Pirogov took the initiative in reorganizing the Jewish schools.  It required little observation to understand that they had proved a failure.  Instead of attracting the Jewish masses to secular education, they only repelled them.  The remedy was not far to seek.  “The abolition of these schools” said Count Kotzebu, “would drive the Jews back to their fanaticism and isolation.  It is necessary to make the Jews useful citizens, and I see no other means of achieving this than by their education.”  Pirogov’s first move was to order that Jewish instead of Christian principals be put at their head, and he set an example by appointing Rosenzweig to that office.  The curriculum was changed, making the lower schools correspond with our grammar schools, and adapting their studies to the needs of those who must discontinue schooling at a comparatively early age.  The higher schools were arranged so as to prepare the pupils for the gymnasium.  The salaries of the teachers were raised, and books and necessaries were provided for pupils too poor to afford them.

The Government’s attention having been directed by General Zelenoy to the Jewish agricultural colonies in southern Russia, Marcus Gurovich was appointed to work out a plan to provide them with graded schools.  He proposed that secular and sacred subjects alike be taught by Jewish teachers, and these were to be cautioned to be careful not to offend the religious sensibilities of the parents.  The plan appealed to the colonists, and they looked forward anxiously to its fulfilment.  Having waited in vain till 1868, they offered to defray the expenses of the schools involved, if the Government would advance the money at the first.  Accordingly, ten schools for boys and two for girls were opened in that year.

Such disinterested efforts on their behalf would have evoked the gratitude of Jews at any time and in every country, how much more in Russia, and following close upon the darkest period in their history!  The struggle for liberty all over Europe in 1848—­the spring of nations—­had confirmed Nicholas in his policy of exclusion.  The last five years of his reign had surpassed the preceding in cruelty and tyranny.  The “Don Quixote of Politics,” finding that his attempts to quarantine Russia against European influences had proved futile, that the nationalities constituting the empire remained as distinct as ever, and the desired homogeneity was still far from becoming a reality, finally had lost patience and had determined to execute his conversionist policy at all hazards.  He had increased the conscription duties, already unbearable (January 8, 1852; August 16, 1852), restricted the study of Hebrew and Hebrew subjects still further in the Government schools, and, as if to embitter the lives of the Jew by all means available, insisted on the use of the Mitnaggedic ritual even in communities exclusively or largely Hasidic.[4] Even the blood accusation had been revived, and the statements in the pamphlet entitled Information about the Killing of Christians by Jews for the Purpose of Obtaining Their Blood, which Skripitzyn, “the manager of Jewish affairs in Russia,” published in 1844, found many believers in Government circles, and caused the Saratoff affair which, though suppressed, ruined numerous Jewish families, and made the breach between Jew and Gentile wider than ever.[5]