s were arranged so as to
prepare the pupils for the gymnasium. The salaries of the teachers were
raised, and books and necessaries were provided for pupils too poor to
afford them.

The Government's attention having been directed by General Zelenoy to
the Jewish agricultural colonies in southern Russia, Marcus Gurovich was
appointed to work out a plan to provide them with graded schools. He
proposed that secular and sacred subjects alike be taught by Jewish
teachers, and these were to be cautioned to be careful not to offend the
religious sensibilities of the parents. The plan appealed to the
colonists, and they looked forward anxiously to its fulfilment. Having
waited in vain till 1868, they offered to defray the expenses of the
schools involved, if the Government would advance the money at the
first. Accordingly, ten schools for boys and two for girls were opened
in that year.

Such disinterested efforts on their behalf would have evoked the
gratitude of Jews at any time and in every country, how much more in
Russia, and following close upon the darkest period in their history!
The struggle for liberty all over Europe in 1848--the spring of
nations--had confirmed Nicholas in his policy of exclusion. The last
five years of his reign had surpassed the preceding in cruelty and
tyranny. The "Don Quixote of Politics," finding that his attempts to
quarantine Russia against European influences had proved futile, that
the nationalities constituting the empire remained as distinct as ever,
and the desired homogeneity was still far from becoming a reality,
finally had lost patience and had determined to execute his
conversionist policy at all hazards. He had increased the conscription
duties, already unbearable (January 8, 1852; August 16, 1852),
restricted the study of Hebrew and Hebrew subjects still further in the
Government schools, and, as if to embitter the lives of the Jew by all
means available, insisted on the use of the Mitnaggedic ritual even in
communities exclusively or largely Hasidic.[4] Even the blood accusation
had been revived, and the statements in the pamphlet entitled
_Information about the Killing of Christians by Jews for the Purpose of
Obtaining Their Blood_, which Skripitzyn, "the manager of Jewish affairs
in Russia," published in 1844, found many believers in Government
circles, and caused the Saratoff affair which, though suppressed, ruined
numerous Jewish families, and made the breach between Jew a