Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/387

of farming land and highly developed manufactures. Its people are educated; the Bohemian percentage of illiteracy is very low, said to be less than 3 percent, and though the percentage among the Slovaks is much higher, schools are being established more rapidly than anywhere else in Europe. So far, at any rate, differences in religion have created no friction.

Best of all for Czechoslovakia, it has a leader in “Father Masaryk,” who has the confidence of the whole people. They know he is honest, and they are convinced that he is practical. He has fought their battle for years, and in the time of victory has changed neither his habits nor his point of view.

The Czechoslovaks look on America with pride, as the country of idealism. It is not outside the bounds of possibility that Americans may come to look on Czechoslovakia with equal pride, as the country in which idealism was translated into efficiency.—Chicago (Ill.) Examiner.

The dispute between the Poles and Czechs over Teschen, originally a district of Austrian Silesia, has been compromised in a way that apparently should be satisfactory to both sides. At one time it was a duchy attached to Bohemia, but was swallowed up along with that country by the Hapsburgs. Historically it belonged to the Czechs, but the bulk of the population is Polish. The district contains valuable coal mines which both Poles and Czechs wanted and on which Bohemian industry had largely depended. The dispute finally developed in a clash at arms.

The Poles appear to have been mainly in the wrong in starting the trouble, and they were the chief sufferers. Not only could they count on no help from the Czechs in their war against Russia, but the Russians even hoped, though in vain, for a Czech attack on the Polish rear. The Czechs have remained neutral, but Poland has found little sympathy among them. By the ambassadorial arbiters the district has been divided in almost equal parts, with Poland getting the town of Teschen, where the Austrian army headquarters were situated during most of the war, and the Czechs coal mines, but with the stipulation that Poland must be allowed part of the coal at fair prices.

Elementary Czech with exercises in conversation, reading and composition. Mr. A. B. Koukol, lecturer.

Lectures on the development of the Czechoslovak literature and the national life in modern times. Mr. A. B. Koukol, lecturer.

Czechoslovaks in America will be pleased to know that considerable attention is nowadays paid to the poets of their native land. The latest contribution in this respect is made by Dr. Josef Štýbr, a physician of Pittsburgh. He rendered into English an old favorite of all Czech lovers, “Hálek’s Evening Song”.

The work is now two generations old and possibly will strike the present taste as too sentimental. Hálek’s songs just fitted in with the days, when the waltz was supreme, but they may not appeal very much to the young people of to-day, who worship the “shimmy”. The theme of the poem is an old one—the tender feeling of two youthful hearts for each other. Hálek’s strength consists in the exquisiteness of his form, something that is very hard to reproduce in a translation. Dr. Štýbr succeeded in his difficult task to a considerable degree, as he has a very sensitive ear for rythm. By giving these poems to the American public, he has placed all his Czech countrymen under a deep obligation.