From: Krasna, Bessarabia
22 July 1912

These days the threshing continues vigorously without interruptions, so that within 8 days the threshing should be completed, if the weather lasts the way it is.

I ask my friends and acquaintances to be content with my meager writing for the time being. I know that in the New World one waits also with ardent desire for reports from Russia, just as we here love to read stories from the New World. However, this is the time when one has a lot of work and little time for corresponding. As soon as possible, I will attend to longer reports from here.

I sincerely greet my sons-in-law Ignatz Gross and Eduard Richter along with their wives and all readers of this paper.

Romuald Dirk

From: Krasna, Bessarabia
23 July 1912

So far most of my reports in the Staats-Anzeiger were often a little more pensive, of a serious nature and also with a philosophical meaning, which for some readers was of little interest. Yes, for which they may not even have found a taste. (Editor: We certainly believe that most readers derive and have derived pleasure from your treatises.) To bring a little variety into these reports from time to time, I want to include some direct entertainment in the form of funny narratives and stories of which there is no shortage in the country, and which may also be welcome among the readers.

So, some time ago a husband and wife lived in great contentment and mutual respect, but also in great poverty. To defray their meager livelihood, they owned one cow that provided the essential mainstay of their food.

On one evening, it occurred that the mistress of the house asked her dear husband what she should cook for supper. The husband, dearly loving his wife, contemplated in selecting a meal that would appeal more to his wife's liking than to his own taste. He finally said, “Cook a milk porridge,” which was prepared in no time, and the folks sat down at the table and enjoyed the good tasting porridge which especially pleased the wife. The woman eating a little too much became lethargic and queried, “Who will now clean the porridge pan?” This question affected the caring husband with some embarrassment. On one hand he did not want to decline his wife’s request, yet on the other, he also did not want to clean the porridge pan since that was not part of a man’s responsibility. So the husband said, “I think, my dear, we should leave the pan sit until morning, and whoever of the two of us speaks first upon awakening has to wash the pan.” The woman listened attentively and agreed.

The two people slept peacefully until bright morning. Upon awakening, they of course remembered the porridge pan and, since whoever spoke first had to clean it, both remained quiet. They stayed in bed with eyes wide open and pulled the blanket over their heads. This is how both remained in bed for about half of the morning until the neighbor lady noticed that their yard was dead silent and everything appeared to be still locked up. So she knocked on the doors and windows. Since there was no answer, she broke through the door and entered the bedroom where she saw the couple lying in bed with eyes wide open. The neighbor lady posed some questions, but neither of them made a sound as hard as she tried to motivate them to speak. The kind neighbor lady finally concluded that an evil spirit possessed these people and hurried off to a priest, to whom she told the situation. He proceeded, as was his duty, in a hurry to the house and approached their bed and saw them lying there with open eyes. He commenced, as did the neighbor lady before, bombarding them with questions, but to no avail. The folks remained mute as fish. The priest, of course, feared that these people were severely ill and in need of the last rites.

Since he could not get a response from the people, he finally turned to the neighbor lady with the request to take care of the couple until further development of the circumstances. The neighbor lady listened attentively to the priest and replied, “Yes, okay Father, but who will reimburse me because these people cannot, they are poor?” “And why not?” asked the priest.

“Just look, a nice dress of the woman is hanging here on the wall. You simply just take it for your efforts.” But when the mute woman in bed heard this, she jumped up suddenly and screamed, “Don’t anyone dare to touch my dress!” When the man of the house heard this he too jumped out of bed in a hurry, clapped his hands and shouted to his wife, “Milk Porridge Pan Cleaner!” Of course the silence was all over now. Greetings to the reader’s circle.

Romuald Dirk

From: Krasna, Bessarabia
27 July 1912

In Issue #51 of the Staats-Anzeiger, I found a correspondence dated 2 June sent in by Mr. Joseph Zeiser from Kostheim, the Taurish governed area in South Russia. The esteemed gentleman renders judgments in his writings on my treatises appearing from time to time in the paper. I am delighted, dear Mr. Zeiser, that you as a young and single man find such praiseworthy words for my reports, and comment that if my advice to the German housewives were followed, then they all would fare much better. Yes, my friend, you are decisively right. Should these dear women take it to heart than they would soon view the world with different eyes and frame of mind and discover something completely different in the upbringing of their children. For that, Mr. Zeiser, I owe you great respect and the best of thanks. Certainly it would be good, yes even a commitment, to take such well-meant advice seriously to heart, should they care, that their marriage proceeds peacefully and orderly. But one really has to excuse many because they would do it with the best intentions, but just do not know how to take hold of this requirement, and also because they were not taught such responsibilities by their ancestors. How then should such a poor mother fulfill such a big responsibility, especially if she only learned that her mother almost never showed the father any obedience, and could only lead the children’s upbringing with a stick in hand?

What is more natural than that such a young mother will do the same as she has learned from her mom? In many housewives and mothers’ slumber, the nicest abilities to become a model wife for her husband and an excellent educator for their children.

Then again, perhaps such a wife may have a husband who does not put any value on upbringing because he does not know how, and doesn’t know what a great difference can exist in the rearing of children. As noted, I cannot lay blame for neglected child upbringing on the mother alone, but more so on the father, because he gets out into the world and hears and sees that all strive for upbringing and education. Nevertheless, arriving at home he remains blind, and cold against such in his family.

However, should the father and mother or both fail to admit that they cannot cope with the circumstances, and then they should send their ill-bred children regularly to school. Then they soon will find out that the teacher, provided he is properly prepared for this his highly regarded profession, has to accomplish a lot which, at least up to the sixth or seventh year, should have been the mother’s responsibility. They also will soon experience that the teacher would have been able to achieve twice as much with the children, had they only entered the school with the proper upbringing. That is why I cannot emphasize enough how important the upbringing of children is from their first to their seventh year. So much can be said about this that whole volumes can be written about just this subject. Nevertheless, nowadays many fathers and many mothers look at this important start of upbringing as a secondary matter.

I want to present only one example. When somebody plants a tree, then he does this with the hope that in the course of some years it will bear good fruit, and accordingly takes care of this tree in every possible way. Yet it is only a tree! So why does one not apply at least the same care with one’s children who are definitely worth a lot more than a tree and who are our own flesh and blood! Or perhaps do you want to maintain I can plant and tend a tree, but I do not know how to rear and educate my children?

In such a case, it would be better you would not receive any as a gift from God! But when you have children and do not know the art of upbringing then try to acquire it. With good intentions it will not be difficult for you, and later on you will be delighted about their upbringing. You can summarize the art of upbringing with one word, “Love”. An enduring love together with firmness and austerity is the foundation of a sensible upbringing of children. With this I spontaneously remember Jeremiah Gotthelf’s fitting words about children’s hearts, “People do not know how beautiful it is within the children’s hearts, in which love starts to blossom. But they also do not know how tender the plant is in its spring, and how easy a frost will lame and kill it.”

Most people rummage with an icy hand, frozen through and through, in children’s hearts. Under their hands the beautiful spring grows stiff along with the seedlings of love. A cool, calculating, egotistic mankind nestles itself as a weed with a thousand tentacles in the desolated garden of love. Where one could have reaped sweet fruit, you will only find the bitter apple of envy, pettiness and meanness.

Now, if love has to be the foundation for all children’s upbringing, then there is, of course, much to be said about how to put the “how” into practice. But at least we want to try to explain the essential in short segments. Whoever wants to pursue this equally important as well as interesting subject in more depth, has the choice to read upon detailed procedures and publications, as among others the book titled, “Love in Upbringing and Educating” has to offer. This book may be expensive, but it is worth it. It is an evil prejudice of so many people not to spend too much money for books, as well as to deny an adequate salary for a diligent and educated teacher. While at the same time no costs are spared for useless playing around and nibbling on sweets.

One should not shun the cost for the upbringing of children as well as for good books as aids for the mother in the rearing of her kids, at least until they are seven years old. Further more, for a capable teacher who continues educating the children up to, lets say, their thirteenth or fourteenth year, one can never spend too much for books and teachers. Both a good book and an able teacher deliver an ample payback. Just like a strong and healthy tree, which is well cared for during its growing years, will bear the most wonderful fruit.

This comment is only incidental. But it cannot be repeated enough and, since later on we will return to the subject matter, we bring our topic pertaining to the upbringing of children into focus. We identify the best we have found in this regard, the book “The Love in Rearing and Teaching“ or an excerpt of the same. I believe that in Europe it is available in every bookstore.

In my soon to follow continuation, I will bring the following to the esteemed reader’s circle: special conditions; the resulting status of children of educated parents who have the greatest influence on such children, ordinary activities for small children up to age seven; and simple training aids.

I sincerely greet all co-workers and readers.

Romuald Dirk