Not very long after the dismissal of the former minister of education, S?nger, I sought out a certain university professor who had been mentioned to me as being accurately informed about university affairs. Of course, my visit to him had been carefully planned, for it is not possible in Russia for a person—least of all if he be an official—to express himself freely to strangers.

The information which I received from this authority on the general political and economic position of Russia agreed with the discussions I had heard on every side. Misery, despair, inevitable collapse, these were the words which were most noticeable in his description, too, and it would be almost superfluous for one to reproduce the conversation unless certain additional details had been brought out which are particularly characteristic of the intense ferment in which intellectual Russia is at just this time involved.

Just previously several students had been arrested. I asked about the cause of the arrest and the probable fate of the young folks. A [Pg 227]demonstration in favor of the Japanese had been held by the students, and had been reported. This was the cause of the arrest. "As yet nothing can be said about the fate of the incautious young men," the professor answered.

"You say that the students held a demonstration for the Japanese? It is scarcely credible!"

"And yet it is true. All enlightened people, and accordingly the students, too, regard the Japanese as an unexpected ally in their fight against the existing conditions, and so sympathy for them is not concealed. And, besides, aversion to them as a nation does not exist."

"But it is the very brothers and fellow-countrymen of the students who must pay for it with their own blood if the Japanese retain the upper hand!"

"That is partially true. But, first of all, Poles, Jews, and Armenians have been sent to the seat of war, so that the Russian families do not as yet feel the war so keenly; and then the Russian is used to the idea that there must be bloody sacrifices for the cause of freedom. At any rate, those who were arrested are much nearer the other students than the troops who have gone to the front."

"But they challenged their fate!"

"That is a part of the fight against the régime. They seek martyrdom, since they have become convinced that nothing can be attained by bare protests and petitions. Perhaps a trace of Asiatic fatalism, and a lower valuation upon life than is[Pg 228] given it in the West, plays a part in their acts, but, more powerful than all else probably, their conviction that public opinion appreciates their sacrifices and approves of their conduct."

"Then ambition is also an influence?"

"If you care to call it so. There is a little ambition in every martyrdom. But the strongest motive is that youthful self-sacrifice, and the belief that something can be attained for the cause by their offering themselves up—in short, fanaticism. In this way some of the most incredible things occur; for example, a student in prison emptied an oil lamp over his body and set fire to it only in order to protest against absolutism."

"I have heard this horrible story."

"Those who are now under arrest," the professor continued, "will probably most of them soon be let free, for I do not believe that the authorities have at present any desire to raise much of a storm. But as many of them as are Jews will in all probability be more severely punished, if only for statistical reasons."

"I understand."

"Oh yes. You know that the police have their special code for the Jews, so as to prove that the discontent is entirely due to them. Plehve asserts that he has forty thousand political indictments, eighty per cent. of the indicted being Jews. That is made up to suit themselves, and has nothing to do with turbulence. On the other hand, I dare say,[Pg 229] that quite often just for this statistical reason, and because the Jews are punished quite differently from the sons of distinguished families, the Jews are urged by their congeners not to expose themselves; but they, too, are of course infected by the general fanaticism of self-sacrifice."

"But from what do the special student disturbances about which we hear so much proceed? Are they not caused by troubles in the universities?"

"Only in the very rarest cases. It is occurrences of general politics which find a particularly lively echo among the students; the reforms which are demanded for the university by us, the professors, are even repudiated by the students, because they do not wish to let the causes of their discontent be removed."

"What is the nature of the reforms in question?"

"General Wannowski, former minister of education, was perhaps a man of limited capacity, who considered the university a barracks, the professors colonels and other officers, the students privates, and explained that the only thing lacking was non-commissioned officers to keep their respective squads in order. Still he showed us the consideration of asking us eighteen questions which were to be answered by the faculties. Look here"—the professor pointed to a heavy bundle of printed matter—"here you have the results of our inquest."

"And what is the substance of your wishes, to put it into a very few words?"

[Pg 230]

"One word is sufficient, \'Autonomy.\' We want independence in teaching, \'Lehrfreiheit\' as it is in Germany, independent regulation of our own affairs, and liberation from the direction of another department which has neither interest in us nor understanding of us. This demand was unanimously expressed by all the universities; in Moscow only two professors in the whole faculty declared themselves for the prevalent system."

"Was anything accomplished by th............