Yet the results which these individuals had achieved cannot be overestimated. By the end of the century the leading works of Russian literature, especially the novel, were generally known to American readers, though all too often from English versions of French and German translations. The appreciation of Polish culture had decreased during the century as the memory of Pulaski and Kosciuszko faded, not without the active cooperation of the representatives of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, which had succeeded in removing Poland from the European map and in presenting Polish artists and writers as members of their own states. The culture of the other Slavic peoples was even less known and studied. Yet when we say this, we must never forget that the situation was little better in England. Even in France and Germany, Slavic studies had not really found themselves. It is true that professors like Jagic, August Leskien, E. Berneker and A. Brueckner had already started on their brilliant careers. Morfill and later Nevill Forbes in England were trying to hold up a standard. Even there, though, a study of the Slavic languages and culture, as well as the presentation of the great Russian novelists, was done in an highly out of context manner. So it also was in the United States where interest had been concentrated in the hands of a few select individuals who had worked on their own and for their own pleasure. CHAPTER 4 THE BEGINNING OF FORMAL STUDY The second half and particularly the last quarter of the nineteenth century was a period of rapid development in the American educational system. Even before the Civil War, ambitious young men, dissatisfied with the rigid curricula of the American colleges, had begun to go to Europe, chiefly to Germany, to study and secure the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. To a large extent the German universities came to take the place of even Oxford and Cambridge, the chief goals of the few pre-Civil War students who had gone to Europe. In the same way, foreign scholars began to come to America. Again these were largely German or at least German-trained. Some of these men received, through some chance contact, direct invitations. Others, forced by the shifts of German politics and the Revolution of 1848, left their homes and joined the mass emigration to America that was already beginning. In either case, their influence was to the good.