If either mere anarchy, or a system of barrack Communism, be the object of the majority of the men and women whose deeds have of late riveted the attention of all Europe, it is hard to comprehend that these conspirators should have secured so many friends among classes which by education and position cannot possibly have any sympathy with mere destructive or utopian schemes. Of the existence of numerous friends of the Nihilists in the higher classes there is, however, no doubt. Thus only can the hold be explained which the occult propaganda of this hic et ubique conspiracy has obtained upon the commonwealth.
VI.
I have mentioned the participation of women in the present desperate struggle. Students, lawyers, officers, Government officials, landed proprietors, merchants, all kinds of men of the more educated or well-to-do classes, have been found to be mixed up with the "Nihilist" Conspiracy. By far the most characteristic feature, however, is the share which women have taken in the late startling events. When women thus actively and enthusiastically step forth in a revolutionary or national movement, even to the extent of sacrificing their lives, it is always a sign of a people's feelings being wrought up to the highest tension. So great a strain upon the more delicate nature of the fairer sex cannot be borne very long. It is only at a time of extreme crisis that the unusual event occurs; and Russia is now at the very acme of such a crisis.
We have seen, in succession, Vjera Sassulitch, a captain's daughter; Sophia Löschern von Herzfeld, a lady of high rank; Nathalie von Armfeldt, the daughter of an Imperial councillor; Mary Kovalevski, who also ranks as a noble; Katharina Sarandovitch, the daughter of a tchinovnik, or official; and several more, of equally prominent position, playing in the revolutionary contest a most remarkable part. They have suffered imprisonment; they have risked their lives; some of them have been condemned to hard labour. One of them was sentenced to be shot—but this latter decision even the Czar, though having to wage war against women, dared not carry out. This extraordinary mixing of the female sex in a widely ramified conspiracy is of so phenomenal a character that a sketch of the educational and emancipatory movement which led up to it, may well be here in its place.
By way of contrast, let us first look into times which seem to lie ages behind us, but which are yet in the recollection of a great many.
When Gogol wrote his "Dead Souls," not quite forty years ago, the education of young ladies in Russia was conducted on wonderful principles of "finishing." Young ladies—said Gogol, with cutting satire—receive, as is well known, a very good education. Three things are looked upon, in the establishments to which they are sent, as the pillars of all human virtues: namely, first, a knowledge of the French language; secondly, the piano; thirdly, domestic economy, which consists of the embroidery of purses and other objects of surprise. "Our present time," he added, "has shown itself most inventive as regards the perfection of this educational method; for in one establishment they begin with the piano, and then go on to French, concluding with the domestic economy alluded to; whereas in another school the embroidering of purses forms the introduction, upon which French and the piano follow. It will be seen that there is much difference in the methods."
Gribojedoff also, in a telling comedy, has some striking sarcasms on the superficiality and hollow frivolousness of the education of girls of the upper classes. "We bring up our daughters," he says, "as if they were destined to be the wives of the dancing-masters and the buffoons to whom we entrust their instruction." Now and then a reformer started up, but in a very curious fashion. One of the earliest was Tatjana Passek, the cousin of Alexander Herzen, of whom a writer, who adopts the signature of "Borealis," in the Berlin Gegenwart, says that in consequence of the straitened circumstances of her father, she was compelled to open a Young Ladies' Establishment in a provincial town. Intelligent, but without any solid knowledge, she herself relates in her memoirs how she taught ancient history off-hand, chiefly by means of a lively imagination. She even critically expounded the philosophical systems of Greece and Rome without knowing or understanding them. Her handbook for Greek History was "The Travels of Young Anacharsis." There was no system or connection in what she taught, but the sprightliness of her delivery made up for the defect. "When we came to the history of Sparta, we became so enthusiastic for the Lacedæmonian girls that we tried to imitate their hardened style of life, washing ourselves with cold water, promenading with bare feet, doing gymnastics, drinking no tea, and ceasing to cry. When I look back upon these performances, I wonder how my pupils remained in good health." The same lady reports that the friends of her youth, disgusted with the hollowness of drawing-room life, had endeavoured to satisfy their emancipatory inclinations by donning men's dress, indulging in Amazonian tastes, and secretly frequenting taverns where, with their aristocratic small hands, they jubilantly raised the foaming cup.
So much for girls' education in the higher strata. As to the immense mass of the Russian population they were left to rot, intellectually, in utter neglect. The school system in some Western countries—including central and southern Italy before 1859-60, France, and even England until a few years ago—was bad enough. In Russia it was simply nonexistent. The private educational establishments and grammar schools in a few towns, which were destined for the more well-to-do middle class, were sorry copies of the few Government institutions. I have before mentioned how, under the present reign, a movement for a more Liberal education arose, which, however, soon led to students' tumults and to severe police measures. In girls' education, too, a progressive movement was initiated. For a short time it was said that the Empress herself, whose German origin inclined her to that view, would assume its protectorate. But soon it was seen that Government mainly busied itself with bureaucratic regulations, whilst the foundation of the girls' schools for which these extensive and often harassing regulations were framed, proceeded with extreme slowness. In fact, the regulations were there; but in most cases the schools were wanting.
Meanwhile, the aspiring girlhood of Russia threw itself with avidity upon the new sources of knowledge, scant as they were, which had at last been opened to it. The Minister of Public Instruction, Golovnin, who was in office between 1861-66, promoted, in his quality of an opponent of the classical method of education, by preference the study of natural science. Hence a realistic tendency—often verging upon the harsh and the crude—became the prevailing tone. Girls, sick of the idleness and the conventional frivolities of social life, eagerly devoted themselves to scientific pursuits, both as students at the new academies, and as subscribers to the courses of lectures which were getting into vogue. The very antagonists of the more extreme "emancipatory" practices acknowledge that the greater number of these lady-students, who soon were driven to seek for an opportunity of acquiring knowledge at a foreign university—that is, at Zurich—distinguished themselves by much diligence and talent, as well as by a spirit of personal sacrifice in regard to worldly comforts.
At the same time it must be averred that some of them, yielding to an exaltation and eccentricity easily aroused in womankind, mentally overbalanced themselves as it were, and began to assume hideous mannish and hermaphrodite ways. The close-cropped hair, the unnecessarily spectacled face, the short tight jacket, the cigar, and the frequenting of public-houses were unpleasant outward signs; but far more deplorable was the cynic tone. These were and are the sad excrescences of an otherwise laudable aspiration; but it may be hoped that in course of time the excrescences will disappear. The sooner the better, else the best friends of the progressive tendency among womankind will turn away from it in sorrow and anger at the unsexing of the sex, whose tenderer nature—in Schiller's words, let us hope not quite antiquated—is destined to "weave wreaths of heavenly roses into the earthly life."