[Avodah] The Vilna Gaon and Secular Studies

[Prof. Levine]

At 04:05 PM 4/18/2018, Micha Berger wrote:

None of which led to the day school movement. Of the three, Eitz Chaim
even conformed to the started by Levatikim stereotype I gave, if just
too early for what we're discussing.

Etz Cahim had secular studies in the late 1880s.  see below.

Eitz Chaim did evolve into something, but YU and RIETS aren't day
schools. MTA and BTA start later

Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel started a high school 
with secular studies around 1915.

. R' Matlin started Eitz Chaim as a
post-PS program in his apartment. I don't know when secular studied
began, but initially, it didn't have to.

In any case, the schools we all attended are a product of a later
trend. When R "Mr" Schraga Feivel Mendelovitch had limudei chol instituted
in Torah vaDaas, do you think the "vaDaas" was his idea of lekhat-chilah?

This is not true.


> From my article

"<http://personal.stevens.edu/~llevine/jp/The%20Founding%20Of%20Yeshiva%20Etz%20Chaim.pdf>The 
Founding of Yeshiva Etz Chaim" The Jewish Press, May 2, 2008, pages 48 - 49.


 From the amount of time allocated to secular 
subjects, it is clear that the directors of the 
yeshiva considered these far less important than 
the students’ limudei kodesh studies. Abraham 
Cahan, who would eventually become the editor of 
the Jewish Daily Forward and a prominent figure 
in the Socialist movement in America, became one 
of the first teachers in the English department in 1887.


             Cahan records that the curriculum 
was loosely drawn to provide for the study of 
grammar, arithmetic, reading, and spelling – all 
within the “English Department.” But because the 
directors of the school had no clear idea of what 
should be taught, the English Department 
functioned haphazardly, more out of a perfunctory 
acknowledgement for these subjects than a sincere 
desire to “provide the children with a modern education.”

             The English Department was divided 
into two classes. The first was taught by a boy 
about fourteen, who had just graduated from 
public school and the second was taught by Cahan, 
who was a little less than twenty-eight years 
old. The students ranged from the ages of nine or 
ten to fifteen and many were exposed to the 
formal study of secular subjects for the first 
time. One of the native students received his 
first lessons in the English language when he 
entered the Yeshiva after passing his thirteenth birthday.

   The young immigrants presented an immense 
challenge to their devoted teachers. The students 
drank up the instruction with a thirst centuries 
old. Cahan frequently remained long after the 
prescribed teaching hours to tutor his pupils, 
who were uniformly poor in reading and 
mathematics and who regarded grammar as an 
exquisite form of torture. On these occasions, 
the directors would ask Cahan why he “worked so 
hard,” saying that the students “already knew enough English.”

And from my article 
"<http://www.jewishpress.com/sections/magazine/glimpses-ajh/the-founding-of-the-rabbi-jacob-joseph-school/2008/09/03/>The 
Founding of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School"  The 
Jewish Press, September 5, 2008, pages 26 & 66.

Setting The Pattern For Future Yeshivas

The Rabbi Jacob Joseph School was unique in that 
it was the first elementary parochial school that 
taught basic Jewish studies as well as Talmud. 
Yeshiva Etz Chaim, founded in 1886, was an 
intermediate school that enrolled boys at least 
nine years old who already were somewhat 
proficient in Chumash and Rashi. Yeshiva Etz 
Chaim’s goal was to give its students a thorough 
grounding in Gemara and Shulchan Aruch. In 
addition, it provided some limited secular studies in the late afternoon.
The Rabbi Jacob Joseph School was different in 
that in addition to providing a first rate 
religious education, it sought to provide its 
students with an excellent secular education at 
least equivalent to that offered by the public schools of the time.
Nonetheless, limudei chol (secular or “English” 
studies) was considered much less important than 
limudei kodesh (religious studies), and this 
attitude was clearly displayed in the 
constitution of the school. It required that 
there be two principals, one for each department.

YL

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