was the publication of a dictionary of the Russian
language to which the princess copiously contributed. She wrote for
magazines, and translated from foreign languages. Among her works we
have poems in Russian and French, a number of speeches made before the
academy, one comedy, one drama, and interesting memoirs.

The great drawback to the social and intellectual progress of woman in
the Russia of Dashkova's time was the general lack of educational
facilities. In the early Russia only daughters of princes and of the
higher nobility could obtain instruction even in reading and writing,
though the importance of educating women was always appreciated. At the
end of the eleventh century a princess-nun founded a girls' school in
Kief. A Russian metropolitan bishop of the sixteenth century spoke in
his sermons of the value of the education of women. Beginning with the
first tsar of the house of Romanoff, the tsarevas were instructed in
reading, writing, and church music. The six daughters of Alexis
Mikhailovich received a good education. Peter the Great fully
appreciated the importance of schools for women, but did not establish
them. During his reign, however, as during that of Elizabeth, there
began to appear private schools, to which girls were admitted. A ukase
of Catharine II. laid the foundation of an Educational Society for noble
young women, and in connection with it a high school for the daughters
of town residents. The chief aim of Catharine's institution was the
formation of character, the development of good habits, good social
manners, and self-reliance in the pupils. Many other schools were opened
in Catharine's time, not a few of which were under her patronage, to
which children of both sexes and of all social classes were admitted,
though it was considered improper for girls to attend public schools.
Catharine sought to create a "new race" of men, as well as of women, by
offering the latter all possible advantages of education. The policy of
Catharine was dominated by her desire for the aggrandizement of Russia
and the extension of the central rule. One of the most striking results
of her active government is the extraordinary exodus of Kalmuck tribes
in 1771. These people are of Central Asian origin. Their incursions led
them early in the seventeenth century into Russian territory, where they
secured a foothold in the region east of the Volga. Other immigration
followed till the Kalmuck population and power b