His first invention was a
calculating machine, which led to his election as a member of the Warsaw
Society of the Friends of Science (1817) and to his being received twice
by Alexander I (1816, 1818), who bestowed upon him an annual pension of
three hundred and fifty rubles. This invention was followed by another,
"a topographical wagon for the measurement of level surfaces, an
invention of great benefit to both civil and military engineers." He
also constructed an improved threshing and harvesting machine and a
sickle of immense value to agriculture.[32]
But it is scarcely possible, nor would it be profitable, to enumerate
either the places or the persons who were, so to speak, inoculated with
the Haskalah virus. In Grodno, Kovno, Lodz, Minsk, Mohilev, Pinsk,
Zamoscz, Slutsk, Vitebsk, Zhagory, and other places, they were toiling
zealously and diligently, these anchorites in the desert of knowledge.
Among them were men of all classes and callings, from the cloistered
Talmudist to the worldly merchant. The path of Haskalah was slowly yet
surely cleared. The efforts of the conservative Maskilim were not devoid
of some good results, nor even were those of Nicholas, though aimed at
Christianizing rather than civilizing, entirely wasted.
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