Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/310

 302] FOEEIGN HISTOEY. [1899.

most of the students of the empire, upwards of 30,000 in number, protested against the outrage, and all the universities had to be closed. A special commission was then appointed by the Emperor to inquire into the causes of this universal strike of the Eussian students, and to devise a remedy for it. The forces of reaction at St. Petersburg were, however, too strong, and in March a decree was issued dismissing all the students and ordaining that those who wished to re-enter the university classes should only be allowed to do so on their presenting petitions to that effect, and making a written declara- tion binding them to submit in all respects to the university rules and discipline. Meanwhile the students' rooms were ransacked for papers, students and their friends were arrested, and many of them were imprisoned or banished to Siberia, having been accused by the police of circulating revolutionary proclamations. Many of the students, however, persisted in their opposition, and in April several hundreds of them were arrested by the police at St. Petersburg for endeavouring to obstruct the entrance into the university and technical institute of candidates for examination.

The commission made its report in June, and an official communication was then published by the Government Messenger giving the Czar's decision on the subject. It stated that hia Majesty had felt gffeat grief and displeasure at the fact that " such disorders, affecting nearly all the educational institutions of the empire, should have continued for so many months, thereby disturbing the lives and studies of a mass of young men " ; that the police had unfortunately adopted towards them an extreme mode of action for which there was no special neces- sity ; that the majority of the students had been led away by " agitators from outside who circulated proclamations and other political papers " ; and that there were defects in the internal organisation of the higher educational establishments which help to create and foster disturbances, such as want of associa- tion among the students, professors, and teaching authorities, indifference and unsatisfactory relations of some of the pro- fessors in guiding the minds and views of the youths under their charge, the absence of all supervision and verification of the actual work and occupations of the students, and the over- crowding, which in many institutions is far beyond their space and pecuniary resources.

The Czar therefore ordered that the immediate authorities and teaching staffs of the higher educational institutions should be informed of his Majesty's dissatisfaction with them for not having known how to acquire sufficient authority and moral influence over their students, and for not having acted from the beginning with proper firmness and unanimity in impressing upon the excited youths the true meaning of the career which they have voluntarily chosen for themselves and the limits of their rights and obligations. The Minister of Public