FRANZ KAFKA AT SCHOOL
KAFKA’S EDUCATION IN CZECH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
As I pointed out in the chapter ‘Franz Kafka’s languages’, Franz Kafka learned Czech in his parental home before he started going to school. That does not mean he learned Czech through communication with his parents, with whom, even though they knew and used Czech, he and his sisters spoke – and later exchanged letters – in German.1 Kafka probably learned Czech primarily through communicating with his parents’ servants and with his peers. There are certain indications that his Czech was influenced by these speakers, for example in his use of the word noc (night) in the non-standard form noce (nominative plural) generally used in central, western and northern regions of Bohemia, whereas in the dialect of South Bohemia, where his father grew up, the common form is noci.2 The following analysis, however, is confined to Kafka’s tutored acquisition of standard Czech, the main basis of his ability to read official, literary and academic texts in Czech and use the Czech language actively – with certain limitations – in writing.
THE ‘VOLKSSCHULE’
The assertion that Kafka learnt his Czech at school may at first sight seem misleading, if not confusing. Although Kafka scholarship ‘from the Prague perspective’ tends to see Hermann Kafka as a Czech Jew, young Franz was enrolled at the ‘Deutsche Volks- und Bürgerschule für Prag 1’ (German Elementary and Lower Secondary School in Prague I), founded in the 1870s, which he attended from 1889 to 1893. There German was not only the language of instruction from the 1st to 4th grade; pupils also studied the German language in classes on reading, handwriting, spelling, and writing style. Czech classes, by contrast, started in the 3rd grade and with fewer hours. This clearly shows the different status of Czech and German in the German school system, which affected Kafka’s acquisition of both languages.
But we are also particularly interested in the linguistic composition of the classes Kafka attended. As Tables I and II and the following diagram make clear, until 1882, when Prague University was split into a German and a Czech section, around 30% of the pupils at the school were linguistically of Czech origin – that is, they declared Czech as their mother tongue. This can be seen from the abbreviations against their names in the school registers and lists. Pupils’ native languages are usually recorded as either b. / č. (böhmisch / čeština, i.e. Czech) or d. (deutsch, i.e. German), or a combination of these (d.-b., d.u.b., d-b, i.e. German and Czech). Only rarely do other languages appear (chorv., i.e. Croatian). In 1883 the proportion of Czech pupils at Kafka’s German school fell to 20%. By 1889, the year when Franz Kafka enrolled, that figure – based on data from his own and parallel classes – had shrunk to 10%. The reduction in Czech pupils was accompanied by an increase in the number of Jewish children, from 30% in 1877 to 82.6% in 1889 – figures similarly derived from school registers, which include entries such as mosaisch / jüdisch (m., i., i.e. Jewish), katholisch (k., i.e. Catholic), and occasionally evangelisch (e., i.e. Protestant). The entry ‘ohne Bekenntnis’ (‘without confession’) was extremely rare. Private pupils are generally listed without information as to their faith or mother tongue. Among those whose stated mother tongue is Czech, the majority were Catholic. This is the context in which the young Kafka grew up. It shows that the Czech minority in his school was already very small by that time and that in the school context Czech was a language that was studied rather than spoken in the schoolyard.
Arriving at these figures was somewhat problematic. Despite a ministerial decree of 6 March 1880 requiring schools to keep a record of pupils’ mother tongues,3 this only started happening at Kafka’s school in 1884–85. The situation prior to that date has therefore been reconstructed using the class registers of previous (i.e. higher) years at the Elementary and Lower Secondary School, an approach justified on the assumption that most pupils registered at the lower secondary school (‘Bürgerschule’) would also have attended the elementary school (‘Volksschule’) rather than its Czech equivalent, and vice-versa. While there were doubtless some exceptions, the figures as presented are probably an adequate reflection of the situation in the period in question.4 That is why in Table I presented bellow the year (cohort) and year of its first enrolment are listed side by side, whereas the diagram shows only the year of enrolment. This table is based on the schools records for academic year 1884–85. For the Lower Secondary (Municipal) School I have evaluated data from two First Classes, one Second and one Third. The data I had available for the Volksschule was for Class 4a (with no record of mother tongue or confession), 3a, 3b, 2b and 1a. For the following years in Table II, I used data for pupils from the corresponding first years, as I had no access to data from school year 1887–88. The tendency evident in the table and diagram for the years 1885–1889 is confirmed by the data for pupils of the preceding years, who later attended the lower secondary school, contained in the corresponding registers of that school. I also checked my results against data from the registers of other cohorts. These statistics have also been the subject of a broader and more detailed study by Ingrid Stöhr, who analysed the records of all classes in Kafka’s school and other comparable German and Czech schools in Prague.5 She points out the same tendency in the proportion of Jewish and Catholic pupils in both public schools for Prague I (for girls and boys), where the figures are quite different from those in elementary and grammar schools in other parts of the city.6
The linguistic and religious composition of the German Volksschule in Prague 1 attended by Kafka, outlined briefly above, can nevertheless be seen as a reflection of social processes that had a wider import. We see a clear and continuous increase in the proportion of German-speaking Jews attending the German schools in Prague, while especially Czech ‘Christian’ families began avoiding them. The trend of leaving schools with German as the language of instruction by Czechs is more pronounced in ‘Jewish’ schools. Nationalist agitation and latent antisemitism thus came to affect public institutions.
These ‘discrepancies’ can be seen in a broader Prague and Bohemian context. Binder and Stöhr have drawn attention to the social structure of the schools to show that most of the fathers of the German-speaking Jewish children in the Prague schools were merchants, while those of Czech-speaking Christians were generally tradesmen or worked in the service sector.7 Binder has also drawn attention to the – by today’s standards intolerable – conditions in the public elementary schools, with class sizes ranging from 55 to 90. In first grade Kafka was in a class of 86 pupils;8 in second grade 90; in third 55 and in fourth 61. In Prague this situation stemmed from the reluctance of the City Council, which was dominated by Czechs, to support German Volksschulen.9 In parts of the country where ethnic Germans controlled local councils, Czech pupils had to put up with similar conditions.10 In Budweis, for example, due to official resistance to the idea of parallel classes in the public Czech boys’ school, 99 pupils were registered in one class and in another as many as 133, so that only 60 of them had a proper place to sit with the others standing between desks, by the blackboard or next to the stove.11 In the predominantly German Bohemian towns such as Reichenberg, Leitmeritz, Neuern, Trautenau, Theresienstadt, Brux, Teplitz and Saaz, the Czech-speaking population numbered over 20,000 in the 1870s, yet no one thought of opening any Czech-language schools or even classes.12 And although the number of schools (elementary and secondary) grew in Bohemia from 2073 German and 2286 Czech in 1881 to 2355 German and 3206 Czech in 1900, there were almost twice as many Czech pupils as German.13 The situation for Czech pupils in Prague was quite different as they could switch to Czech schools.
Among other reforms introduced by the ‘Reichsschulgesetz’ of 1869, attendance at elementary schools was extended to eight years and class sizes were limited to a maximum of eighty. New, separate local and regional councils were also set up along ethno-national lines. And in the early 1870s school fees were abolished. Certain aspects of the law were problematic from a language parity point of view. Municipalities were obliged (Para. 62) to set up a school if the number of children resident within one hour’s journey of the town or village exceeded 40 over a five-year period (Para. 59), and if within a radius of four kilometres no school was available offering tuition in the national language determined by their parents. Burger sees this as a positive change in that it led to a denser network of schools in Bohemia and Moravia and thus to a higher level of education in the Bohemian lands.14
In the years that followed, the status of the country’s second language as a medium of instruction in elementary schools in Bohemia and Moravia became a topic of heated debate both in the courts and in parliament. This was because the decision as to whether Czech (for example) should be a compulsory or non-compulsory school subject in Prague German schools – or whether it should be taught at all – depended not on the law-makers but on the wishes of often competing local councils and of the parents themselves. And acting upon these wishes was not seen as a breach of the ban on ‘majorization’, as the overruling by language majority was known.15
It was against this background that Franz Kafka’s parents decided to send him to the German boys’ school in Prague 1, even though in the late 19th century such a course was considered (albeit not officially) as an act of ethno-national identification. This helps explain why at that time boys of Czech origin at the Prague 1 German School became a small minority. Yet the data on Kafka’s mother tongue contained in the ‘Katalog über den Schulbesuch und Fortgang’ (‘Catalogue of school attendance and progress’) is contradictory. In the first class the entry d.u.b. (‘deutsch und böhmisch’ – German and Czech) can be found against his name, which could refer either to his mother tongue or to his common language. In view of the fact that this entry does not appear immediately below the name, as is the case with ‘Religion’, but in the ‘Anmerkung’ (‘Remarks’) column, and that the same entry can be found against all pupils who in the following years consistently have the simple entry d. (such as Richard Hrudka), it may be assumed that in this case d.u.b. refers to the boys’ ability to understand both languages – which, in the first class, was clearly not without importance.16 Be that as it may, in the school Catalogue for 1890–91, Kafka’s second year, we once again find, now next to the record of his religion (m., i.e. ‘mosaisch’ for Jewish), the letters d.u.b. – German and Czech. In the Class Three records there is no entry opposite Kafka’s name; and in Class Four we find the single letter d. – i.e. ‘deutsch’ for German. Henceforth, at Grammar school and later at the German university of Prague, Kafka always declares himself a German speaker. The note d.u.b. (German and Czech) in the first two years of elementary school certainly need not be taken as a statement of ethnic (or ‘national’) identity. Rather, it can be seen as meaning that in Franz’s preschool years both German and Czech were spoken in the Kafka household.
But do these data tell us anything about the language situation in Kafka’s school? Even though it is clear from the records that 10% of his schoolmates spoke Czech, that does not necessarily mean that after school or during break the Czech speakers would go into a huddle together, or that Kafka would join them. On the other hand we also know that Kafka’s knowledge of Czech was much influenced by his Czech classes at school, suggesting that it was very much a second language for him. At the Volksschule Czech was taught from Third Year and Kafka’s quarterly school reports in Classes 3 and 4 all give him a grade of 1 (Excellent) in the subject. As for German, the language of instruction, his results were as follows in Table III.
Kafka’s results in Czech compare very favourably with those of other pupils, even of those whose declared native language is Czech. Given this, and the remarks about Kafka’s knowledge of Czech and German in the Classes 1 and 2, it seems unlikely that Kafka’s Czech was so poor that he had to take extra lessons from František X. Bašík, a young man two years Franz’s senior who worked for Hermann Kafka as a trainee from 15 September 1892 to 31 January 1895. This may be Bašík’s retrospective literary self-construction.19 But we can also see Bašík’s testimony from another point of view – as evidence that Kafka spoke Czech regularly with his peers and that his family considered it important to know the language well.
Yet as Table III shows, Kafka’s results in Czech were similar to those he achieved in German. The status of Czech and German in the Prague 1 German Boys’ School were not comparable. German was taught at Kafka’s school for four years as a compulsory subject and was assessed using four different criteria, whereas Czech was taught less intensively, and only for two years. In this respect, however, Prague seems to have been the exception since, as Cohen points out, between 80 and 90 percent of the German pupils in Prague studied Czech in the primary school.20 This is well illustrated by the data for whole country: whereas German was taught as a compulsory subject in 1071 Czech elementary schools and 29 Czech secondary schools and as an optional subject at 1000 Czech elementary schools and 511 Czech secondary schools, Czech was compulsory in only 41 German elementary schools (2%) and 1 German secondary school and optionally in 205 German elementary schools (10%) and 107 German secondary schools – including those in Prague.21 In terms of absolute numbers, there were as more Czech than German elementary and secondary schools.
GRAMMAR SCHOOL
In 1893 Kafka entered the ‘Deutsches Staatsgymnasium zu Prag-Altstadt’ (German State Grammar School in Prague Old Town),22 where he remained until his school-leaving examination in 1901. There were 41 pupils in his first year class, of whom 34 (83%) declared themselves as Jews and only five (12%) as native Czech speakers (from 1894–95 on, the word böhmisch ‘Czech’ is replaced with čechoslawisch – ‘Czechoslav’). Against Kafka’s name we consistently find the entry d (German). The Czech speakers in his class do not usually stay for long, mainly because of their poor grades in German, and in Class Six and Seven the number of Czech pupils is zero. In eighth year two new Czech speakers join the class, but they have trouble with their final exams, again because of their inadequate German. One, Zdenko Vaněk, actually failed the exam.
Given that the Czech pupils attended the grammar school primarily in order to improve their German and prepare for their future careers, it is unlikely that the Czech language was much used at the school – say, among the boys during break. We must therefore assume that any formative influence on Kafka’s Czech in the school was derived from his Czech lessons, which in his first year were attended by half his class. By fourth year the proportion had fallen to a quarter, a drop no doubt caused by the need to prepare for the coming division between those who would continue to the lower secondary school and those who would leave school at the end of the year. In years five and six the number of boys enrolled in the ‘relatively obligatory’ Czech class again rises to half the total class, while in years seven and eight it falls off. By and large, the core group remains the same: sons of merchants, doctors and to a lesser degree civil servants (albeit from the lower echelons), that is to say of people for whom a knowledge of Czech was a vital necessity.
The composition of the group that studied Czech would suggest that the course was of a fairly high standard. Most were what might be called high achievers, while those who fared less well either had difficulties in other subjects, too, or simply gave up. Despite the high level of Czech among most of the group, the lessons were designed more as a foreign language than a second language course, with the result that only some of those whose mother tongue was Czech enrolled. Zdenko Vaněk, for example, attended; Leopold Bergmann did not.
Kafka attended Czech classes during all his eight years at Grammar school, except for the first half of his fifth year when he was doing a course in stenography. Missing half a year of teaching had no negative effect on his grades in the following term, suggesting that Kafka’s Czech was very good. This is further borne out by a comparison of his grades with the class average. The reason Kafka studied stenography for the first term instead of Czech could have been the high intake of weaker pupils in the Czech course following the merging of classes and a consequent dip in the standard, or simply the desire to acquire a practical skill of some kind.23 Or it could have been Václav Rosický, Kafka’s Czech teacher, who besides being an outstanding pedagogue was also an enthusiastic proponent of stenography in Bohemia and Moravia – an enthusiasm he was able to impart to his pupils. This is probably why after leaving school Kafka kept in touch with Rosický, whom we assume is referred to in a letter to Max Brod written in July 1910: ‘I’d like to read a few poems, although my Czech teacher is waiting for me’.24
CZECH TEACHING AT THE GERMAN STATE GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF PRAGUE OLD TOWN
The annual reports issued by the German State Grammar school of Prague Old Town tell us quite a lot about what was taught in Czech, as they include among other things lists of the textbooks used.
During the time Kafka was there Czech was a ‘relatively obligatory’ subject. The syllabus was divided into six sections, as was the class itself. From 1893 to 1897 the Czech teachers were Josef Quaiser, Dr. Wenzel (or Václav) Rosický and, in the school year 1895–96, Dr. Adolf Lindner, with each teaching the various parts of the course in rotation. From 1897 Rosický was the sole Czech teacher.
Two periods a week were devoted to Czech, and in sections II–IV pupils were required to write class tests every four weeks. The time commitment was thus similar to that for other ‘relatively obligatory’ and optional subjects such as French, though French was only taught in years 5–8 (for 2–3 hours a week) and, as far as we can tell from the syllabus and the number of set books, did not place such heavy demands on the pupils as did Czech.25
Even compared with the number of hours devoted to the core curriculum, Czech did not fare badly. German was taught four hours a week (and from fourth year only three), Latin eight (from third year six, from seventh year five), and Greek, starting in third year, five (four in years four and seven); two hours were devoted to religion, three each to history and geography, three to mathematics (in fifth year, four), two to biology, two to physics (only in years three and seven; in fourth year, three), and to philosophy (only in seventh year) two. The interesting comparison is with German, which despite being the language of instruction was allotted only slightly more time than Czech. And those hours included, apart from rhetoric, German literary history and the reading associated with it (The Nibelungenlied, Walther von der Vogelweide, Wieland, Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Kleist, Goethe, Grillparzer. . .) plus the fundamentals of poetics. Admittedly, more was expected of the pupils, with class tests in German every 8–10 days.
However, we should not overstate the emphases placed on Czech at Kafka’s grammar school, nor indeed at any of the German grammar schools in Bohemia and Moravia. A brief comparison with the status of German in Czech grammar schools will suffice. In the 1892–93 annual report of the Czech Senior Grammar School in Truhlářská Street in Prague New Town, for example, we see that German, a compulsory subject,26 was taught four hours a week from first year to fourth year (three hours from fifth to eighth year), while only three hours a week were spent on Czech, and in fourth year only two. In other words German accounted in the Czech grammar school for more classroom hours than Czech, which was not only a core subject but also the language of instruction. Pupils started doing written tests in German as early as in fifth year (the same as in Czech), as well as exercises in rhetoric based on themes taken partly from their German reading: ‘Erzherzog Karl als Vertheidiger des Vaterlandes’ (Archduke Charles as defender of the fatherland), ‘Rudolf II. als Förderer der Künste und Wissenschaften in Prag’ (Rudolph II as a patron of the arts and sciences in Prague), ‘Die Fabel der Götheschen Iphigenie’ (The fable of Goethe’s Iphigenie), ‘Inhaltsangabe und Erklärung des Gedichtes Die Kreuzschau von Chamisso’ (Summary and interpretation of Chamisso’s poem ‘Die Kreuzschau’), to name only a few.27 Moreover, the number of prescribed texts as well as the frequency of written tests is markedly lower for Czech courses at German schools than for German courses at Czech schools. Nor should we forget that in the Czech grammar school German was an obligatory subject in the school-leaving examination.28 Pupils at the German grammar school did not progress nearly as far in their Czech classes. This glaring discrepancy between the way Czech was taught at German grammar schools – primarily as a foreign language and optional, ‘relatively obligatory’ subject meriting only two hours per week – and the importance attached to German at Czech grammar schools – four hours a week, as a compulsory and ‘maturita’ subject (at least in Prague at the time) – indicates the underlying unidirectionality of Czech-German bilingualism.
SYLLABUS
The annual report of the German State Grammar school in Prague 1 also gives us a very good idea of the material content and organization of the various sections:29
Section 1: introduction to correct reading and writing, tenses and modality of the verb býti (to be), declension of nouns and hard adjectives, personal and possessive pronouns, present tense of (regular) verbs30
Section 2: pluralia tantum, vestiges of duality, soft adjectives, comparison of adjectives and adverbs, cardinal and ordinal numerals, types of verb, formation of the passive, imperative and subjunctive31
Section 3: pronouns and quantifiers32
Section 4: extension of conjugation of verbs in the present, formation of perfect and future tenses (perfective and imperfective), prepositions with names33
Section 5: conjoining sentences, indirect speech, use of conjunctions, use of synonyms34
Section 6: revision of grammar, translation from German into Czech, idioms with constant regard to their equivalents in Czech, German and Latin, history of modern literature with reading of selected extracts from contemporary literature35
From this it is clear that in German grammar schools Czech was taught as if it were a foreign language – unlike the approach to German in these schools. Starting with the most elementary sentence types with the verb ‘to be’ (i.e. copular sentences) and a gradual, verb-based exposition of grammar that assumed minimal previous knowledge, the method was quite different from that found in German textbooks for native speakers of Czech in the Czech schools, which systematically worked through the parts of speech, starting with nouns and adjectives. The Czech syllabus at the German State Grammar school for Prague 1 was thus designed in theory for beginners; this is particularly evident in the introduction to reading and writing in Czech and to the use of diacritics. In practice, however, lessons were probably geared to the core group in the class who attended Czech lessons all through secondary school. A further indication is that in this group the grades for Czech were adjusted against those awarded to Czech native speakers, and that newcomers to the course regularly dropped out. The quality of the core group is also reflected in the Czech syllabus: in the academic year 1897–98, German-Czech translation was moved from section 6 to section 5, grammar revision for the higher groups was scrapped, while participles were moved from section 5 to section 4.
TEXTBOOKS
The method and scope of Czech teaching outlined above is also reflected in the textbooks used, as listed in the school’s annual reports. These can be divided into two broad categories: (1) language textbooks in the strict sense of the word that extend and reinforce the pupils’ active use of the Czech language system; and (2) books that foster a passive understanding of the language while at the same time providing a grounding in Czech culture, especially literature.
The first category includes Methodisches Elementarbuch der böhmischen Sprache (Methodic Book of Basic Czech) by Augustin Ritschel and Matthias Rypl (up till 1896–97), Böhmische Schulgrammatik (Czech Grammar for Schools) by Josef Masařík (5th revised edition, also until 1896–97), and the three-volume Lehrgang der böhmischen Sprache (Course of Czech Grammar) by Karel Charvát and Eduard Ouředníček (from 1896–97).
The first two, from the point of view of the language and terminology they use and their overall approach, are decidedly ‘German’. This is apparent not only in their analysis of verb forms, where they talk of the ‘conjunctive’ rather than the conditional, but also and chiefly in their treatment of aspect, in which they avoid the terms ‘perfective’ and ‘imperfective’ (although they were in common use at the time, as we saw above in the annual reports), referring instead to the ‘mode of action’ (Aktionsart). Thus Ritschel and Rypl (1891) distinguish between durative, finitive (perfective), punctual, punctual-finitive (perfective) and iterative verbs as well as between the iterative and the frequentative of punctual verbs, while Masařík differentiates between durative, iterative, frequentative and inchoative.36 Charvát and Ouředníček refer to imperfective and perfective verbs as ‘continuous and single-time verbs’37 and point out the specific formation of the future tense for particular verb types (‘single-time’, ‘punctual’, ‘verba singularia’).38 But in its terminology, its telegraphic descriptions of the phenomena under discussion and its failure to distinguish between verbal aspect and mode of action, their analysis is far from satisfactory. This is hardly surprising, as the first substantial work on aspect in Czech, by František Trávníček, in which aspect was defined as a function of grammar and mode of action as a function of semantics, was not to appear until 1923. Interestingly, aspect was one of the few areas of grammar that Kafka never mastered with absolute confidence – evidence that after all Czech was only his second language, as documented in the first and third chapters.
But the fact that both the Ritschel and Rypl and the Masařík grammars were replaced in 1896–97 by Charvát and Ouředníček’s textbook tells us a lot about Czech teaching at the German State Grammar school of Prague Old Town.39 As a Czech grammar it is superior; it also assumes, at a relatively early stage, at least a passive (and very soon an active) knowledge of Czech that would be unimaginable if the pupils had no contact with the language outside school.
Moreover, the first part of the textbook, used in sections 1 and 2 of the course, contains virtually no tables or overviews and looks more like a book of exercises for the purpose of reinforcing existing knowledge of a second language which – in terms of grammar – was perfectly adequate for everyday communication. These include copular sentences with být (to be), negation, declension of nouns, ‘soft’, ‘hard’ and possessive adjectives, present and past tenses of verbs and the comparative. This, plus the fact that verb conjugation (past tense) was moved from section 4 to section 1 (!), German-Czech translation from section 6 to section 5 and the transgressive from section 5 to section 4, etc., suggests that the course advanced quite rapidly and that the teaching of Czech – initially conceived as the teaching of a foreign language – responded to pupils’ actual knowledge, whether acquired at home or at school, and transformed itself into the teaching of a second language.40
Charvát and Ouředníček – unlike the authors they superseded – also introduce Czech grammatical terms in their German text in the first part of their textbook; and already in the second part, where the grammar is explained in Czech, there are texts for translation from German into Czech that improve active knowledge of Czech as well as translation from Czech into German, supporting a passive knowledge of Czech. From Part Three on, the practice texts tend to focus exclusively on Czech history and culture. We thus find the stories of Čech (or Czech, legendary ancestor of the nation), Krok and his daughters, and the Maidens’ War, as well as texts on education in 10th–12th century Bohemia, George of Poděbrady and, in some detail, the Unity of the Brethren, the Thirty Years’ War, etc.,41 chiefly by outstanding Czech cultural figures such as Josef Dobrovský, Josef Jungmann, Jan Kollár, F. L. Čelakovský, Božena Němcová and Svatopluk Čech,42 including extracts from works of literature. Besides Jan Kollár and Svatopluk Čech, there are extensive passages from Božena Němcová’s Babička (The Grandmother),43 a book of special importance to Kafka as we shall see in the chapter on his reading in Czech.
While pupils in sections 1 and 2 were expected to manage everyday communication with a minimum of grammatical mistakes, boys in the third and higher sections had to understand abstract Czech texts and even translate quite challenging German texts into Czech. A vocabulary list appended to the textbook shows that together the three volumes provided in a German-Czech lexicon an active vocabulary of four thousand lemmas (lexical items) and in a Czech-German lexicon a passive knowledge of over seven thousand – enough to handle all normal communicative situations. We may assume Franz Kafka’s Czech vocabulary was at least as large.44
These language textbooks show that despite the original approach to teaching Czech as if it were a foreign language, the Prague Old Town German Grammar school did take the boys’ knowledge of Czech (however it was acquired) into account, developing and deepening it in a way more akin to the methods of second language acquisition. The textbooks not only gave them a solid grasp of grammar and vocabulary; they also fostered an active command of written Czech (translation into Czech) and a passive ability to make subtle stylistic distinctions in written Czech. It appears that no active distinction was made between the spoken and written forms of the language (dialogue is rendered in the standard ‘written’ form) – a fact that may account for the colloquialisms occasionally found in Kafka’s written Czech.
Among the titles in the second category of textbooks – those that promoted a deeper understanding of both the Czech language and Czech culture – we should mention the two-volume Böhmisches Lesebuch für Deutsche insbesondere für Schüler an deutschen Mittelschulen (A Czech Reader for Germans, Especially for Pupils at German Secondary Schools) by Karl Tieftrunk.45 The annual school reports also list Malá Slovesnosť (Short Poetics), compiled ‘as a textbook and reader for the higher classes of secondary schools’ by Jan Kosina and František Bartoš and replaced in 1896–97 by a fifth edition with the additional authorship of Leandr Čech.46 By the following year, however, it was no longer in use as, among other reasons, its sections on genre duplicated material covered in the German and Latin syllabi.
Despite its German title, the Tieftrunk reader, which was in use at the German Grammar school when Kafka attended Czech classes there, contains mostly fairly simple Czech texts abridged or adapted for teaching purposes. In Volume I we find ancient Czech legends such as Libuše and Přemysl or Horymír’s Leap, as well as the lives of important figures in Czech history such as King Ladislav, John Jiskra (in Václav Hanka’s version), Maria Theresa and Joseph II. There are also literary texts such as Puchmajer’s fable ‘Vrána a liška’ (The crow and the fox), Erben’s ‘Polednice’ (The noon witch) and his fairy tale ‘Tak svět odplácí’ (Thus the world repays), poems by Čelakovský and two texts by Božena Němcová, ‘Dvě rady’ (Two counsels) and ‘Silný Ctibor’ (Strong Ctibor). The volume is completed with model letters to parents, fellow-pupils and sponsors, as well as sample texts of a practical nature (invoices, certificates, etc.) and formalised conversations between pupils on subjects such as tidiness and school holidays which, while lending the collection a degree of stylistic variety, still fail to make a clear distinction between the standard and colloquial forms of Czech. The appended Czech-German vocabulary contains around 6300 lexical items.
Volume II contains poems by Václav Hanka, the poems ‘Znělka’ (Sonnet) and ‘Štěstí’ (Happiness) by Jan Kollár, Karel Hynek Mácha’s ‘Vorlík’ (Vorlík pond), ‘Toman a lesní panna’ (Toman and the wood nymph) and other poems by František Ladislav Čelakovský, ‘Poklad’ (The treasure) and other fairy tales by Karel Jaromír Erben, and Josef Jungmann’s ‘Příběh satirický’ (A satirical tale). There are also more abstract and demanding texts such as Comenius’ ‘Mravní naučení’ (Moral teachings), Palacký’s geographical treatise ‘Země česká’ (The land of Bohemia), as well as his historical biography of Cyril and Methodius and his edited excerpts from Šafařík’s Slovanské starožitnosti (Slavonic Antiquities) about the Slavs’ early settlement of Bohemia and Moravia. Other history-related pieces are extracts from the Green Mountain and Queen’s Court manuscripts – Kytice (A Bouquet) and Jaroslav, vítěz nad Tatary (Jaroslav, Vanquisher of the Tartars) – as well as texts about the Czech nation and its history such as ‘Boleslav’, ‘Vítězství nad Tatary’ (Victory over the Tartars), ‘Výprava proti Milánu’ (The Milan campaign), Karel IV. (Charles IV), ‘Albrecht II.’, ‘Laudon’, ‘Hrad Karlštejn’ (Karlstein castle), ‘Královský hrad v Praze’ (The royal castle in Prague) and ‘Jeskyně Sloupská’ (The cave of Sloup). There is also a section on business correspondence. The appended Czech-German glossary contains approx. 5600 lexical items that only marginally duplicate the word lists in Volume I. In view of the fact that the vocabulary listed in Volume I contains basic items such as a – und (a – and) and babička – Großmutter, Großmütterchen (babička – Grandmother, Granny), we can assume that the word lists contained in the whole textbook covered all the vocabulary required at the start of section six of the course. If we omit duplicated items we arrive at a figure of approximately 10,000 lexical items – certainly an adequate vocabulary even for more demanding communicative situations.
The contents of these textbooks merit closer consideration. What they tell us (and what Kafka scholarship has hitherto failed to notice) is that the study of Czech at German grammar schools was more than a social and communicative necessity for the sons of Prague German merchants: the books also attempted to provide them with an insight into Czech literature and culture and contribute to a better understanding between the two ethno-linguistic communities. This can be seen even more clearly in a book by Antonín Truhlář, who taught Czech at the Academic Grammar school of Prague Old Town. Truhlář’s book was introduced in 1897–98,47 replacing Tieftrunk’s reader. Since Czech texts were read mainly by pupils in the highest section – where Kafka was in that academic year – it is likely that this book in particular shaped his view of 18th and 19th century Czech literature.
The book is also worth a closer look because while it was used in German grammar schools it was in fact written for pupils in Czech grammar schools. This means that German-speaking boys who were interested in Czech literature were taught it in a comparable fashion (at least as far as the teaching materials were concerned) to that employed with Czech speakers in Czech schools.48 So although Franz Kafka attended a German grammar school, he probably knew as much about Czech literature as the average pupil at an equivalent Czech school.
If this was indeed the reader that Kafka learned from at school (and we can only presume it was, then given how knowledgeable his teacher Václav Rosický was about Czech culture, and how positive his pupil felt towards him), Kafka’s own knowledge must have been far from superficial. For in that book we find an extremely detailed chronological exposition of the Czech National Revival in its various phases, consisting of explanatory texts as well as extracts from the literature of each period. The only omissions are controversial writers such as Karel Havlíček Borovský, who is not even mentioned in the general overview.
Truhlář divides the National Revival into two main periods, ‘Resurrection’ (1774–1820) and ‘Renewal’ (1820–1850), with an additional section including works from ‘most recent times’. From the ‘resurrection’ period Truhlář mentions the grammars, apologies for the Czech language, the awareness-raising and publishing work of Václav Matěj Kramerius and František Martin Pelcl/Pelzel, the publications of František Faustin Procházka, Antonín Jaroslav Puchmajer and his circle of poets and the group centred on Josef Jungmann, as well as the work of Jan Nepomuk Hromádko at Vienna University (1813–1817). Among the literary excerpts Truhlář includes are passages from Václav Matěj Kramerius, Antonín Jaroslav Puchmajer, Šebestián Hněvkovský, Milota Zdirad Polák, Václav Hanka, Juraj Palkovič and translations by Josef Jungmann. Factual literature is represented with a text by František Martin Pelcl/Pelzel about the founding of Stará Boleslav by St Wenceslaus’ brother, and a piece about Václav (Wenceslaus) II’s efforts to introduce higher education in Bohemia. There is also an essay by František Faustin Procházka about Dalimil, the early 14th century chronicler; Dobrovský’s ‘Čech nebo Čechové, odkud tak slují’ (Where does the word, Czech, come from?); and Jungmann’s ‘Obohacování jazyka českého’ (The enrichment of the Czech language) and ‘O postavení a úloze českého spisovatelstva’ (On the position and purpose of Czech literature). In short, the book contained everything of any importance relating to the first period of the National Revival.
In the second, ‘renewal’ phase Truhlář stresses the founding of the Patriotic Museum and the revivalist publishing house Matice česká (Czech Foundation); the importance of newly established periodicals; the publication of the Green Mountain and Queen’s Court manuscripts (presented as authentic rather than the forgeries they later proved to be); the nation-building endeavours of Jungmann and his associates; and the support provided by powerful aristocratic families (Chotek, Kolovrat, Kinský). He divides the writers of the period into two groups – the ‘chieftains’ (náčelníky) of Czech literature, and the rest – both of which include Slovak writers, who are regarded as a part of the Czechoslovak national body. Among the ‘chieftains’, whose texts Truhlář prefaces with brief biographies and appreciations, we find Jan Svatopluk Presl, Jan Kollár and his sonnets, Pavel Josef Šafařík and his study Slovanské starožitnosti (Slavonic Antiquities), František Palacký and his writings on Czech history and Hussitism, František Ladislav Čelakovský with his ballads, songs, sonnets and essay ‘Osudy slovanské bohoslužby v Čechách’ (The story of Slavonic liturgy in Bohemia), Jan Erazim Vocel, and Karel Jaromír Erben with his ‘Kytice’ (Bouquet) and ‘Zlatý Kolovrat’ (The golden spinning wheel). Other writers are grouped by genre. In the epic section there are works by Ján Hollý, J. J. Marek, Josef Kajetán Tyl, Samo Chalupka, František Pravda, Karel Hynek Mácha’s Máj (May), and extracts from ‘Pohorská vesnice’ (Mountain village) and ‘Štědrý večer na zámku’ (Christmas Eve at the castle) by Božena Němcová. Under lyric verse we find Josef Krasoslav Chmelenský, Karel Alois Vinařický, František Sušil and many more, while Josef Jaroslav Langer, František Jaromír Rubeš and Jan Pravoslav Koubek come under the heading ‘Various’. Drama is represented by Václav Kliment Klicpera, František Turinský a Karel Simeon Macháček, and the academic writing of the period by Jan Evangelista Purkyně (natural sciences), Antonín Rybička (philosophy) a Václav Vladivoj Tomek (history).
Truhlář’s textbook also addresses the ‘most recent’ period, though his introductory text is rather scant. But he does at least refer to a number of new cultural institutions, among them the National Theatre, the Bohemian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In fact he mentions virtually all the important writers of the second half of the 19th century, apart from those who emerged in its last two decades. Thus we find the poets Vítězslav Hálek, Jan Neruda, Adolf Heyduk, Julius Zeyer, Josef Václav Sládek, Svatopluk Čech, Eliška Krásnohorská and Jaroslav Vrchlický, the prose writers Karolina Světlá, Alois Vojtěch Šmilovský, Václav Kosmák, Václav Beneš Třebízský and Alois Jirásek (extracts from his historical novels Psohlavci and F. L. Věk), and the non-fiction and academic writers Václav Vladivoj Tomek (history of Prague), Hermenegild Jireček (military history), Václav Zelený (biography of Jungmann), Vincenc Brandl (biography of Dobrovský), Josef Durdík (aesthetics), Jan E. Kosina (Homer), František Bartoš (an essay on the Czech national ‘spirit’) and Jan Gebauer (the evolution of the Czech language). Truhlář’s choice of factual texts, in particular, tells us how keen he was to familiarize his students with Czech theoretical writing, foster their understanding of such texts and help them distinguish different styles of written Czech.
Without going into a detailed analysis of these writers and writings, it is safe to say that Kafka’s schooling provided him with a sound basic knowledge of the 19th century Czech National Revival and the cultural and political forces it unleashed. Despite its omission of certain authors such as Karel Havlíček Borovský, Truhlář’s textbook enabled Kafka to get to know 18th and 19th century Czech literature – a literature that placed the national aspirations of the time above aesthetic considerations. This view of culture as defined by language, and the resulting artistic canon in which aesthetic values were subservient to ethno-national values, remained widespread among the Czech public, though it was denounced by the younger generation in the 1895 Manifest moderny (Manifesto of the Modern Age). Franz Kafka, too, who later in life was more drawn to modern Czech writing than to older literature, consistently judged Czech culture by aesthetic criteria alone. But this does not mean that in his schooldays he did not know and appreciate the works of 18th and 19th century and even earlier Czech writers. In fact his textbooks gave him a fairly nuanced picture of Czech literature and culture – a culture that was in many respects the embodiment of a national political program rather than a literature, as he noted in his ‘Character sketch of small literatures’. Indeed, that essay well reflects the broad scope of Kafka’s Czech cultural receptivity based also on his school reading, which laid down the markers for his future reading, whether of fiction or non-fiction.
1 For the status of Czech in the household of Hermann Kafka and the extent to which Franz Kafka used the language, see also Anna Pouzarová, Als Erzieherin in der Familie Kafka (Governess in the Kafka family). In: Hans-Gerd Koch (ed.), „Als Kafka mir entgegen kam. . .“ Erinnerungen an Franz Kafka (‘As Kafka approached me.’ Recollections of Franz Kafka). Berlin: Wagenbach 1995, pp. 55–65, here p. 62.
2 For more on Czech dialects see Jan Balhar et al., Český jazykový atlas (Atlas of the Czech Language). Vol. 4. Prague: Academia 2002, p. 182, 185.
3 See Emil Brix, Die Umgangssprachen in Altösterreich zwischen Agitation und Assimilation: Die Sprachenstatistik in den zisleithanischen Volkszählungen 1880 bis 1910 (Common Languages in Old Austria between Agitation and Assimilation: Language Statistics in the Austrian Censuses, 1880–1910). Vienna, Cologne, Graz: Böhlau 1982.
4 Cohen states that whereas in 1890 about 40% of pupils at German Volksschulen were native Czech speakers, by 1910 the figure had fallen to around 17%. See Gary B. Cohen: The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague 1861–1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1981, p. 132. The data from the ‘Jewish’ school in Prague Old Town show that in comparison with other German schools the ‘escape’ of Czech Christian pupils was more dynamic.
5 Ingrid Stöhr, Zweisprachigkeit in Böhmen – Deutsche Volksschulen und Gymnasien in Prag der Kafka-Zeit (Bilingualism in Bohemia: German Elementary and Grammar Schools in the Prague of Kafka’s Time). Weimar: Böhlau 2010.
6 Stöhr, Zweisprachigkeit in Böhmen, 377 f.
7 See Hartmut Binder, Kindheit in Prag. Kafkas Volksschuljahre (Childhood in Prague: Kafka’s years at Volksschule). In: Harry Järv (ed.), Humanismen. Stockholm: Atlantis 1987, pp. 63–115, here p. 85 ff. In a later work, however, Binder modifies his view: ‘whereas a quarter of the Prague population who identified themselves as German belonged to lower-income groups, at least half of them being labourers and tradesmen’. See Hartmut Binder, Paul Eisners dreifaches Ghetto (Paul Eisner’s triple ghetto). In: Michel Reffet (ed.), Le monde de Franz Werfel et la morale des nations. / Die Welt Franz Werfels und die Moral der Völker. Berlin et al.: Peter Lang 2000, pp. 17–137, here p. 53. More recently see Stöhr, Zweisprachigkeit in Böhmen.
8 Of those 69 were Jewish and 17 Christian. Four of the private pupils gave Czech as their native language, six said they spoke Czech better than German, while seven stated the opposite. Data is from records of the German National School in Prague 1, Prague City Archive. A similar situation applied in the Prague 1 Bürgerschule. See also Marek Nekula, Franz Kafka ve škole. Výuka a znalosti češtiny (Franz Kafka at school. His Czech lessons and knowledge of Czech). In: Kafkova zpráva o světě. Sborník ze semináře Společnosti Franze Kafky 20.–21. října 1999 (Kafka’s Report on the World. Proceedings from the Franz Kafka Society seminar, 20–21 October 1999). Prague: Nakladatelství Franze Kafky 2000, pp. 59–78. Binder’s figures are inconsistent. See Binder, Paul Eisners dreifaches Ghetto, p. 68 and 113.
9 See Gustav Strakosch-Grassmann, Geschichte des österreichischen Unterrichtswesens (History of the Austrian School System). Vienna: Pichler 1905; Binder, Kindheit in Prag, p. 89 ff.; Hannelore Burger, Sprachenrecht und Sprachgerechtigkeit im österreichischen Unterrichtswesen 1867–1918 (Language Law and Language Justice in the Austrian School System 1867–1918). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1995, p. 169.
10 See Jiří Kořalka, Das Nationalitätenproblem in den böhmischen Ländern 1848–1918 (The Nationality Problem in the Bohemian Lands 1848–1918). Österreichische Osthefte 5 (1991), pp. 1–11, here p. 9.
11 See Burger, Sprachenrecht und Sprachgerechtigkeit, p. 104 f.
12 See Burger, Sprachenrecht und Sprachgerechtigkeit, p. 92.
13 Kořalka states that according to the 1900 census 62.67% of the population of Bohemia were Czechs. See Jiří Kořalka, Tschechen im Habsburgerreich und in Europa 1815–1914 (Czechs in the Habsburg Empire and in Europe 1815–1914). Vienna, Munich: Oldenbourg 1991, p. 128. Burger cites the number of pupils attending Czech elementary and secondary schools as 604,122, and those at German Volks- and Bürgerschulen as 360,409. Burger, Sprachenrecht und Sprachgerechtigkeit, p. 173. See also the table in Burger, ibid., pp. 246 ff. This means the ratio of Czech schools to German schools was 57.65% to 42.35%, while that of Czech pupils to German pupils was 62.63% to 37.37%.
14 See Burger, Sprachenrecht und Sprachgerechtigkeit, p. 45 f.
15 See esp. Burger, Sprachenrecht und Sprachgerechtigkeit, pp. 111–114.
16 The class teacher could also leave the ‘language’ field blank, as was the case in Class 4a at Kafka’s school in 1884–85.
17 Each grade is for one academic quarter.
18 In the third quarter Kafka did not receive a grade owing to a 5-day absence.
19 František X. Bašík (1881–1961), whose memoirs, written under the name František Bártík in 1940–43, were published by his great-grandson J. J. K. Nebeský, claims not to have known that Franz Kafka, whom he gave extra Czech lessons to, later became a writer. See František X. Bašík, Vyučil jsem se u Kafků: Praha a Mladá Boleslav na konci 19. století očima dospívajícího muže (I was an Apprentice in the Kafka Store: Prague and Mladá Boleslav at the end of 19th Century through the Eyes of an Adolescent). Prague: Prostor 2003. Extracts from his memoirs were published in Jiří J. K. Nebeský, Nové obrázky z Kafkova dětství (New images of Kafka’s childhood). Host 17 (2001), No. 7, 64–68. See also Marek Nekula, Ad Nové obrázky z Kafkova dětství (Ad New images of Kafka’s childhood). Host 10 (2001), No. 8, p. 74.
20 See Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival, p. 133; also Binder, Paul Eisners dreifaches Ghetto, p. 115, and Robert Luft, Sprache und Nationalität an Prager Gymnasien um 1900 (Language and nationality at Prague grammar schools around 1900). In: Klaas-Hinrich Ehlers at al. (eds), Brücken nach Prag. Deutschsprachige Literatur im kulturellen Kontext der Donaumonarchie und der Tschechoslowakei (Bridges to Prague: German-written Literature in the Cultural Context of the Habsburg Monarchy and Czechoslovakia). Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang 2000, pp. 105–122.
21 For figures for all kingdoms and countries of the Empire, see Burger, Sprachenrecht und Sprachgerechtigkeit, p. 248.
22 Binder points out that Kafka’s teacher Mathias Beck recommended he first complete fifth year before moving on to grammar school. See Franz Kafka: Tagebücher 1914–1923 in der Fassung der Handschrift (Diaries 1914–1923 Based on the Handwritten Manuscripts). Ed. by Hans-Gerd Koch. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer 1994, pp. 172 f., and Binder, Kindheit in Prag, p. 104.
23 See also the memoirs of Kafka’s classmate H. Bergmann. Hugo Bergmann, Schulzeit und Studium (School and student years). In: Hans-Gerd Koch (ed.), „Als Kafka mir entgegen kam. . .“ Erinnerungen an Franz Kafka (‘As Kafka approached me.’ Recollections of Franz Kafka). Berlin: Wagenbach 1995, pp. 13–24, here p. 17.
24 Max Brod – Franz Kafka, Eine Freundschaft. Briefwechsel (A Friendship: Correspondence). Ed. by Malcolm Pasley. Vol. 2. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer 1989, p. 77.
25 For more about French see the chapter on Franz Kafka’s languages.
26 The formulation used in the report is ‘obligatory subjects and German language’. See Výroční zpráva cís. král. vyššího gymnasia českého na Novém Městě v Praze (Annual Report of the Imperial and Royal Czech High Grammar School in Prague New Town). 1896–97, p. 30.
27 See Výroční zpráva, pp. 38–39.
28 See Výroční zpráva cís. král. vyššího gymnasia českého na Novém Městě v Praze. 1892–93, p. 48.
29 22.–29. Jahresbericht über das Deutsche Staats-Gymnasium mit deutscher Unterrichtssprache in Prag--Altstadt für das Schuljahr. . . (Annual Report of German State Grammar School with German as Language of Instruction in Prague Old Town). 1894–1901: Prague: K.u.k. Hofbuchdruckerei A. Hase.
30 Also, from 1896–97, Past Tense (‘Vergangenheit’).
31 Also, from 1895–96, exceptions to regular declension.
32 Also, from 1895–96, the conjugation of verbs; and from 1896–97, perfective and imperfective verbs and the imperative.
33 Also, from 1897–98, the subjunctive, the passive, participles and irregular verbs.
34 Also, from 1894–95, the use of participles, the infinitive and the imperative; also case. From 1895–96 and 1893–94 syntax and précis; in 1896–97 declension (case); in 1897–98 and 1898–99 case again, and translation from German into Czech; in 1899–1900 idioms and translation from German into Czech; in 1900–01 case and translation from German into Czech.
35 In 1897–98 and 1898–99 there is no mention of grammar revision.
36 Based on Josef Masařík, Böhmische Schulgrammatik. Für deutsche Mittelschulen und Lehrer-Bildungsanstalten bearbeitet (Czech Grammar for Schools: Prepared for German Secondary Schools and Teacher Training Institutes). 6th revised edition. Prague: F. Tempsky 1894.
37 Karel Charvát – Edvard Ouředníček, Lehrgang der böhmischen Sprache für deutsche Mittelschulen (Course in Czech Language for German Secondary Schools). Vol. 2. Olomouc: Ed. Hölzel 1893, p. 24.
38 Ibid. 25.
39 The following analysis is based on the first volume of the 2nd, revised edition of Charvát’s book published in 1897, and on Vols. II and III of Charvát and Ouředníček, which were used at Kafka’s grammar school and to which I had access. See Karel Charvát – Edvard Ouředníček: Lehrgang der böhmischen Sprache für deutsche Mittelschulen (Course in Czech Language for German Secondary Schools). Vol. 1. Olomouc: Ed. Hölzel 1891; Vol. 2, 1893; Vol. 3, 1895.
40 Grammar school pupils would also have had Czech classes at elementary school.
41 See Karel Charvát – Edvard Ouředníček, Lehrgang der böhmischen Sprache für deutsche Mittelschulen (Course in Czech Language for German Secondary Schools). Vol. 3. Olomouc: Ed. Hölzel 1895, pp. 16, 27, 49, 78, 37, 83 ff., 80 f.
42 See Charvát – Ouředníček, Lehrgang der böhmischen Sprache für deutsche Mittelschulen, pp. 87–89, 92–94, 95–99, 100–102, 104–105, 106–107.
43 See Charvát – Ouředníček Lehrgang der böhmischen Sprache für deutsche Mittelschulen, pp. 112–142.
44 Each of the three volumes contains a vocabulary appendix. Vol. I has a list of words from the Czech texts (1510 lexical items) and an alphabetical Czech-German glossary (1208 lexical items). In Vol. II there is one vocabulary list for the German texts (710 lexical items), one for the Czech texts (3828 lexical items) and an alphabetical Czech-German glossary (1505 lexical items). Vol. III has one vocabulary list for the German texts (628), another for the Czech texts (1906) and an alphabetical glossary of 1383 lexical items. That makes a total of 7244 lexical items in the Czech word lists (passive vocabulary) and 4096 in the bilingual glossaries (active vocabulary). In all the lists some words occur more than once, whereas many lexical items that do appear in the texts are not listed as it is assumed they are already known. This means that these data regarding the probable extent of Kafka’s Czech vocabulary can be no more than approximate.
45 In the academic years 1893–94 and 1894–95 the 6th edition of Vol. I was used and the 3rd revised edition of Vol. II; in 1895–96, the same edition of Vol. I and the 4th revised edition of Vol. II; and in 1896–97 the 7th edition of Vol. I. In 1897–98 Tieftrunk’s book was superseded by Truhlář’s reader (see below). See Karl Tieftrunk, Böhmisches Lesebuch für Deutsche insbesondere für Schüler an deutschen Mittelschulen. Česká čítanka, zvláště pro žáky na gymnasiích a realních školách (Czech Reader for Germans, especially for Pupils on German Secondary Schools). Vol. 1. Prague: F. L. Kober 41881, 51886, 61889, 71896; vol. 2. Prague: F. L. Kober 31884, 41893.
46 See Jan Evangelista Kosina – František Bartoš, Malá Slovesnosť, kterou za knihu učebnou a čitací pro vyšší třídy škol středních (Short Poetics, which Can be Used as Textbook and Reader for Higher Secondary Schools). Brno: Karl Winker 1876; 3th edition, 1883; 4th edition, 1893. In the academic years 1893–94 and 1894–95 the 3rd edition was used; in 1895–96 the 4th edition. The textbook covers the fundamentals of Czech scansion, an introduction to poetics, i.e. the main literary genres (fairy tales, myths, epics, epic lyric verse, ballads, romances, short stories, novels, novellas, dramas and didactic literature), and the rudiments of stylistics (but excluding spoken Czech). It also contains extracts from the works of Božena Němcová, Karel Jaromír Erben, František Ladislav Čelakovský, Jan Neruda and others.
47 In that school year and in 1898–99 the second edition was used. In 1899–1900 it was replaced by the third edition, on which the following analysis is based. Antonín Truhlář, Výbor z literatury české. Doba nová (Anthology of Czech Literature: Modern Period). 3 vol. Prague: Bursík & Kohout 1886, 21892, 31898.
48 According to the annual report of the Czech grammar school in Prague New Town, Truhlář’s reader was used there for teaching modern Czech literature (Výroční zpráva cís. král. vyššího gymnasia českého na Novém Městě v Praze. 1896/97, p. 46), as well as Kosina and Bartoš’s Malá slovesnosť (Short Poetics; see above). A comparison of the annual reports of the Czech Senior Grammar school in Prague New Town with those of the German State Grammar school in Prague Old Town suggests that Truhlář’s reader was introduced at roughly the same time in the two schools.