1), superintended by Leon Mandelstamm, cost the Russian Jews tens of
thousands of rubles, notwithstanding the expenditure of two or three
millions on their own educational institutions, and at a time when every
kopeck was needed for the support of the host of victims of fire,
famine, and cholera, which ravaged many a city. Hence the reaction
became more and more formidable. The cry grew louder and louder, _Znaty
nye znayem, shkolles nye zhelayem!_ ("We want no schools!"). The
opposition, which began in the latter years of Alexander I, reached its
culmination in the last decade of the reign of Nicholas I. "Israel,"
laments Mandelstamm, "seems to be even worse than formerly; he is like a
sick person who has convalesced only to relapse, and the physicians are
beginning to despair." It was a struggle not unlike that all over Europe
at the beginning of the Renaissance, a struggle between liberty and
authority, between this world and other-worldliness, between the spirit
of the nineteenth century and that of the millenniums which preceded it.

Here is a description, by Morgulis, of the struggles and conquests of
the new, small, but zealous, group of Maskilim in Russia at about that
time:[20]

Those upon whom the sun of civilization and freedom happened to
cast a ray of light, showing them the path leading to a new
life, were compelled to study the European literatures and
sciences in garrets, in cellars, in any nook where they felt
themselves secure from interference. Neither unaffiliated Jews
nor the outer world knew anything about them. Like rebels they
kept their secrets unto themselves, stealthily assembling from
time to time, to consider how they might realize their ideal,
and disclose to their brethren the fountainhead of the living
waters out of which they drank and drew new youth and life.
Whatever was novel was accepted with delight. They looked with
envy upon the great intellectual progress of their western
brethren. Fain would they have had their Jewish countrymen
recognize the times and their requirements, but they could not
give free utterance to their thoughts. On the contrary, they
found it expedient to assume the mask of religion in order to
escape the suspicion of alert zealots, and gain, if possible,
new recruits. In many places societies were founded under the
name of Lovers of the New Haskalah, the members of which
observed s