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144 during the reign of Alexander II. The Turkish war had been costly; it was necessary to accelerate railway development; money was needed for schools and for new institutions in general. In the year 1855 the regular revenue was 264,000,000 roubles; in 1888 it had risen to 651,000,000 roubles. At the close of Catherine's reign, the national debt amounted approximately to 215,000,000; when Alexander I died the figure was 1,345,000,000; under Nicholas and his successor, although the finances were better administered, the increase in the debt was stupendous.

Educational reform likewise ensued. In 1863 a new studies' ordinance was issued for the universities, granting the academic senates fuller autonony and comparative freedom of teaching. The Nicolaitan regime was abandoned at the universities shortly after the accession of Alexander II. In the autumn of 1856, the faculty of law was once more allowed to resume the teaching of the constitutional law of European states, which had hitherto been banned; more attention could be paid to philosophy; were it only for practical reasons, educational policy was compelled to aim at the production of more efficient state servants and at the fuller elaboration of teaching energies. The students secured greater freedom, and in 1861 the obligation to wear uniform was abolished. The new statutes did not permit the formation of students' associations. Two additional universities were founded in the reign of Alexander II, that of Odessa in 1864 and that of Warsaw in 1869.

More was done than during the reign of Nicholas to promote the development of middle and other schools; but owing to financial stringency public elementary schools, Russia's chief need, received less help than was universally demanded, and was desired even by the government. The newly founded zemstvos worked with especial energy on behalf of elementary schools, and the general interest in popular education brought notable educationists and authors into the field, such men as Pirogov, Usinskii, Stojunin, Vodovozov, N. H. Kori, and also L. N. Tolstoi. The Russian public elementary school really came into existence solely as the outcome of the liberation of the peasantry. Before the liberation, the state was exclusively interested in the education of aristocrats and officials. A few writers, theologians in especial, boast that popular education was carried an in prepetrine Russia, but this assertion is erroneous.