If she could sign her name in Russian, do a little figuring, and write a letter in Yiddish to the parents of her betrothed, she was called _wohl gelehrent_--well educated.
Fortunately for me, my parents' ideals soared beyond all this.

My mother, although she had not stirred out of Polotzk, readily adopted the notion of a liberal education imported by my father from cities beyond the Pale.

She heartily supported him in all his plans for us girls.

Fetchke and I were to learn to translate as well as pronounce Hebrew, the same as our brother.

We were to study Russian and German and arithmetic.