Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule

ek of the State Uni

of their political fortunes. Among these not the least hopeful are the Bohe

seek independence? Are they not more secure as a part of a large empire? It is in ant

rung from the government only by tremendous effort, and in times of great political stress. Even now the people are compelled to maintain schools in some parts of the kingdom by voluntary contributions. The government has done nothing for Bohemia either politic

the right to shape their own destinie

e by marrying the widow of the last Bohemian King of the P?emysl line. His right to rule was contested, and upon his death the Bohemians selected several kings from other ruling houses, and it was not until 1437 that another Hapsburg, Albrecht, was again voluntarily elected King of Bohemia. But after

continued to exercise for some time. But in 1619 the Bohemians reasserted their right to elect their kings and chose Frederick of the Palatinate, thus precipitating the Thirty Years' War. But notwithstanding the reverses which the Bohemians suffered, F

orate their country in any other, and in 1868 formally declared that "the Kingdom of Bohemia is attached to the empire by a purely personal tie,"-that is, through the person

emians claim that their kingdom is

ay. They elected their own kings, who were bound by what was practically equivalent to our modern constitution, and they sometimes chose these kings from their own midst; before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War they were seriously contemplating a form of government not unlike th

ich they contended when they struggled to re-establish their schools and their intellectual life, the progress which they have made in the past century is astonishing. The city of Prague is to-day one of the greatest publishing cent

e wholly Bohemian. He was educated in the University of Paris, and that institution furnished the model for his new university. Following the Paris plan he gave two votes to the German nations in the management of the university (a courtesy which they have never been inclined to imitate), but like all other institutions of that period the university was Latin, and not in any sense German. Fifty years later it passed wholly under the control of the Bohemians and developed into one of the greate

hemia, Václav II., attempted to establish a university at Prague, but the p

of their own, and their devotion to their educational in

rially progressive. They are competent to direct their own affairs, and it is only the insolent usurper who can assume to lay claim to the right to rule over them. Bohemia is a fertil

ll join in the hope of the realization of the spirit of the prophecy of Doctor John Jesensky of Jesen, one of the martyr leaders of the Bohemians who were executed at