intensified by the promulgation of the
military statute of 1874 which conferred a number of privileges in the
discharge of military duty on those possessing a higher education. These
privileges induced many parents, particularly among the merchant class
which was then drafted into the army for the first time, to send their
children to the middle and higher educational institutions. As a result,
the role of the Society in the dissemination of enlightenment reduced
itself to a mere dispensation of charity, and the great crisis of the
eighties found this organization standing irresolute at the cross-roads.

3. THE JEWISH PRESS

In the absence of a comprehensive net-work of social agencies, the
driving force in this cultural upheaval came from the periodical Jewish
press. The creation of several press organs in Hebrew and Russian in the
beginning of the sixties was a sign of the times. Though different in
their linguistic medium, the two groups of publications were equally
engaged in the task of the regeneration of Judaism, each adapting itself
to its particular circle of readers. The Hebrew periodicals, and partly
also those in Yiddish which addressed themselves to the masses, preached
_Haskalah_ in the narrower sense. They advocated the necessity of a
Russian elementary education and of secular culture in general; they
emphasized the uselessness of the traditional Jewish school training,
and exposed superstition and obscurantism. The Russian publications,
again, which were intended for the Jewish and the Russian
_intelligenzia_, pursued in the main a political goal, the fight for
equal rights and the defence of Judaism against its numerous detractors.

In both groups one can discern the gradual ripening of the social Jewish
consciousness, the advance from elementary and often naive notions to
more complex ideas. The two Hebrew weeklies founded in 1860,
_ha-Karmel_, "The Carmel," in Vilna, and _ha-Melitz_, "The Interpreter,"
in Odessa, the former edited by Fuenn and the latter by Zederbaum, [1]
were at first adapted to the mental level of grown-up children,
expatiating upon the benefits of secular education and the "favors" of
the Government consequent upon it. _Ha-Karmel_ expired in 1870, while
yet in its infancy, though it continued to appear at irregular intervals
in the form of booklets dealing with scientific and literary subjects.
_Ha-Melitz_ was more successful. It soon grew to be a live and
courageous organ wh