RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES AND NIHILISM.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 6835, 20 August 1887, Page 6

RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES AND NIHILISM.

[FBOM A RCSSIAX COR—ESPOXD—ST.J

Some very radical changes are about to be made in the Russian University system. The authorities took upon the universities as hotbeds of Nihilism, and they are certainly right, if we take Nihilism to mean opposition to the Government ; but in that J ca>e ecclesiastical seminaries and academies, and indeed most educational establishments, are equally so. Until two years ago tiie Universities were virtually independent of the Government, and were cherished by most educated Russians as the lost stronghold of that ephemeral and somewhat consumptive liberty which made its first aopearancce in Russia in 18d0. They elected their own rectors and deans, they elected their ow„ professors, and they alone were competent to approve or disapprove the programmes of lectures submitted to them at the beginning of every academical year. The action of the Ministry on persons was extremely limited, the right of vetoing the choice of the Universities having been exercised only once in the space of twenty years, while "in matters of science it was was null. All that is changed now. The professors were first attacked; now the students' turn is come. Two years ago an Imperial ukase was issued degradthe professors to the rank of ordinary officials (tschinovniki) who are now nominated by the Minister—oftentimes for services to which in other countries one would blush to allude, even if one had not blushed to render them. Tbe only barrier against the Goth and the Vandal still left standing is the condition that no one who has not taken the two degrees of Master and Doctor in a Russian University is qualified to fill a chair; but even this is used by the Government; merely as a weapon against scholars suspected of liberal tendencies. No degree is now recognised as satisfactory by the authorities until it has been first confirmed by on anonymous commission in St. Petersburg, consisting of three or four creatures of Katkoff and Tolstoi, and in the eyes of whom servility, like charity, covereth a multitude of sins. On the other hand, a Ministerial favorite can become a professor without a doctor's degree, if a zealous member of the orthodox faith, or if he be well recommended by a Minister's friend—or cook. The old professors who were elected under the former regime are rapidly disappearing from the academical horizon, and others, whose science would, indeed, be remarkable were it equal to their flunkeyism, are as rapidly coming to the front. Such of the former as are still at the universities are naturally dissatisfied with the Government, whereas the others are staunch reactionaries.

Among the students there are likewise two parties—those who are well affected to the Government in politics, and in a like degree disaffected to science and to sobriety and moderation in private life; and the smaller number, who ore enthusiastic in the cause of knowledge, truth, and justice, and therefore obnoxious to the Government. These latter are sometimes mistaken in their views and often hasty in their methods, but they are at all times weli meaning, sincere, and in earnest, and their exclusion from the universities would be equivalent to the absence of the ten righteous men who would have sufficed to save the city of Sodom from destruction. Yet the Government have resolved to exclude them on the ground that the most determined Nihilists come from their ranks. The only question is how to do it, while seeming to do something else. At first it was intended to remove the universities of St' Petersburg and Moscow to provincial towns, on the pretext that life in those capitals is not exactly of a kind that tends to promote studious habits. The Russian Press protested so loudly against this plan, which is not so feasible as it looks, that it had to be abandoned. Now a new and very effectual method is on the point of being tried. lam in receipt of trustworthy information that the fees paid by the students are about to be raised at all the universities according to a tariff varying, with the city in which the university is situated. Thus at the University of St. Petersburg they are to be raised at the rate of 250 per cent. A few days ago the rectors of all Russian universities received confidential instructions from the Minister not to publish the usual invitation to applicants for admission to the university to send in their documents till further orders; that is, until the new tariff has been confirmed by the Emperor. If it is borne in mind that the great majority cf Russian students are the sons of needy peasants, or of still more needy priests, who, like Carlylc's ideal of a student, Heyne, live for weeks on food on which an Englishman would starve, who sleep in miserable garrets, and read for examination by the light of borrowed candle-ends, it will not be difficult to estimate the significance of the new law. The first result will be to shut out the great majority of students. This is really the object which Count Tolstoi, the present Minister of the Interior, and the real author of this measure, has in view. He knows perfectly well that opposition to the Government is fostered less by the present educational system in Russia as such than by education pure and simple, whatever its form, and whoever its distributors. Hence it is that he has been waging war on education in Russia for the past fifteen years.

Against troublesome students whom the money test fails to keep out, another method can and will be tried, and it never fails. It is enough to have a student arrested on suspicion, and kept in confinement for a fortnight pending inquiries. After that he may be declared innocent, and set free, but he ceases ipso facto to be a student, and cannot become one again. The mere fact that he was imprisoned for 14 days on suspicion of disloyalty makes him unworthy of a university education. His innocence or guilt is an extraneous consideration that cannot be taken into account. If he is only a drunkard, a profligate, a gambler, he may remain, but not if he has been suspected of disaffection to the Government. The elementary and middle schools are being treated in the same way as the universities. There can be no doubt that education in Russia, which has been rapidly transforming and civilising the people since the year iB6O, is actually in its death throes. If something unexpected does not soon occur, in a very short time the educational level of the Russian people will have sunk far lower than it was half a century ago.