Growing Up in Poland

Poland

"Warsaw was then under Russian domination, and one of the worst aspects of this control was the oppression exerted on the school and the child. The private schools directed by Poles were closely watched by the police and overburdened with the necessity of teaching the Russian language even to children so young that they could scarcely speak their native Polish. Nevertheless, since the teachers were nearly all of Polish nationality, they endeavored in every possible way to mitigate the difficulties resulting from the national persecution. These schools, however, could not legally give diplomas, which were obtainable only in the schools of the government.

 I was only fifteen when I finished my high-school studies, always having held first rank in my class. The fatigue of growth and study compelled me to take almost a year’s rest in the country. I then returned to my father in Warsaw, hoping to teach in the free schools. But family circumstances obliged me to change my decision. My father, now aged and tired, needed rest; his fortune was very modest. So I resolved to accept a position as governess for several children. Thus, when scarcely seventeen, I left my father’s house to begin an independent life.

That going away remains one of the most vivid memories of my youth. My heart was heavy as I climbed into the railway car. It was to carry me for several hours, away from those I loved. And after the railway journey I must drive for five hours longer. What experience was awaiting me? So I questioned as I sat close to the car window looking out across the wide plains

I continued my efforts to educate myself. This was no easy task under the Russian government of Warsaw; yet I found more opportunities than in the country. To my great joy, I was able, for the first time in my life, to find access to a laboratory: a small municipal physical laboratory directed by one of my cousins. I found little time to work there, except in the evenings and on Sundays, and was generally left to myself. I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success, at others I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience. But on the whole, though I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy, this first trial confirmed in me the taste for experimental research in the fields of physics and chemistry."


from Kellog & Kellog, 1923, Autobiographical Notes