The internal reforms which he effected were of that large, violent, and unsystematic character which one would expect from his nature. I have described some of these, and shown how they were, in great measure, angry and impulsive thrusts at evils which thwarted his plans. Brigandage was still very common, on a large scale, in Russia, and interfered with the industry which was to supply his sinews of war, so Peter attacked it vigorously. Mendicancy had, as everywhere in the Middle Ages, become an opportunity of virtue and a wicked leak of the nation’s energy. The lash of Peter’s knout fell upon the beggars. Men still killed each other instead of killing Swedes and Turks, and Peter forbade them to carry knives. He fostered and protected home-industries, and sent young men to Holland and Italy to learn trades. He spurred the native production of iron and copper, sent expeditions in search of gold, dug miles of canals, and tried by heavy punishments to break Russian traders of their notorious dishonesty. He pressed reform in agriculture, introduced breeding studs, and slightly alleviated the lot of the serfs, who were now sold like cattle or negroes. He regulated municipal life, dividing the country into administrative areas and created a Senate. Nothing was done thoroughly, and all was done for the purpose of extracting (by a crude fiscal system and thoroughly dishonest officials) more money for the army and navy. Yet these were all valuable innovations, and they entitled Peter, as far as they went, to a name only a little less than “great.” His most beneficent design, and his chief failure, was in the matter of education; general illiteracy was still the rule in Europe. Russia was merely a few degrees worse than other countries in that respect. But social visionaries were appearing here and there, pointing out the connection between ignorance and crime and poverty, and some of them found the ear of Peter. Impulsively, as usual, he declared that he would have universal, compulsory education in Russia. A Ukase of February 28th, 1714, ordered the opening of provincial schools, and Peter rushed to other tasks. Five years later he learned from an official report that one such school had been opened, and it had twenty-six pupils. He returned again and again to the subject, and failed as much from his own lack of patient study as from the general hostility of his subjects. His ideas of schooling were extremely crude, and they stultified themselves in practice. All that we can say is that, as in the case of most of the other reforms, he did bring a few rays of light into the mediæval darkness of Russia, and is for that entitled to grateful recognition.