Note (return) — Chapter IV

The other charge—he says again after refuting several accusations of the kind stated above—the other charge, that the Jews are averse to secular studies, rests upon an equally erroneous foundation. For even in Germany Jewish parents have at length found out that it is absolute folly to let their sons devote themselves to the study of science, since they never can hope for obtaining the least office; and since many a one, after the best years of his youth are passed, tired of waiting, and fearful of not having in his old age any means of support, finds in the baptismal font the last anchor of his shattered hopes. How much more must this consideration have weight in Russia? Nicholas, instead of encouraging the Jews to study, ordered, on the contrary, that all such of them as held offices and insignia of distinction under Alexander should either resign or become apostates. I know myself several collegiate councillors and men attached to the court, who went to the synagogue on the Day of Atonement with the insignia of the order of St. Anna around their neck, and prayed there with devotion and fervor, who still were forced into apostasy. Such instances are not calculated to encourage Jewish parents to let their children study; and it is but too true that many whose inclination led them to study were carried thereby into the bosom of the Christian Church.12