tion did not cease. Not satisfied with starving the
bodies of five millions of Jews, Russian legislators were determined to
crush them intellectually. The Slavophils could not brook seeing
"non-Russians" surpass their own people in the higher walks of life. The
Jews, finally successful in emancipating themselves from the trammels of
rabbinism, had transferred their extraordinary devotion from the Talmud
to secular studies. They filled the schools and the universities of the
empire with zealous and intelligent pupils, who carried off most of the
honors. They contributed forty-eight pupils to the gymnasia out of every
ten thousand, while the Christians contributed only twenty-two. This was
regarded an unpardonable sin. "These Jews have the audacity to excel us
pure Russians," Pobyedonostsev is reported to have exclaimed, and
measures were taken to suppress their dangerous tendency. As early as
1875 a law was passed withholding from Jewish students the stipends they
had hitherto received from a fund set aside for that purpose. In 1882
the number of Jewish students in the Military Academy of Medicine was
limited to five per cent, and later it was reduced to zero. Thereafter
one professional school after another adopted a percentage provision,
and some excluded Jews altogether. Finally, "seeing that many Jewish
young men, eager to benefit by a higher classical, technical, or
professional education," presented themselves every year for admission
to the universities, that they passed their examination and continued
their studies at the various schools of the empire, the Government
deemed it "desirable to put a stop to a state of affairs which is so
unsatisfactory." Consequently the ministry limited the attendance of
Jews residing in places within the Pale to ten per cent in all schools
and universities (December 5, 1886; June 26, 1887), in places without
the Pale to five per cent, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg to three per
cent, of the total number of pupils in each school and university. Of
the four hundred young Jews who had successfully passed their
matriculation examination at the beginning of the scholastic year
1887-1888, and had thus acquired the right of entering the university,
three hundred and twenty-six were refused admission, and in many schools
and universities they were denied even the small per cent the law
permitted.

When, nevertheless, in spite of the many restrictions, the Jew at last
obtained the covete