e missionary
activity of the Government, began to fade away. In the beginning of
Alexander's reign, the conversion of Jews was still encouraged by the
grant of monetary assistance to converts. The law of 1859 extended these
stipends to persons embracing any other Christian persuasion outside of
Greek Orthodoxy. But in 1864 the Government came to the conclusion that
it was not worth its while to reward deserters and began a new policy by
discontinuing its allowances to converts serving in the army. A little
later it repealed the law providing for a mitigation of sentence for
criminal offenders who embrace Christianity during the inquiry or trial.
[1]

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 45.]

In encouraging "the fusion of the Jews with the original population,"
the Government of Alexander II. had in mind civil and cultural fusion
rather than religious assimilation, which even the inquisitorial
contrivances of Nicholas' conscription scheme had failed to accomplish.
But as far as the cultural fusion or, for short, the Russification of
the Jews was concerned, the Government even now occasionally indulged in
practices which were borrowed from the antiquated system of enlightened
absolutism.

The official enlightenment, which had been introduced during the
forties, was slow in taking root. The year 1848 was the first scholastic
year in the two enlightenment nurseries, the rabbinical schools of Vilna
and Zhitomir. Beginning with that year a number of elementary Crown
schools for Jewish children were opened in various cities of the Pale.
The cruel persecutions of the outgoing regime affected the development
of the schools in a twofold manner. On the one hand, the Jewish
population could not help turning away with disgust from the gift of
enlightenment which its persecutors held out to it. On the other hand,
the horrors of conscription induced many a Jewish youth, to seek refuge
in the new rabbinical schools which saved their inmates from the
soldier's uniform. Many a parent who regarded both the barracks and the
Crown schools as training grounds for converts preferred to send his
children to the latter, where, at least, they were spared the martyrdom
of the barracks. The pupils of the rabbinical schools came from the
poorest classes, those that carried on their shoulders the whole weight
of conscription. True, the distrustful attitude towards the official
schools was gradually weakening as the new Government of Alexander II.
was pas