Note (return) — Chapter VI

Meanwhile the Society for the Promotion of Haskalah continued its work of Russification and general civilization. After 1880 its activity was greatly enhanced, and its members worked with renewed zeal. It opened elementary schools, and expended large sums on stipends for students, and the publication of useful and scholarly books. The branch in Odessa secured two hundred and thirty-one new members in one year (1900), making the total in that city alone nine hundred and sixty-eight. It organized a bureau of information on pedagogic subjects, and through the liberality of Kalonymos Wissotzky instituted prizes for original works in Hebrew or Russian. Individual philanthropists did their utmost to counterbalance the restrictions on education.15