RUSSIA. 



709 



power to interdict a book or a periodical. In 

 1881 the authority to intervene in affairs of 

 the press was vested in a committee of four, 

 who act in the place of the full Ministerial 

 Council. By another enactment the prevent- 

 ive censure in the case of newspapers was re- 

 established in another form. The Minister of 

 the Interior can issue secret orders to editors 

 to withhold certain news or to alter the tone 

 of their comments under pain of suspension or 

 suppression. Numberless circulars of this de- 

 scription have prevented the publication in 

 Russia of many of the events of greater or 

 lesser importance, or of comment on public 

 questions except in praise of governmental 

 measures. The press in Russia, with the ex- 

 ception of half a dozen semi-official organs, 

 was altogether Liberal. The provincial papers, 

 which had to submit their proofs to a censor 

 before publication, and which were less dex- 

 terous in the insinuation of opinions they could 

 not openly express than the metropolitan press, 

 were strangled by official persecution, and all 

 of the better class disappeared during the last 

 reign. The newspapers of the two capitals kept 

 up their popularity by varying servile praise, 

 which every one recognized as perfunctory, 

 with covert criticism and sly satire. In 1884 

 the ministry proceeded to crush them alto- 

 gether. The editors were deprived of matter 

 for publication by ministerial ordonnances, and 

 so harassed by warnings, penalties, and sus- 

 pensions that the few tame journals that still 

 contrived to exist were wound up by their 

 publishers. Scarcely a newspaper continued 

 to be regularly published in Russia except the 

 few reactionary organs, which have never found 

 many readers. 



The censorship of books was carried by Count 

 Tolstoi to a still more extravagant pitch. Fre- 

 quent orders were given for the confiscation 

 of works that had entered into circulation 

 with the imprimatur of previous censors. In 

 August a more sweeping decree than any that 

 had preceded it prohibited from circulation 

 125 works by Russian and foreign authors, 

 many of which had supplied the chief intel- 

 lectual food to the Russian educated class for a 

 generation. The most popular and influential 

 Russian aut.hors were included in the interdict, 

 and such English writers as Lyell, Huxley, 

 Lubbock, Adam Smith, J. S. Mill, Herbert 

 Spencer, Lecky, and Bagehot. The same or- 

 der directed the police to suppress the circula- 

 tion of 800 volumes of periodical literature. 

 The interdicted books are confiscated when 

 found on booksellers 1 shelves, are destroyed in 

 public and circulating libraries, and can be 

 seized in private houses. A subsequent enact- 

 ment prohibited youths under sixteen years of 

 age from obtaining or reading any work with- 

 out the express permission of their teachers. 



Education. The new reaction against educa- 

 tion was inaugurated after the student disturb- 

 ances of 1860. In consequence of Karakasoff's 

 attempt on the life of the Emperor, Count 



Tolstoi was empowered to purify the secondary 

 schools. The intellectual life of the universi- 

 ties was blighted by placing professors and 

 students under the censorship and discipline of 

 military martinets. The school-boys in the 

 classical and scientific preparatory schools were 

 subjected to police surveillance, and held ac- 

 countable for their political opinions. In Sep- 

 tember, 1883, traces of a criminal propaganda 

 were reported in thirteen gymnasiums, one 

 pro-gymnasium, and ten real- schools, and " col- 

 lective disorders " in fourteen gymnasiums and 

 four real- schools. In the gymnasiums, which 

 are the schools of the aristocracy, the system 

 of instruction was altered for the distinct pur- 

 pose of stunting thought and knowledge. All 

 studies were practically banished from the 

 curriculum in favor of the classics, and classi- 

 cal training was reduced to a sterile drill in 

 grammar. The literature and history of Greece 

 and Rome were not studied, for fear of their 

 contaminating political influence. The train- 

 ing is as severe as it is irrational. As the re- 

 sult of the examinations of 1879 the number 

 of students that completed the course was 

 6,511, while 51,406 had failed during the seven 

 years. The real-schools are intended to pre- 

 pare young men for practical life, or for the 

 higher technical schools, and are attended by 

 sons of the middle class and of the lesser no- 

 bility. There are only 39 of these, as com- 

 pared with 180 gymnasiums. The instruction 

 is purely theoretical, conducted from text- 

 books. Only one fifth of the students that 

 qualify themselves for admission to the supe- 

 rior professional schools can be received. The 

 ministry have rejected all petitions for the es- 

 tablishment of, new technical colleges at Khar- 

 kov and other places. In 1881 the Zemstvo 

 petitioned the Government to allow graduates 

 of the razZ-schools to enter the universities. 

 The ministers appointed a coir mission to con- 

 sider the question, but, when the date arrived 

 for the meeting of the commission, postponed 

 the inquiry indefinitely. 



A new regulation for the universities was 

 issued in the autumn. A special police was re- 

 instituted in every university for the oversight 

 of both professors and students, in charge of an 

 inspector directly appointed by the Ministry 

 of the Interior. The autonomous system by 

 which the rector and four deans were elected 

 for three years by their colleagues was abol- 

 ished, and the rector was made a Government 

 official, appointed by the minister, with power 

 to convoke and dissolve the university council 

 at his pleasure, and to annul its decisions if he 

 sees fit, and with disciplinary authority over 

 the professors and the right to take any meas- 

 ures he deems proper for the maintenance of 

 order. The character of the body of teachers 

 is destined to be transformed by the new regu- 

 lation. Henceforth no man will be eligible to 

 a professorship unless he has served three 

 years in the subordinate capacity of a tutor, 

 and he can only be appointed a tutor on the 



