Nan Mashek

“ These first Bohemian farmers came almost without exception with money enough to buy their lands, at least in part. The country which they selected was heavily wooded so that their first great labor was to clear their farms. This they did by cutting and burning the logs, making no attempt to sell them as timber, as did their countrymen who came later. With farms wholly or in part paid for, they could direct all their energies toward clearing and cultivating the land, finding an immediate means of subsistance in small crops raised among the stumps. ”

“ Higher Education.In the matter of higher education, the Bohemians of Kewaunee county have a remarkably good record. Within the last twenty-five years the local high school has sent to college fifty-nine young men and women and of these thirty were Bohemians. It is plain, then, that there is no lack of ambition in the children of our pioneers, and this ambition is upheld and fostered by progressive Bohemians of the West. ”

“ Assimilation of American Customs.Aside from this matter of religion, the Bohemian falls into American customs with surprising readiness. This is the more remarkable when we consider the great difference between American and Bohemian country life. Nowhere in the old country are there isolated farms as here—the cultivated lands radiate. To a Bohemian immigrant then, American farm life must at first seem extremely dull and void of social pleasure. ”

“ In addition to these libraries, there is to be another of about a hundred books at the University of Nebraska, and a second traveling library under the management of the council of higher education. Mr. Severa voices the ambition of progressive Bohemian-Americans when he says: "We want our young men and women to enter American colleges and to work hand in hand with Americans on the path of progress, but we want them at the same time to respect the land of their fathers, to know their language and to be informed concerning their history and literature." ”

“ Their children and neighbors can speak with them in the mother-tongue, the village merchant provides Bohemian clerks of whom they can buy, and for reading they have the Bohemian newspapers. Those who can speak German adapt themselves somewhat more readily: for having a knowledge of one foreign language, they find it less difficult to master a second which is allied to it. ”

“ In the country the assimilation of Bohemians is not a problem which offers difficulties. The public school is everywhere so potent an Americanizer that it alone is adequate. There is, however, one other influence which if brought to bear, especially in the large communities, would be helpful. ”

“ A general impression that Bohemians are much like the Germans is not true. They are to begin with a very emotional people. In this they resemble more closely the Latin races, except that where the Latins are more or less consistently light-hearted, the Bohemians have an unconquerable tendency toward melancholy. They are excitable and have an unusual capacity for entering heartily into their pleasures ”

“ In the country, almost every village has a band of self-taught musicians, and the country dance is a time-honored institution. Their national music is peculiarly Slavonic and has in it the same undercurrent of strangeness and melancholy which one finds in their personal traits and again in their folk-lore. ”

“ Many of these merchant lumbermen advanced money to the farmers with which to buy oxen and sleighs. They also took timber products in exchange for flour, cloth and other necessities, and in other ways the struggle for existence became less severe, the clearing of the lands went on more rapidly, and the farmers were able to meet more easily their living expenses and debts, notwithstanding war prices on food products and clothes, which put flour at $12 a barrel, coffee at 60 cents a pound and ordinary sheeting at 85 cents. ”

“ The movement is further supported by another, the aim of which is to establish Bohemian libraries in the larger Bohemian communities. The public library of Milwaukee is to install one hundred books on history, literature, biography, The Preservation of Bohemian Culture.fiction and science and the free Library Commission of Wisconsin is considering the purchase of two sets of books, seventy-five in each, to be used as traveling libraries in the thickly populated districts of the state. ”

“ These were mostly ambitious farm laborers and mechanics who hoped to find here an independent and more profitable livelihood. As they came with little or no money, their first need was for cheap farms upon which they could make a humble living from the very beginning. Such farms they found in the timber lands of Kewaunee county, directly north of Manitowoc. ”

“ Generally liberal money-spenders, hard-working and thrifty, they still have a fondness for good living, good clothes, and an occasional glass of beer, which makes it difficult for them to bear poverty. ”

“ This spiritual isolation, with its resultant social separation, is doing great harm in retarding assimilation. The benefits to be derived from social intercourse within church would be especially marked as assimilative and educational factors. ”

“ Large numbers left the country in the quest of freedom, and of these some found their way to America. Thus our first Bohemian settlers were of the most intelligent and more prosperous classes. Those who came West established themselves in two settlements, one in St. ”