in Padua and Amsterdam, to supply congregations with educated rabbis.  It was further agreed that a Consistory be created, to supervise Jewish affairs and establish schools and technical institutes wherever necessary.  To these main points were added several others of minor importance.  The Maskilim of Besascz insisted that steps be taken to stop the prevailing custom of premature marriages.  Those of Brest proposed that Government aid be invoked to compel Jews to dress in the German style, to use authorized text-books in the hadarim, and interdict the study of the Talmud except by those preparing themselves for the rabbinate.[4]

Even in Vilna and Minsk, towns which later put themselves on record as opposed to Government schools, the Jews yielded gladly to the innovations of such Maskilim as S. Perl, G. Klaczke, I. Bompi, and the distinguished philanthropist David Luria, who took the initiative in transforming the educational system of these cities.  Under the superintendence of Luria, the Minsk Talmud Torah became a model institution; the training conferred there on the poor and orphaned surpassed that given to the children of the rich in their private schools.  This aroused jealousy in the parents of the latter, and at their request Luria organized a merchants’ school, for the wealthier class.  He then established what he called Midrash Ezrahim, or Citizens’ Institute, in which he met with such success that he attracted the attention of the authorities, and received a special acknowledgment from the czar.[5]

Russian Jewry was astir with new life.  In many places secular education was divorced for the first time from rabbinical speculation.  Knowledge became an end in itself, and learning increased greatly.  An investigation by Nicholas I convinced all who were interested that though the Talmud remained the chief subject of study, the number of educated Jews was far greater than commonly supposed.  The upliftment of the masses was the beau-ideal of every Maskil, and Hebrew and even the much-despised Yiddish were employed to effect it.  Ignorance was regarded as the bane of life, and enlightenment as the panacea for all the ills to which their downtrodden brethren were heirs.  As their pious coreligionists deemed it the universal duty to be well-versed in the Talmud, so the Maskilim thought it incumbent upon everybody to be highly cultured.  No obstacle was great enough to discourage them.  They were willing martyrs to the goddess of Wisdom, at whose shrine they worshipped, and whose cult they spread in the most adverse circumstances.

Had the Government not interfered with the efforts of the Maskilim, or had it chosen a commission from among the Russian Jews themselves, among whom, as soon became evident to Nicholas himself, there were more than enough to do justice to an educational inquiry, the Haskalah movement would have continued to spread, notwithstanding the obstacles put in its way.  But Nicholas was determined to reduce the number of Jews also by “re-educating” them in accordance with his own ideas.  Every attempt made by the Jews to educate themselves was, therefore, checked.  Even the noble efforts of Luria were stopped, his schools were closed, and his only rewards were “a gold medal from the czar and a short poem by Gottlober.”