Then did I eat it; and it was in my
mouth as honey for sweetness." Other Biblical passages were
inscribed on the shell of an egg, and after they were read, the
bun and the egg as well as apples and other fruit were eaten by
the pupils present.
This ceremony, marred only by the introduction of superstitious
practices, such as the conjuring up of evil demons, was well
adapted to stamp itself on the child's mind, and its naive
symbolism was bound to make a profound impression upon his
imagination. Pagan antiquity knew of nothing so delicate and at
the same time so elevated in sentiment. Pindar, and Horace after
him, conceived the fancy that the bees of Hymettus alighted on
the child's brow and dropped rich honey upon it. The Jewish
celebration of a new period in childhood, though not a poetic
fiction, is none the less charming and picturesque. It shows how
precious was the cultivation of the mind to a people whom the
world delights to represent as absorbed by material interests and
consumed by the desire for wealth. Education has always been
highly valued among the Jews, who long acted up to the saying of
Lessing: "The schoolmaster holds the future in his hands." The
religious law is a system of instruction, the synagogue is a
school. It will redound to the eternal honor of Judaism that it
raised the dissemination of knowledge to the height of a
religious precept. At a time when among the Christians knowledge
was the special privilege of the clergy, learning was open to
every Jew, and, what is still finer, the pursuit of it was
imposed upon him as a strict obligation.
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