l) almost as
soon as he could speak; and usually he continued to study until his
confirmation, at thirteen years of age, or as much longer as his
talent and ambition carried him. My brother was five years old when he
entered on his studies. He was carried to the heder, on the first day,
covered over with a praying-shawl, so that nothing unholy should look
on him; and he was presented with a bun, on which were traced, in
honey, these words: "The Torah left by Moses is the heritage of the
children of Jacob."

After a boy entered heder, he was the hero of the family. He was
served before the other children at table, and nothing was too good
for him. If the family were very poor, all the girls might go
barefoot, but the heder boy must have shoes; he must have a plate of
hot soup, though the others ate dry bread. When the rebbe (teacher)
came on Sabbath afternoon, to examine the boy in the hearing of the
family, everybody sat around the table and nodded with satisfaction,
if he read his portion well; and he was given a great saucerful of
preserves, and was praised, and blessed, and made much of. No wonder
he said, in his morning prayer, "I thank Thee, Lord, for not having
created me a female." It was not much to be a girl, you see. Girls
could not be scholars and rabbonim.

I went to my brother's heder, sometimes, to bring him his dinner, and
saw how the boys studied. They sat on benches around the table, with
their hats on, of course, and the sacred fringes hanging beneath their
jackets. The rebbe sat at an end of the table, rehearsing two or three
of the boys who were studying the same part, pointing out the words
with his wooden pointer, so as not to lose the place. Everybody read
aloud, the smallest boys repeating the alphabet in a sing-song, while
the advanced boys read their portions in a different sing-song; and
everybody raised his voice to its loudest so as to drown the other
voices. The good boys never took their eyes off their page, except to
ask the rebbe a question; but the naughty boys stared around the room,
and kicked each other under the table, till the rebbe caught them at
it. He had a ruler for striking the bad boys on the knuckles, and in a
corner of the room leaned a long birch wand for pupils who would not
learn their lessons.

The boys came to heder before nine in the morning, and remained until
eight or nine in the evening. Stupid pupils, who could not remember
the lesson, sometimes had to stay ti