When spring finally came (after 1855), and the sun sent down his genial rays upon the wretched Jewry of Russia, life and activity began to appear at once, especially in the upper strata. As in Germany, so in Russia spiritual emancipation preceded political emancipation. Still shorn almost entirely of the elementary rights of citizens, the Russian Jews nevertheless followed their ideal promptings, and participated enthusiastically in the movement for enlightenment which at that time held the noblest of the Russians enthralled. In a considerable portion of the Russian Jewish community a process of culture regeneration began, an eager throwing off of outworn forms of life and thought, a swift adoption of humane principles. Jewish young men crowded into the secular schools, in which they came in close contact with their Christian contemporaries. Influenced by their new companions, they gave themselves up to Russian national movements, often at the cost of renunciation of self. Some of them, indeed, in one-sided aspiration strove to become, not Russians, but men. The influence exercised by literature was more moderate than that of the schools. Rabbinic and Chassidistic literature, on the point of dying out as it was, abandoned the field to the literature of enlightenment in the Hebrew language, a literature of somewhat primitive character. It consisted chiefly of naive novels and of didactic writings of publicists, and lacked the solid scientific and historical element that forms the crown of Western Jewish literature. It is indisputable, however, that it exerted an educational influence. Besides, it possesses the merit of having resuscitated one of the most valuable of Jewish national possessions, the Hebrew language in its purity, which in Russia alone has become a pliant instrument of literary expression. A still greater field was reserved for the Jewish-Russian literature that arose in the "sixties." It was called into being in order to present a vivid and true picture of the social and spiritual interests of the Jews. Proceeding from discussions of current political topics, this literature gradually widened its limits so as to include Jewish history, Jewish science, and the portrayal of Jewish life, and more and more approached the character of a normal European literature. All this was in the making, and the most important work had not yet begun. The lower strata of the people had not been touched by the fresh air. In time, if all had gone well, they, too, would have had their day. And if the minority of the Jewish people in the West in a short span of time brought forth so many notable workers in so many departments of life and thought, how much superior would be the culture achievements of the Eastern majority! How vigorously the mighty mental forces latent in Russian Jewry would develop when their advance was no longer obstructed by all sorts of obstacles, and they could be applied