RUMANIA AND HER AMBITIONS 



1085 



The great majority of the inhabitants 

 belong to the (Greek) Orthodox Church, 

 the number of Cathohcs and Protestants 

 being neghgible. There is a small Mo- 

 hammedan population, and the Armenian 

 National Church is also represented. 



A HIGH pe:rce:ntage: of ilutkratks 



Education is free and compulsory 

 ''wherever there are schools," and though 

 great strides are being made in this re- 

 spect, the number of illiterates is still 

 high, as it is estimated that about 50 per 

 cent of the inhabitants can neither read 

 nor write. There are two well-equipped 

 universities — one at Bucharest, which has 

 an attendance of more than 3,000 stu- 

 dents, and a smaller one at Jassy, with 

 about 500 students. The state is doing 

 its best to raise the educational standard 

 of the country by providing, among other 

 measures, a number of special schools, 

 among them being 8 normal schools, 

 12 commercial schools, 17 agricultural 

 schools, and 6 schools of domestic econ- 

 omy for girls, in addition to which there 

 are nearly 50 professional schools for 

 boys, some of them state institutions and 

 some private. 



Military service is compulsory and uni- 

 versal. Under normal circumstances the 

 young men from 19 to 21 receive a cer- 

 tain amount of primary training before 

 they are called to the colors. At 21 they 

 enter the regular army, serving for two 

 years in the infantry and three years 

 in the other branches of the service, after 

 which they spend four or five years in 

 the first reserve, being then transferred 

 to the second reserve, and after that to 

 the territorial corps ; so that a man's av- 

 erage service in the army and reserves 

 covers a period of some 21 years. 



The means of communication in Ru- 

 mania are excellent, there being nearly 

 2,000,000 miles of well-constructed na- 

 tional roads, and the railroads, which are 

 all operated by the state, yield a hand- 

 some profit. In all, they amount to about 

 2,500 miles, of which more than 2,000 

 are state owned. In addition to the 



working of all the lines, the state has the 

 direction of the commercial navigation 

 service on the Danube and on the Black 

 Sea. 



Included in the population of the king- 

 dom are many races not of Rumanian 

 blood; for instance, in Moldavia there 

 are thousands of Magyar descent, while 

 in Dobrudja and Silistria the foreign ele- 

 ment is strong — Turk, Tartar, Bulgar, 

 Russian, and German being represented. 



A cause: of permanent unhappiness 



As is the case among the patriots of 

 many European states, there is a perma- 

 nent unhappiness in Rumania because of 

 the fact that all Rumanians are not 

 united under one flag. Not only is there 

 a grievance against Russia because of 

 Bessarabia, Hungary is also unloved on 

 account of the many thousands of Ru- 

 manians living in Transylvania. In the 

 latter province the Rumanians cling not 

 only to their peculiar dress and language, 

 never having been absorbed, but also dis- 

 tinguish themselves and their Orthodox 

 faith by marking their houses with a 

 Greek cross. 



The Rumanians are a better-looking 

 race than any of their neighbors. They 

 are taller than the stocky Bulgar and. 

 have less stolid faces. There is often 

 great beauty among the peasant women, 

 and their costumes are the most brilliant 

 in southeastern Europe. The Ruma- 

 nians are of a southern European ap- 

 pearance, while their neighbors, with the 

 exception of the Serbs, bear traces of 

 their Oriental blood. 



It is natural for them, like other races, 

 to indulge in dreams of a day when a 

 great Rumania can be formed. Yet the 

 fulfillment of their ambition seems re- 

 mote beyond possibility. These quasi- 

 Latin people are not of a nature to make 

 friends with their unlike neighbors, Slavs 

 and Magyars, by whom they are entirely 

 surrounded, but they must needs asso- 

 ciate themselves politically for protection 

 with the least aggressive of the two rival 

 powers on their frontier. 



