Not satisfied with this, the Slavophils tried,
under every pretext, to stop the progress of the Jewish people. Every
now and then the Society for the Promotion of Haskalah would send some
of the brighter seminary students to complete their education in Breslau
or Berlin, but at the command of the Government this was soon
discontinued. It was the intention of the same organization, from its
very incipiency, to have the Bible translated under its auspices into
Russian, but it took ten long years before this praiseworthy undertaking
could be begun, because of the obstacles the Government placed in the
way of its execution. Fortunately, the indomitable courage of the
Maskilim could not be subdued. Young men went, or were sent, to Germany
to prepare themselves for the rabbinate as before; the Bible and the
Book of Common Prayer, too, were translated secretly by Wohl, Gordon,
Steinberg, and Leon Mandelstamm, and published in Germany, whence they
were smuggled into Russia.[23]
More direct and equally inexplicable, save on the ground of animosity to
whatever was not Slavonic, was the ukase to close the Sabbath Schools
and the Evening Schools, the only means of educating the laboring men
(1870).
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