavonic languages be taught, wherever the Italians and the Slavs form a part of the population of Austria. In the year 1846 the Emperor gave his consent to the founding, at the Prague Polytechnic, of a chair of Italian.
Bohemian patriots were at first not opposed to the introduction, by Joseph II., of the German language into Bohemian schools. On the contrary, some of them, like Dobrovský, Kramerius and others, favored such a reform. They understood that the introduction of a living tongue, German, in the place of a dead language, Latin, meant a final renouncement of the medieval in education. But soon they were disappointed. “In Vienna,” Dobrovský wrote, “I know it from diplomatic sources, there was hatched the fiendish principle of germanization”; and this knowledge was inherited by all Czech national leaders after Dobrovský.
There was an equality, beofre the law, of the German and the Czech languages even under Ferdinand; but that was only on paper. Czech complaints were suppressed by the censor. Bohemian and Moravian Estates relaxed in all their demands, especially the so-called State-Rights and Educational demands. There ewre afraid of education.
But the Czech nation grew in spite of all these obstacles. It took recourse to self-help. Considering the poor conditions of the times we cannot but admire the fact that the society for the publication of Czech books, “Matice Česká,” in the thirties and forties published two Museum Journals, Šafařík’s Slavic Antiquities, Jungman’s History of the Czech Literature, his voluminous Dictionary of the Czech Language and Chrestomathy and Prosody, Palacký’s History of the Czech Nation, Erben’s Czech Chrestomathy, not to speak of smaller works, like Všehrd’s Nine Law Books, Čelakovský’s Political Works, Komenský’s (Comenius) Didactics, The History of the Prague University, Smetana’s Physics, and General History, Marek’s Philosophy, Logic, and Metaphysics, Hyna’s Psychology, etc., etc.
The Bohemian patriots considered it a great success that the government did not interfere with their private activities. They were grateful to the Imperial Commission when in 1846 it allowed Dr. Dudik to lecture on the Czech language and Literature in the Brno (Brunn) Philosophical Institute; which he did without pay, out of mere zeal. They were grateful to the Estates in Prague when they allowed Czech dramas to be given in their theatres under the management of Tyl.
In 1846 Havlíček, then in his twenty-fifth year, assumed the editorship of the Prague Daily, Pražské Noviny; in its first issue he introduced himself as an enemy of all vain crying and compaining; already in February in his article “The Slav and the Czech,” he put to his readers this angry question: “Who can forbid us to learn Bohemian? Is anybody commanding the Magyars to learn their language, to love their mother tongue and their nationality?” At this time already Havlíček was beginning to think of a formation of a Czech poltiical party.
Not even for this period of its development does the Czech nation owe anything to Austria.
LOSS OF POPULATION IN PRAGUE
At the meeting of the Prague City Council, held on June 3d, the city physician made a report on vital statistics which revealed a startling condition of affairs.
In 1913 the number of births was 3,274, but in 1917 it was only 1,716, that is a loss of 48%. As against that the number of deaths increased from 3,000 to 3,828. In 1913 the number of births was equal to the number of deaths; in 1914 there was an excess of deaths amounting to 250, in 1915 the excess was 1,046, in 1916 it was 1,397, and in 1917 it amounted to 2,115. The total population of Prague and suburbs has decreased during the war by 32,237, that is 15%. The city physician emphasized the fact that the great increase of deaths was due principally to tuberculosis, and that in the districts inhabited by workingmen consumption was particularly serious.
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