as if to corroborate the statement of the Talmud, that
when one sun sets another rises, the Demidoff prize of two thousand five
hundred rubles was the same year awarded to his son-in-law, Hayyim Selig
Slonimsky (HaZas, 1810-1904) of Byelostok, for the first of his valuable
inventions. Stern's genius was surpassed, though in a different
direction, only by that of Elijah Vilna. His first invention was a
calculating machine, which led to his election as a member of the Warsaw
Society of the Friends of Science (1817) and to his being received twice
by Alexander I (1816, 1818), who bestowed upon him an annual pension of
three hundred and fifty rubles. This invention was followed by another,
"a topographical wagon for the measurement of level surfaces, an
invention of great benefit to both civil and military engineers." He
also constructed an improved threshing and harvesting machine and a
sickle of immense value to agriculture.[32]

But it is scarcely possible, nor would it be profitable, to enumerate
either the places or the persons who were, so to speak, inoculated with
the Haskalah virus. In Grodno, Kovno, Lodz, Minsk, Mohilev, Pinsk,
Zamoscz, Slutsk, Vitebsk, Zhagory, and other places, they were toiling
zealously and diligently, these anchorites in the desert of knowledge.
Among them were men of all classes and callings, from the cloistered
Talmudist to the worldly merchant. The path of Haskalah was slowly yet
surely cleared. The efforts of the conservative Maskilim were not devoid
of some good results, nor even were those of Nicholas, though aimed at
Christianizing rather than civilizing, entirely wasted. With all their
shortcomings, and though producing but few rabbis acceptable to
Russo-Jewish congregations, the seminaries in Warsaw, Zhitomir, and
Vilna were powers for enlightenment. In them the future prominent
scientists, scholars, and litterateurs were reared, and there the
foundations were laid for the activities of Goldfaden, Gurland, Harkavy,
Kantor, Landau, Levanda, Mandelkern, Paperna, Pumpyansky, Rosenberg,
Steinberg, and others. Their fate was that of Mendelssohn's Bible
translation. The end became a means, the means, an end. But they not
only "brought forth" great men, they rendered no less important a
service in "bringing out" those already great. Had it not been for their
professorships, men like Abramovitsch, Lerner, Plungian, Slonimsky,
Suchastover, and Zweifel, who were not blessed with worldly goods l