ical life of any sort
except the old routine in which they had previously vegetated. Most of
them had lived enough in the country to know how much the peasants were
in need of medical assistance of the most elementary kind, and to this
matter they at once turned their attention. They tried to organise a
system of doctors, hospital assistants, and dispensaries by which the
peasant would not have to go more than fifteen or twenty miles to get a
wound dressed or to have a consultation or to obtain a simple remedy
for ordinary ailments. They felt the necessity, too, of thoroughly
reorganising the hospitals and the lunatic asylums, which were in a very
unsatisfactory condition. Plainly enough, there was here good work to
be done. Then there were the higher aims. In the absence of practical
experience there were enthusiasms and theories. Amongst these was the
enthusiasm for education, and the theory that the want of it was the
chief reason why Russia had remained so far behind the nations of
Western Europe. Give us education, it was said, and all other good
things will be added thereto. Liberate the Russian people from the bonds
of ignorance as you have liberated it from the bonds of serfage, and its
wonderful natural capacities will then be able to create everything that
is required for its material, intellectual, and moral welfare.

If there was any one among the leaders who took a more sober, prosaic
view of things he was denounced as an ignoramus and a reactionary.
Willingly or unwillingly, everybody had to swim with the current.
Roads and bridges were not entirely neglected, but the efforts in
that direction were confined to the absolutely indispensable. For
such prosaic concerns there was no enthusiasm, and it was universally
recognised that in Russia the construction of good roads, as the term
is understood in Western Europe, was far beyond the resources of any
Administration. Of the necessity for such roads few were conscious.
All that was required was to make it possible to get from one place to
another in ordinary weather and ordinary circumstances. If a stream was
too deep to be forded, a bridge had to be built or a ferry had to be
established; and if the approach to a bridge was so marshy or muddy that
vehicles often sank quite up to the axles and had to be dragged out by
ropes, with the assistance of the neighbouring villagers, repairs had
to be made. Beyond this the efforts of the Zemstvo rarely went. Its
road-b