sons, who are apostates from the Hebrew religion, are
allowed to instruct the pupils, a course of tuition which
must give rise to the most painful anxiety in the minds of
those by whom that religion is still cherished.

"I beg leave now to state, with the most profound respect
for your Excellency's judgment on this important subject,
that I have given it most serious consideration, and
knowing from ample evidence that my brethren in the
Russian empire are most anxious to advance their mental
and social improvement, I humbly submit to your Excellency
that they are in a fit condition for receiving the
benefits which their most benevolent and merciful monarch
intended to bestow upon them.

"My humble petition to your Excellency is, that by your
humane and kind intercession supplications may be brought
effectually before His Imperial Majesty's Government.

"Those supplications I will thus set forth. In the first
place, that they may be permitted to have the management
themselves of their Hebrew theological schools. This is
essential to their dearest sympathies and interests, as no
other persons could promote the study of Hebrew literature
more effectually. In all regions where civilisation has
made any marked progress, wherever its blessings are
really experienced, Hebrew literature is regarded as its
most precious feature, and all nations ardently cultivate
its study and render homage to its worth. May it therefore
please the Imperial Government to allow the Israelites
themselves, the people by whose agency this boon has been
given to mankind, to have the direction of those
establishments in which they are to be trained in the true
knowledge of their own inalienable inheritance. For the
acquirement of knowledge in secular science and literature
they should also have the appointment of their own
teachers, such whose competency may be approved of by His
Majesty's Minister of Public Instruction, or should be
allowed to avail themselves of the public educational
establishments, subject, of course, to such periodical
examinations as may be deemed necessary to test the
progress of the pupil.

"Secondly, they consider it a just regulation that, in
those schools which His Majesty's Government has
originated solely for their benefit, no convert from
Judaism be appointed a teacher. Particular allusion is
here made to the Rabbinical school