446 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



similar emergency to receive help in their turn. All Servians are proud, and are equal 

 under the King. There is no aristocracy, and the middle class, merchants, shopkeepers, and 

 others, are few. The Servian who works in the field does not recognise a superior in the 

 better-dressed and better-educated official. 



There is no pauperism in the country. The old and sick are maintained by their 

 neighbours iu the rural districts, and iu the towns by the commune or the workmen's 

 associations. 



Education is compulsory and free, and is making rapid strides. There are schools in every 

 village. Not only do children of all classes receive free education, but very poor children 

 obtain a small allowance from the Government to support them during the time they must 

 study in the secondary and higher schools. When they can do so, poor students eke out this 

 allowance by doing work of some kind in the houses of their richer fellow-students. In this 

 way low birth and poverty are no barrier to the attainment of the highest administrative 



and official positions. 



The Servians are an 

 eminently pious race. The 

 fasts of the Church are rigidly 

 observed, and the peasant 

 never fails in the morning 

 to invoke a blessing on the 

 coming day. Every family 

 in Servia has its patron saint. 

 The care of this patron saint 

 is committed to the sons, and 

 not to the daughters, who 

 concern themselves with the 

 saints allotted to their future 

 husbands. The feast of the 

 patron saint is an ancient 

 custom, going back to the 

 times when the patriarchal 

 family lived together under 

 the same roof. It is prac- 

 tised everywhere even at the 

 present day, the busy towns 

 not excepted, and it lasts 

 several days. The house is 

 decorated with branches and 

 flowers, and the nearest rela- 

 tions meet at a banquet 

 presided over by the head of 

 the family. A loaf made of 

 the finest wheaten flour is set 

 in the centre of the table. 

 A cross is hollowed out in the 

 middle of the loaf, and in the 

 centre is fixed a candlestick 

 with three branches, all of 

 which are lighted in honour 

 of the Trinity. A prayer is 

 said, in which the blessing 

 A BOHEMIAN WOMAN. of God is invoked upon the 



Pliolo by Levy Bros.} 



[Paris. 



