other prominent personages arose as champions
of the Jews.[2]

The physician and pedagogue Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov (1810-1881), the
superintendent of the Odessa and Kiev school districts, is especially
deserving of honorable mention in the history of Haskalah. Of all the
Russians of the period who gloried in their liberal convictions, he was
the most liberal. In him the last vestige of prejudice and race
distinction disappeared, and he conscientiously devoted himself to the
study, not only of the present, but also of the past of the Jews, to be
in a better position to lend them his assistance. To the Jews he
appealed to unite and spread enlightenment among the masses by peaceful
means. To the Gentiles, again, he did not hesitate to point out the good
qualities of the Jews, and in an article on the Odessa Talmud Torah he
held up the institution as a model for the public elementary schools. He
admired especially the enthusiasm with which Jewish youths devoted
themselves to the acquisition of knowledge. "Where are religion,
morality, enlightenment, and the modern spirit," asked he, "when these
Jews, who, with courage and self-sacrifice, engage in the struggle
against prejudices centuries old, meet no one here to sympathize with
them and extend a helping hand to them?" His liberality carried him so
far that he established a fund for the support of indigent Jewish
students at the University of Kiev, and he advocated strenuously the
award of prizes and scholarships to deserving Jewish students. Such as
he were rare in any land, but nowhere so rare as in Russia.[3]

Pirogov took the initiative in reorganizing the Jewish schools. It
required little observation to understand that they had proved a
failure. Instead of attracting the Jewish masses to secular education,
they only repelled them. The remedy was not far to seek. "The abolition
of these schools" said Count Kotzebu, "would drive the Jews back to
their fanaticism and isolation. It is necessary to make the Jews useful
citizens, and I see no other means of achieving this than by their
education." Pirogov's first move was to order that Jewish instead of
Christian principals be put at their head, and he set an example by
appointing Rosenzweig to that office. The curriculum was changed, making
the lower schools correspond with our grammar schools, and adapting
their studies to the needs of those who must discontinue schooling at a
comparatively early age. The higher school