710 



RUSSIA. 



nomination of the curator of the province, who 

 is a high functionary of the ministry. A tutor 

 can be dismissed by the curator if the rector 

 or the police spies d-etect anything suspicious 

 in his lectures or his conduct. The fees the 

 students have to pay are increased 50 per cent. 

 The introduction of tutors or privat-docenten, 

 a German institution, which was chosen as the 

 means of obtaining a class of professors that 

 should be entirely subservient to the bureau- 

 cracy, was praised in the official press as an 

 important improvement, calculated to raise the 

 character of university instruction to the Ger- 

 man level. The effect of making the rector a 

 Government functionary and placing the fac- 

 ulties under official superintendence can be in- 

 ferred from the riot at Kiev on September 20. 

 On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of 

 the founding of the university a commers and 

 a ball were planned. Ill feeling was excited 

 by the refusal of the rector to allow a com- 

 mittee of students to take part in arranging 

 the festival. The protests and complaints of 

 the students impelled the university authorities 

 to omit the supper, then to limit the admis- 

 sions of students to the ball to 300, and finally 

 to recall these 300 tickets. When the festi- 

 val took place, the students assembled on the 

 streets, shouted and sang, and threw stones at 

 the windows, and then dispersed after break- 

 ing up the feast before the arrival of Cossacks. 

 A students' demonstration took place at Mos- 

 cow, October 14, but was promptly suppressed 

 and the ringleaders arrested. It was partly 

 directed against the newspaper of Katkov, 

 which is held to be largely responsible for the 

 new university regulations and other reac- 

 tionary measures. 



In 1864 primary education, which previously 

 had but a nominal existence, was confined to 

 the Zemstvo and other local bodies in conjunc- 

 tion with the local ecclesiastical and Govern- 

 ment authorities. The bishops and tchinovnilca 

 neglected their functions, and did not exercise 

 the restraining influence that was expected, 

 while the Zemstvo entered with enthusiasm 

 into the work, and were only hindered by the 

 lack of funds, for the expenditures were lim- 

 ited to 5 per cent, of the national revenues. 

 In 1884 the schools had increased in twenty 

 years from 17,168, with 598,121 pupils, to 

 about 25,000, with 1,000,000 pupijs. The 

 Zemstvo started normal schools to supply a 

 body of educated and trained teachers in the 

 place of the sacristans, choristers, and old sol- 

 diers formerly employed. The annual cost of 

 the primary schools is about 7,250,000 rubles, 

 of which the peasants pay 41, the Zemstvos 

 34, the Government 14, and the great proprie- 

 tors and other private persons 11 per cent. 

 By the regulations of 1874 the teachers have 

 been placed under a system of police inspec- 

 tion, and are liable to be dismissed on the com- 

 plaint of any of their neighbors that secretly 

 report to the school inspectors a suspicion that 

 they instill seditious sentiments into the minds 



of the children. In August, 1884, was promul. J 

 gated a law that placed primary education 

 under the exclusive control of the- clergy, in 

 order to preserve the instruction of children 

 from all revolutionary taint, and imbue their 

 minds with the principles of fidelity to au- 

 thority and respect for religion. All the paro- 

 chial schools are to be conducted by the ortho- 

 dox clergy at the expense of the parishes, with 

 or without subsidies from the communes and 

 the Zemstvo, with the aid of wealthy u right- 

 thinking " persons and the diocesan funds and 

 liberal subsidies from the state. The course of 

 instruction will be two years or four years, 

 and will be confined to prayers, sacred history, 

 the liturgy, reading, writing, and arithmetic, 

 with the addition in the longer course of the 

 history of Russia and of the Greek Church. 

 All schools other than parochial schools are 

 also placed under the direction of the ecclesi- 

 astical authorities. The general superintend- 

 ence of the teaching and the choice of books 

 are intrusted to the Holy Synod. The teach- 

 ers are to be priests and deacons, cr, if they 

 have not the time, masters chosen by the arch- 

 bishop, preference being given to former stu- 

 dents in the ecclesiastical seminaries, who shall 

 act under the direction of the parson of the 

 parish. 



Religions Coercion. Religious tyranny is in 

 Russia the invariable concomitant of political 

 reaction. Since the fall of Loris Melikoff, the 

 Orthodox priesthood have been given free 

 scope for their repressive and proselyting de- 

 signs. They not only persecute the sectaries 

 unmercifully, but their treatment of the TJni- 

 ate Catholics, though legal, is an offense to the 

 Roman Catholic Church. Strigoun, a well- 

 known leader of the Stundists, was sentenced 

 to three and a half years' imprisonment on ex 

 parte evidence procured by the village priest, 

 for declaring prayers made before the holy 

 pictures in the Orthodox Church to be idola- 

 try, a remark which, supported by several 

 witnesses, he denied having uttered. For 

 heading a deputation to the Pope, requesting 

 mediation on behalf of the Uniate Catholics, 

 a Polish land-owner was banished for three 

 years by administrative order. Severe meas- 

 ures were taken against the Polish Uniates, 

 who were visited by a superior official con- 

 nected with the Ministry of the Interior in 

 December. At Bordzilovka the churches were 

 closed and the priests arrested. A priest was 

 deported to Astrakhan for celebrating rites of 

 marriage, burial, and baptism. The Uniates 

 persist in refusing to conform to the Greek 

 Church, notwithstanding this stringent system 

 of repression. They let their children go with- 

 out baptism, and bury their dead in the fields 

 and forests. Some of their priests evade the 

 vigilance of the Orthodox priests and go about 

 in disguise from village to village, holding 

 meetings and exhorting. The propagandism of 

 the state religion in the Baltic provinces is car- 

 ried on on a large scale. A magnificent church 



