Amish

“ The Amish seem to have originated in Europe, about the year 1700, when Jacob Amen, a Swiss preacher, set up, or returned to, the more severe rule, distasteful to brethren in Alsace, etc., and enforced the ban of excommunication upon some or all of those who disagreed with him. Appleton’s Cyclopædia calls him Amman, and says that the Amish rose in 1693, in Alsace. ”

“ But in the cosmopolitan population of Lancaster the Amish awakes a mere moment’s interest to the majority of observers. If a bit of envy steals into the heart of the little Amish girl who stands at the Square and sees a child in white organdie and pink sash tripping along with her feet in silk socks and white slippers, of what avail is it? The hold of family customs is strong among them and the world and its allurements and vanities are things to be left stringently alone.
To Amanda Reist, the Amish children made strong appeal. Their presence was one of the reasons she enjoyed tending market. ”

“ Amish beliefs require members of the community to make their living by farming or closely related activities. Broadly speaking, the Old Order Amish religion pervades and determines the entire mode of life of its adherents. Their conduct is regulated in great detail by the Ordnung, or rules, of the church community. Adult baptism, which occurs in late adolescence, is the time at which Amish young people voluntarily undertake heavy obligations, not unlike the Bar Mitzvah of the Jews, to abide by the rules of the church community. ”

“ The division into smaller farms is caused in a great measure by the Amish increasing and dividing properties among their children, so that farms are running as low, in many cases, as from twenty-five down to ten acres. It is rare for the Amish to remain unmarried. The owners of such small properties cannot afford to hire help; the Amish help one another, and are willing to help others also. Many acts of neighborly kindness are exchanged here, even to giving a sick neighbor several days’ work in the harvest-field. ”

“ The drawers of the conservative plain women are very long, and quite tight. Seldom seen by non-Amish, at first glance they look like relics from the middle ages, rather than a convenience or need for the present. ”

“ A related feature of Old Order Amish communities is their devotion to a life in harmony with nature and the soil, as exemplified by the simple life of the early Christian era that continued in America during much of our early national life. ”

“ There can be no assumption that today's majority is "right" and the Amish and others like them are "wrong." A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no rights or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different. ”

“ They light the homes with oil; they can find no excuse in the Bible for electricity, or for many other modern day conveniences in the house or barn.
In the old log-cabin days among our early settlers, when they had but one or two rooms in the house, it was the custom for one and all to bathe in the common washtub. Even today this can easily be the rule among the folk living along the back-woods sections of the country, not of the Amish persuasion, necessarily--and in many sections of this vast country. ”

“ The early Amish settlers worshipped in private houses. They believed that to erect houses of worship was a tendency toward worldliness. They all continued this practice of worship until more recently. Today there are “House-Amish” and “Church-Amish.” The branch which is known among them as the “Old Order” still continues to worship in private homesteads. The Church Amish acquired a ‘church 10 house’ for use in public worship. Their plain meeting houses are to be found in northeastern Lancaster County. Religion, whether in homestead or church, has first place in Amish life. ”

“ Hair and Whiskers.--One or two Amish countrymen, when seen in Lewistown, Lancaster or Ephrata, create little excitement, but when fifty or a hundred get together in a world outside their own, that's news.
Young men, as well as old, have their hair and whiskers neatly trimmed, and it seems always about the same color for all ages. ”

“ He's a genius. That seventeenth-century un-scientist has more feeling for folkways in his calloused left hand than you'd find in all the Colonial Survey. How do you suppose the Old Order maintains itself in Pennsylvania, a tiny Deitsch-speaking enclave surrounded by calico suburbs and ten-lane highways? They mind their business and leave the neighbors to theirs. The Amish have never been missionaries—they learned in 1600 that missionaries are resented, and either slaughtered or absorbed. ”

“ We have yet another sect among us, called Amish (pronounced Ommish) . In former times these Mennists were sometimes known as “beardy men,” but of late years the beard is not a distinguishing trait. It is said that a person once asked an Amish man the difference between themselves and another Mennist sect. “Vy, dey vears puttons, and ve vearsh hooks oont eyes;” and this is, in fact, a prime difference. All the Mennist sects [16] retain the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper, but most also practise feet-washing, and some sectarians “greet one another with a holy kiss.” ”

“ There is only one style of wearing the hair among the Amish women, and that bears very little improvement. It is parted exactly in the middle and combed smoothly down toward the temples, where two plaits are started, carried around and gathered into a knot just under the edge of the white mull cap above the nape of the neck. ”

“ Our school-term in this district is not increased beyond seven months; but the salary has risen, and is from thirty-five to forty dollars per month, according to merit.
The Amish in this immediate neighborhood still cling to the plain customs I have described, except that it has become quite common for young people to drive in simple buggies. Now the yellow-covered wagons are not so universal; other colors are also used, and more elegant harness. (They generally keep very good harness.) Neither do the young men wear their hair to their shoulders. Many of the Amish now wear suspenders. ”

“ During this period, the children must acquire Amish attitudes favoring manual work and self-reliance and the specific skills needed to perform the adult role of an Amish farmer or housewife. They must learn to enjoy physical labor. ”

“ The Amish do not object to elementary education through the first eight grades as a general proposition because they agree that their children must have basic skills in the "three R's" in order to read the Bible, to be good farmers and citizens, and to be able to deal with non-Amish people when necessary in the course of daily affairs. ”

“ These distinctions, they say, do not apply to Lancaster county Amish in this day and generation.
We are, however, familiar with the "one suspender" type.
Children Sometimes Backward.--Conditions among these people sometimes really require sympathy, especially among the young who sometimes hide themselves from the sight of "English" persons, making use of corn-shocks, or whatever they find handy. ”

“ As the society around the Amish has become more populous, urban, industrialized, and complex, particularly in this century, government regulation of human affairs has correspondingly become more detailed and pervasive. ”

“ And, at this time in life, the Amish child must also grow in his faith and his relationship to the Amish community if he is to be prepared to accept the heavy obligations imposed by adult baptism. In short, high school attendance with teachers who are not of the Amish faith—and may even be hostile to it—interposes a serious barrier to the integration of the Amish child into the Amish religious community. ”

“ In the present case, the State is not concerned with the maintenance of an educational system as an end in itself, it is rather attempting to nurture and develop the human potential of its children, whether Amish or non-Amish: to expand their knowledge, broaden their sensibilities, kindle their imagination, foster a spirit of free inquiry, and increase their human understanding and tolerance. It is possible that most Amish children will wish to continue living the rural life of their parents, in which case their training at home will adequately equip them for their future role. ”

“ The taking and exchanging of photographs, engravings, statuary, etc., are not allowed by the Old Amish families, although the Meeting House Amish are inclined to overlook it.
Buying for Cash is the common rule among them, and unless they can see some real and quick return they will not buy anything. Certainly they are not the kind to waste. Their women never "own" their husband's property! ”

“ If any of the young of the Old Amish marry outside the "faith," expulsion from membership will, and loss of inheritance may follow, unless the non-member also adopts the faith and garb. This applies only to the Meeting House Amish in cases where marriage takes place into families which are not non-resistant. ”

“ The greatest differences are the rise in the value of land; the division into smaller farms; the general introduction of the culture of tobacco; and the change in the population by the coming in of a larger number of that plainest sect of Mennonites, called Amish. ”

“ The Amish pretty much invented American agriculture, you know. They've developed the finest low-energy farming there is. Clover-growing, crop-rotation, using animal manures, those are their inventions. Aaron, by his example, will teach the natives here Pennsylvania farming. Before you can say Tom Malthus, there'll be steel cities in this wilderness, filled with citizens eager to open charge accounts for low-gravs and stereo sets. ”

“ There is no basis to assume that Wisconsin will be unable to reach a satisfactory accommodation with the Amish in light of what we now hold, so as to serve its interests without impinging on respondents' protected free exercise of their religion. ”

“ Amish society emphasizes informal learning-through-doing; a life of "goodness," rather than a life of intellect; wisdom, rather than technical knowledge; community welfare, rather than competition; and separation from, rather than integration with, contemporary worldly society. ”

“ Insofar as the State's claim rests on the view that a brief additional period of formal education is imperative to enable the Amish to participate effectively and intelligently in our democratic process, it must fall. ”

“ Jews, Catholics and the plain people alike prefer not to let any other faith get a hold on their off-spring until after they have lived through formative years.
The plain people garb themselves not in the manner of the Jew, (whom they unconsciously imitate in many ways--as do all Christians) , but after the priests and nuns. The older leaders of the plain people imitated the Catholic clergyman in dress and in discipline, representative of a section of Europe following the Reformation.
Hooks and Eyes instead of buttons are used by Old Order Amish as a church regulation. ”

“ They look upon insurance as an effort to thwart the will of God. But, let the biggest barn in the Amish community burn to the ground, in ten days or so after the fire, some morning a hundred, two hundred, as high as three hundred Amishmen, will appear; armed with hammers, hatchets, saws—whatever it takes to build a barn—and by evening a new barn will stand on the site. ”

“ The men's hats are a distinctive, broad, stiff-brimmed type--one looking just like another--dust and all!
It is the usual thing for Old Order Amish boys to wear their hats nearly all of the time, except while in school. At recess they cannot be persuaded to doff them while at play.
The trousers of an Amishman do not open in the middle by means of a fly, as do those of most every other male American. The plain man's pants open toward the sides, almost at the side seams, with a resultant wide flap in the front. ”

“ Bulrush millet, another native crop, was ill suited to Aaron's well-drained fields. He planned to grow corn, though, the stuff his people called Welschkarn—alien corn. Though American enough, maize had been a foreigner to the first Amish farmers, and still carried history in its name. This crop was chiefly for Wutzchen, whose bloodlines, Aaron was confident, would lead to a crop of pork of a quality these heretics from Islam had never tasted before. ”

“ Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide and Ascension Day are celebrated not only in the Lutheran, the Reformed or Calvinistic and the Moravian churches, but among the descendants of those Swiss Anabaptists who, being driven from their homes by religious persecution, finally took shelter in that part of the land of Penn now called Lancaster county, these quiet sectarians being known among us by the names of Mennists and Amish (pronounced Menneests and Ommish) . ”

“ Soil is more than seed-bed to the Amish. It feeds the Old Order they're born to. Aaron and Martha Stoltzfoos would rather have built their barns beside the Susquehanna, but all the land there's taken. Aaron could have taken a job in Lancaster, too; he could have shaved off his beard, bought a Chevie and moved to the suburbs, and settled down to read an English-language Bible in a steepled church. Instead, he signed a homestead-contract for a hundred acres eighty light-years from home; and set out to plow the land like his grandpop did. ”

“ Never Hurry.--These people take their time with nearly all things--they rarely show impatience, except that they are impatient to be always at work--at doing something. They know that life may reproduce itself in nine months, and that time goes on. Their place and mission on earth is a preparatory one, and they must be "about the Father's business," whatever it be, to be in a happy mood.
It is pretty generally admitted a fact that when these people, or the average Pennsylvania German does something, it need not be done over again.
Home-Folk.--Not many of the Amish get far from home. ”