A CLEVER ALIEN.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14152, 11 March 1910, Page 6

A CLEVER ALIEN.

RUSSIAN JEW'S SUCCESS. Selig Brodetsky, a Russian Jew and London board school boy, who tied for senior wrangler at Cambridge in 1908, has H'on the Isaac Newton scholarship at Cambridge. The success of Mr. Brodetsky furnishes a remarkable example of the possibilities open to the poorest boy in English elementary schools, for " his father landed in London from .Uussia practically penniless sixteen, or seventeen years ago. The storv of how Selig Brodetsky has climbed the educational ladder from the hottoTii to the topmost rung was told in the London "Daily Mail" when he tied for the senior wranglership, the highest honour winch the University of Cambridge offers. "My son Selig," said Mr. Brodetsky, I senior, to the reporter, "was born at ■ Olviopol, near Odessa, twenty years ago. I came to this count;•••" sixteen years ago. I realised t! :•• ' '--y.v.'j, a Jew, there were no possib . j open to me in Russia. A rear a'.':..•rv.-ards—-in 1893 —I sent for my wife and chil- I dren. Selig undoubtedly inherits his I remarkable faculties for' mathematics j from me, for as a boy I was dubbed ! 'the thinker,' 'the philosopher." "There can be no doubt that if the Aliens Act had been in force when I came to this country I should not have been allowed in, for, although I had my passport and was not a refugoo from justice, I had not the necessary £5. I cannot help thinking that a good many little Seligs have probably beon shut out by the operation of that Act. However, here I am. I have become naturalised, and I have succeedjed in bringing up my family. I am lan itinerant haberdasher. Selig's na- | tive tongue was Yiddish, but he picked up English very quickly when he went to the Jews' Free School in Bell Lane in 1895. Here he remained until 1900, when, by winning the Hickson and Starling Scholarship, he entered Cow-per-street school, leaving it six years later, captain of the school, to go to Trinity College, Cambridge. During this period he received, in addition to his education, sums varying from £9 to £25 per annum towards his maintenance. He was always a very studious boy. He gave up play too much for liis books, and his friends would say that he would break down; but, [ beyond a little exhaustion following upon an examination, he has never had any illness. "As an instance of his aptitude for grasping a subject, I should like to say that at my earnest request he took up the study of astronomy—a pet subject of mine—during one of his vacations, and after two months' study he [ sat for a scholarship examination. He j was not successful, but he was highly commended "by the examiners. My son has received all his early instruction in mathematics from me, but he soon left me far behind, and he quickly became the tutor and I the pupil. He is now in possession of four scholarshins at Cambridge, producing £250 a year, including the Marmaduko Levitt (£4O) the Anthony Death (£6O), and the Fishmongers' (£SO). These have four years to rim. "I want to say this," continued Mr. Brodetsky, "that my wife and myself and all my family feel the greatest and deepest gratitude to this liberal country in providing the means for my son's education. In Russia such a career would have been impossible for him. My son's education has cost me nothing beyond his maintenance in his early years."