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Rh a ministry for education was lacking, for Peter was his own minister for education. In the year 1711 a senate was created which replaced the old crown council of boyars. Notable was the attempt to separate the judiciary from the executive. The police was Europeanised.

The bureaucracy became more numerous, the position of its members and the utilisation of their powers being regulated. During the reign of Peter's father, in the years 1681 and 1682, occurred the abolition of the městničestvo, the system by which officials were appointed by right of birth and in accordance with rank. A new nobility of service was introduced. Peter granted to every official personal rank as a noble, so that increasingly the prestige of the hereditary nobility became purely social. Officials were given regular salaries; enfeoffment (kormlenie, "feeding" or "nourishing") ceased. Fourteen grades of officials were established.

From 1719 onwards statistics of population were kept.

New rules of self-government and jurisdiction came into force for the towns. St. Petersburg, in especial, entirely new and in a sense the leading town of Russia, exercised great influence in the matter of urban administration. The town council of St. Petersburg was placed under the direct control of the senate. Russian towns were enriched by a new element, manufacturing industry, in some cases directly managed by the state, but sometimes carried on in factories favoured by the state. Connected with this development was the transformation of the mercantile community into a distinct class, organised in guilds, and possessing legal jurisdiction of its own.

HE institution of these practical reforms made it necessary for the Russians to acquire theoretical principles as well. Peter's second journey to Europe, in the year 1716, nineteen years after the first, was chiefly devoted to science and art. At this time was conceived the plan advocated by Leibnitz of founding an academy. Oxford University conferred upon Peter an honorary doctor's degree, and the Paris academy nominated him one of its members; this recognition from the official representatives of science was fully deserved. Peter vigorously furthered the progress of science and the arts, by summoning foreigners to his court, by commanding