A further effect of this change in policy was upon the position of the Jews outside of the Pale, who enjoyed the right of residence in the interior of Russia, through the laws of the preceding regime. A stricter interpretation of these laws, added to a change in the administrative policy, had the effect not only of stopping the comparatively slight current of Jewish artisans into the interior of Russia, but also of starting a never-ending series of expulsions from the interior to the Pale. These expulsions have since continued, with individuals, families and whole groups, until they have become a constant phenomenon of Jewish life in Russia and a familiar item of world news. While the May Laws thus touched to the quick the economic life of the Russian Jews, another series of laws sought to break down their cultural life by barring them from the higher educational and professional institutions. The contrast with the policy of the preceding regime was here as complete as possible. The principle of liberal assimilation with regard to the Jews had dictated the policy of opening wide to them the doors of the secondary schools and universities, and the liberal professions. The new regime, however, not only opposed education generally, and higher education particularly, as the means by which the reform and westernization of Russia was being accomplished, but it regarded the russification of the Jews as a special evil. Culturally as well, the Jews were to be separated from the Russian people. Hence the introduction of the "percentage rule" in 1886 and 1887, restricting the proportion of Jewish students admitted to the secondary and high schools, and universities, within the Pale, to 10 per cent of the total number of students admitted. Outside of the Pale, the proportion was 5 per cent, except in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where it was placed at 3 per cent. In addition, the Jews were completely barred from a number of these institutions. As the Jews constituted so large a part of the populations in the towns of the Pale and had distinguished themselves in Russia as elsewhere by the eagerness with which they grasped the educational and professional opportunities offered them, the introduction of the "percentage rule" meant that the vast majority of the Jewish youth were to be deprived of the normal chances for education. Thus the "percentage rule", which was extended to institutions founded by the Jews themselves, was almost as great a blow as the May Laws. It threatened the cultural ruin of Russian Jewry. Bound up as the admission to these schools was with the liberal professions and with the opportunity of escaping from the limits of the Pale, it meant that one of the main highways to freedom in Russia had been closed to the Jews.