t as soon as the Crown schools have been established
in sufficient numbers, attendance at them would become obligatory; that
the superintendents of the new schools should only be chosen from among
Christians; that every possible effort should be made "to put obstacles
in the way of granting teaching licenses" to the melammeds who lacked a
secular education; that after the lapse of twenty years no one should
hold the position of teacher or rabbi without having obtained his degree
from one of the official rabbinical schools.

It was not long, however, before the secret came out. The Russian Jews
were terror-stricken at the thought of being robbed of their ancient
school autonomy, and decided to adopt the well-tried tactics of passive
resistance to all Government measures. The school-reform was making slow
progress. The opening of the elementary schools and of the two
rabbinical institutes in Vilna and Zhitomir did not begin until 1847,
and for the first few years they dragged on a miserable existence.
Lilienthal himself disappeared from the scene, without waiting for the
consummation of the reform plan. In 1845 he suddenly abandoned his post
at the Ministry of Public Instruction, and left Russia for ever. A more
intimate acquaintance with the intentions of the leading Government
circles had made Lilienthal realize that the apprehensions voiced in his
presence by the old men of the Vilna community were well-founded, and he
thought it his duty to fulfill the pledge given by him publicly. From
the land of serfdom, where, to use Lilienthal's own words, the only way
for the Jew to make peace with the Government was "by bowing down before
the Greek cross," he went to the land of freedom, the United States of
America. There he occupied important pulpits in New York and Cincinnati
where he died in 1882.

3. THE ABOLITION OF JEWISH AUTONOMY AND RENEWED
PERSECUTIONS

No sooner had the school reform, which was tantamount to the abrogation
of Jewish school autonomy, been publicly announced than the Government
took steps to realize the second article of its program, the
annihilation of the remnants of Jewish communal autonomy. An ukase
published on December 19, 1844, ordered "the placing of the Jews in the
cities and countries under the jurisdiction of the general (i.e.,
Russian) administration, with the abolition of the Kahals." By this
ukase all the administrative functions of the Kahals were turned over to
the police departmen