Russian Jewry was astir with new life. In many places secular education was divorced for the first time from rabbinical speculation. Knowledge became an end in itself, and learning increased greatly. An investigation by Nicholas I convinced all who were interested that though the Talmud remained the chief subject of study, the number of educated Jews was far greater than commonly supposed. The upliftment of the masses was the beau-ideal of every Maskil, and Hebrew and even the much-despised Yiddish were employed to effect it. Ignorance was regarded as the bane of life, and enlightenment as the panacea for all the ills to which their downtrodden brethren were heirs. As their pious coreligionists deemed it the universal duty to be well-versed in the Talmud, so the Maskilim thought it incumbent upon everybody to be highly cultured. No obstacle was great enough to discourage them. They were willing martyrs to the goddess of Wisdom, at whose shrine they worshipped, and whose cult they spread in the most adverse circumstances. Had the Government not interfered with the efforts of the Maskilim, or had it chosen a commission from among the Russian Jews themselves, among whom, as soon became evident to Nicholas himself, there were more than enough to do justice to an educational inquiry, the Haskalah movement would have continued to spread, notwithstanding the obstacles put in its way. But Nicholas was determined to reduce the number of Jews also by "re-educating" them in accordance with his own ideas. Every attempt made by the Jews to educate themselves was, therefore, checked. Even the noble efforts of Luria were stopped, his schools were closed, and his only rewards were "a gold medal from the czar and a short poem by Gottlober." In Germany, since the time of Mendelssohn, the study of the Talmud had been on the wane. The great yeshibot formerly existing in Metz, Frankfort, Hamburg, Prague, Fiirth, Halberstadt, etc., disappeared, and the reforms introduced in the synagogue and the numerous converts to Christianity impressed the outside world with the idea that Judaism among German Jews was writhing in the agony of death. If the same disintegrating elements were introduced among the Russian Jews, the Government believed that they would ultimately come over to the Greek Catholic Church of their own accord. Hence it was anxious to learn the secret of this power and beamed graciously on several learned Jews of Germany.