The spiritual murder of Jewish school children was the function of the black Minister of Enlightenment, with the significant name of Schwartz. The school norm, which, before the revolution, had been applied merely as a Government order, without legislative sanction, was formulated by him into a law and ratified by the Tzar in September, 1908. Henceforth, all institutions of higher learning in the Empire were open to the Jews only in a proportion not exceeding three per cent. of the total number of students for the capitals, five per cent. for the educational establishments outside the Pale, and ten per cent. for the Pale of Settlement. In view of the fact that during the emancipation movement the influx of Jews to the higher schools had been very great, so that their number was now vastly in excess of the established norm, it would have become necessary for the higher schools to bar completely all new candidates until the number of Jewish students had been reduced to the prescribed percentage limits. For a while the Minister recoiled from taking this cruel step, and permitted for the next few years the admission of Jewish students within the limits of the percentage norm, calculating the latter in relation to the number of the _newly admitted_ Christian students during a given year, without regard to the Jewish students admitted previously. Subsequently, however, many educational institutions closed their doors completely to the Jews, referring, by way of explanation, to the "completion of the norm" by the former pupils. Once more, bands of the "martyrs of learning" could be seen wending their ways toward the universities in foreign lands. A year later, in 1909, the percentage restrictions governing the secondary schools were also placed on the statute books. The proportion of Jewish admissions was fixed between five and fifteen per cent.--_i. e._, slightly in excess of the old norm--and was extended in its application to private educational institutions with the prerogatives of government schools. This law spelled ruin to many gymnazia and schools of commerce which, though directed by Christians, were almost entirely dependent on Jewish support, eighty per cent. of their school population consisting of Jews. As for the gymnazia maintained by Jews, with very few exceptions, they never were able to obtain from the Ministry the status of government institutions.