Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1890-07-19
RUSSIAN UNIVERSITY SPIES.
The Students Kept Under Constant Es-
pionage by the Secret Police.
Corr. London Telegram,


own deans, their own rectors; the
government appoints them all, without
reference to their scientific quallhca-
tons, and many farceurs who were
lauohing-stocks to the students under
the old regime are full-hedged profess
sors now. All professors are mere OH
cials. who are not at liberty to lecture
on any branch of their subject winch
they think needful to their students,
but have to send in their programme 10
the ministry twice year, ana each
time the ministry revlses, corrects, OF
abolishes them, substituting something
else in their places. They are ordered
to lecture on such and such parts OF
such a subject. and so vast is the pro-
oramme and so ridiculously short the
time allowed for it's exhaustive treat
ment that many professors are COM
PEELED to read out, term after term, a
dry conspectus of these, which OF course
never change.
The result is absurd; the students are
compelled to come and spend hour after
hour listening to a course of lectures
which they have written out IN extenso
at home. And yet, if they absent
themselves from this infection, they
are expelled. For the students have as
little right to choose what lectures they
will attend as the professors have to
decide what subjects they will lecture
upon. A student who chooses Russian
literature for his especially is allowed to
frequent about fifty lectures during his
six months term, whereas he must
have at least 200 lecturers on archaeology
and Roman antiquities, delivered very
often by foreigners, chiefly Bohemlans,
unable to express their thoughts in
grammatical Russian. A significant
consequence is that last ar the Min
ister-who, by the way is IN Armenian
had to complain in an official circular
that the petitions written to him by uni
yersity students care very often not on
lv defective in style, but faulty in gram
mar and photography !" A student must
not miss lecture there is host O.
minor officials who lie in wait for him
and report his absence at once. He
must always come up in his military
mantle, which he has to hang on
numbered peg, and every peg is ex-
amined several times during each lee
ture. If he reads a book at the univer-
sity, one of these officials, called
beadle-sometimes a detective ora form
er convect-steals up behind him and
snatches it out Of his hand and runs up
whom are bankrupt merchants, ruined
beer-brewers and unfortunate ped
dlers.
The system of espionage that flourish
es at the universities might excite the
envy of the Venetians of the days of
the Doges, when the very walls had
eyes. If you cough or sneeze the
beadles know it, the inspectors hear of
it, the rector is informed of it, it is re-
ported to the curator, and carefully
entered into three several books against
your name, as it may hereafter be use
full as proving or disproving something
laid to your charge whenever you turn
out to be politically untrustworthy.
While you are a student not only can
the inspectors, sub-inspectors, beadles
ment visit you in your rooms at all hours
of the day and night, ransack your
drawers and trunks, turn your bed up
side down, rip up your mattress, and
generally give your lodgings the APP
pearance of apartments that have just
suffered from a seismic CONFUSION like
the earthquake of Lisbon, but they are
invested with the power-which they
are not slow to use-of searching your
person, examining the contents of your
pockets, and your friends and relations
and their belongings, should they hap
pen to be with you during the domi-
ciliary visit
These inquistionary processes, of
course, are quite independent of those
that are made by the police and the
members of the terrible '"Third Sec
tion," which you have to put up with as
often as is deemed good for you in par
ticular, or for the empire at large. Then
again, your house porter, or dvornik,
watches you like an Argus, his wife or
his mistress spies upon you, his children
or bis nephews dog your steps wher-
ever you go; every one who visits you
is asked his or her name, his or her
business, and admission is refused until
statements are made and Immediately
verified. Helplessly drunken men are
often on your stairs or under your win
dows-apparently objects of disgust or
pity, in reality spies eagerly straining
their ears for everything you say, and
rousing up their imagination to an effort
to attribute to you something that you
might probably have said, but never did
actually utter. Your friend and chum
who reads with you, who dimes with
you,. is inseparable from you, you dis
cover one day to have been all along in
the pay of the secret police. Teacher
ris spying was the price he paid for his
education from the age of Is upwarde-
a fine moral education it must have
been we'll worth the price.
Painted Glass in New Buildings.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer.
IN L L i i