.
He was angry : he said that my wilfulness pr�vented him from settling my future, and blamed my teachers for filling my head with this nonsense ; but when he saw that all this had little effect upon me, he determined to wait on Prince Yusupov.
The Prince settled the matter in no time ; there was no shillyshallying about his methods. He sent for his secretary and told him to make out leave of absence for me - for three years. The secretary hummed and hawed and respectfully submitted to his chief that four months was the longest period for which leave could be granted without the imperial sanction.
'Rubbish, my friend ! ' said the Prince ; 'the thing is perfectly simple : if he can't have leave of absence, then say that I order him to go through the University course and complete his studies.'
The secretary obeyed orders, and next day found me sitting in the lecture-theatre of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics.
The University of Moscow and the High School of Tsarskoye Selo 1 play an important part in this history of Russian education and in the life of the last two generations.
2
After the year 1812, Moscow University and Moscow itself rose in importance. Degraded from her position as an imperial capital by Peter the Great, the city was promoted by Napoleon, partly by his wish but mainly against it, to be the capital of the Russian nation. The people discovered the ties of blood that bound them 1. Tsarskoye Selo, i.e., The Tsar's Village, was near Petersburg.
Pushkin was at this school.
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to Moscow b y the pain they felt o n hearing o f her capture b y the enemy. For her it was the beginning of a new epoch ; and her University became more and more the centre of Russian education, uniting as it did everything to favour its development -
historical importance and geographical position.
There was a vigorous outburst of intellectual activity in Petersburg after the death of the Emperor Paul ; but this died away in the darkness that followed the fourteenth of December, 1825.
All was reversed, the blood flowed back to the heart, and all activity was forced to ferment and burrow underground. But Moscow University stood firm and was the first visible object to emerge from the universal fog.
The University soon grew in influence. All the youth and strength of Russia came together there in one common meetingplace, from all parts of the country and all sections of society ; there they cast off the prejudices they had acquired at home, reached a common level, formed ties of brotherhood with one another, and then went back to every part of Russia and penetrated every class.
Down to 1848 the constitution of our universities was purely democratic. Their doors were open to everyone who could pass the examination, provided he was not a serf, or a peasant detained by the village community. The Emperor Nicholas limited the number of freshmen and increased the charges to pensioners, permitting poor nobles only to escape from this burden. But all this belongs to the class of measures that will disappear together with the passport system, religious intolerance, and so on.
A motley assemblage of young men, from high to low, from North and South, soon blended into a compact body united by ties of friendship. Among us social distinctions had none of that offensive influence which ones sees in English schools and regiments -
to say nothing of English universities which exist solely for the rich and well-hom. If any student among us had begun to boast of his family or his money, he would have been tormented and sent to Coventry by the rest.
The external distinctions among us were not deep and proceeded from other sources. For instance, the Medical School was across the park and somewhat removed from the other faculties ; besides, most of the medical students were Germans or came from
N U R S E R Y A N D U N I V E R S I T Y
theological seminaries. The Germans kept somewhat apart, and the bourgeois spirit of Western Europe was strong in them. The whole education of the divinity students and all their ideas were different from ours ; we spoke different languages ; they had grown up under the yoke of monastic control and been crammed with rhetoric and theology ; they envied our freedom, and we resented their Christian humility.
Though I joined the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, I never had any great turn or much liking for mathematics. Nick and I were taught the subject by the same teacher, whom we liked because he told us stories ; he was very entertaining, but I doubt if he could have developed a special passion in any pupil for his branch of science. He knew as far as Conic Sections, i.e., just what was required from schoolboys entering the University ; a true philosopher, he had never had the curiosity to glance at the 'University branches' of mathematics. It was specially remarkable that he taught for ten years continuously out of a single book - Francoeur's treatise - and always stopped at the same page, having no ambition to go beyond the required minimum.
I chose that Faculty, because it included the subject of natural science, in which I then took a specially strong interest; and this interest was due to a rather odd meeting.
3
I have described already the remarkable division of the family property in 1822. When it was over, my oldest uncle went to live in Petersburg, and nothing was heard of him for a long time. At last a report got abroad that he intended to marry. He was then over sixty, and it was well known that he had other children as well as a grown-up son. He did, in fact, marry the mother of his eldest son and so made the son legitimate. He might as well have legitimised the other children; but the chief object of these proceedings was well known - he wished to disinherit his brothers ; and he fully attained that object by the acknowledgement of his son. In the famous inundation of 1824, the water flooded the carriage in which he was driving. The old man caught cold, took to his bed, and died in the beginning of 1825.
About the son there were strange reports : it was said that he was unsociable and had no friends ; he was interested in chemistry
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and spent his life over the microscope ; he read even at meals and disliked women's society.
His uncles transferred to him the grievance they had felt against his father. They always called him 'The Chemist', using this as a term of contempt, and giving it to be understood that chemistry was a quite impossible occupation for a gentleman.
He had suffered horrible treatment from his father, who kept a harem in the house and not only insulted him by the spectacle of shameless senile profligacy but was actually jealous of his son's rivalry. From this dishonourable existence The Chemist tried to escape by means of laudanum ; but a friend who worked at chemistry with him saved his life by a mere chance. This frightened the father, and he treated his son better afterwards.
When his father died, The Chemist set free the fair captives of the harem, reduced by half the heavy dues levied by his father on the peasants, forgave all arrears, and gave away for nothing the exemptions which his father used to sell, excusing household servants from service in the Army.