Government might adopt a reactionary policy; but it happily confined
itself to some changes in the suffrage regulations and a dissolution of
the Chamber, followed by a general election. Since that time the
parliamentary machinery has worked much more smoothly. The Duma has
learned the truth of the old adage that half a loaf is better than no
bread, and on many important subjects, such as the preparation of the
annual budget, it now co-operates loyally with the Ministers. In this
way it gets its half loaf, and the country benefits by the new-born
spirit of compromise.

Before going further, perhaps I ought to warn my readers that I am often
reproached by my Russian friends with taking too favorable a view of the
Duma and of many other things in Russia. To this I usually reply by
taking those friends to task for their habitual pessimism in criticising
themselves and their institutions. Naturally inclined to idealism, and
not possessing sufficient hereditary experience to correct this
tendency, they compare their institutions with ideals which nowhere
exist in the real world, and consequently they condemn them very
severely. The impartial foreigner who wishes to form a true estimate of
these institutions must always take this into account. In spite of the
impassioned philippics to which I have listened hundreds of times from
my Russian friends, I am strongly of opinion that the Russian people
have made in recent years considerable progress in their political
education, and that they will continue to do so in the future.

But how is genuine national progress possible so long as the great mass
of the population are grossly ignorant, conservative, and superstitious?
Here again we must beware of adopting current exaggerations. To begin
with the peasantry, who are by far the most numerous class, we must
admit that they are very far from being well educated, but they are keen
to learn and they gladly send their children to the village schools,
which have been greatly increased and improved in recent years. Another
source of education is the army. Since the introduction of universal
military service every unlettered recruit must learn to read and write.
A third educational agency is the peculiar village organization. As
every head of a family has a house of his own and a share of the
communal land, he is a miniature farmer; and, unlike agricultural
laborers, who need not look much ahead beyond the weekly pay day, he
must make