The cultural desire of the handicraftsmen,
constituting twelve per cent of the Russo-Jewish population and
occasionally fifty-two per cent (Odessa), seventy-three per cent
(Kovno), and even ninety per cent (Byelostok), is phenomenal. Their
object is not only physical improvement. Their highest aim is that their
members be enabled, by means of efficient night schools and private
instruction, to acquire elementary and higher education; in the words of
the constitution of the carpenters' union of Minsk, "to protect their
material interests, raise their moral and intellectual status, and
foster efforts of self-help."[17]
The Hebrew teachers, a class which, though more respected, underwent as
hard a struggle as the workingmen, banded themselves together in 1899 in
the Society for Aiding Hebrew Teachers of the Province of Vilna. Their
president was Michael Wolper, the inspector of the Hebrew Institute and
successor to Wohl as censor of Hebrew publications. Similar attempts
were made in Bessarabia. Rabbi Shachor, chairman of the Hebrew Teachers'
Association of Yekaterinoslav, was instrumental in opening a normal
school conducted on Chautauqua principles, and so advanced the cause of
education considerably.
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