Jews are not admitted to the secondary or higher educational
institutions and universities, except in proportions varying from 3
to 15 per cent. of the entire number of non-Jewish pupils. (For high
schools: 10 per cent. within the Pale and 5 per cent. outside the
Pale, except in the two capitals St. Petersburg and Moscow, where it is
only 3 per cent.; and for universities all over the Empire, about 3 per
cent.)
=A ministerial decree issued in August, 1915, permits the children
of all Jews actively connected with the war to enter any educational
institution in the country regardless of the percentage norm; but in
practice this decree, like the decree abolishing the Pale, is entirely
subject to interpretation and modification by the local authorities,
who have, so far, virtually ignored it.=
The result of the percentage norm applied to the admission of Jews
to secondary schools and universities is that in the towns to which
the Jews are restricted by the domiciliary regulations and where they
constitute in many cases a very large proportion of the population,
=the great majority of the Jewish youth are denied the means of a
higher education.= In Warsaw, the Jews constitute 36.30 per cent. of
the population; in Lodz, 47.59 per cent.; in Lomza, 39.42 per cent.;
in Kovno, 54.60 per cent.; in Vilna, 40 per cent.; in Grodno, 52.45
per cent.; in Bialostock, 65.62 per cent.; in Brest Litovsk, 78.81 per
cent.; in Pinsk, 80.10 per cent.; in Berditcheff, 87.52 per cent.,
etc., yet in all these towns only the stipulated percentage of Jewish
students may be admitted.
In addition to this restriction, many secondary schools (School of
Military Medical Hygiene, School of Railroad Engineering, School of
Electricity, etc.), are entirely closed to Jews. Even commercial
schools, maintained by Merchants’ Guilds, admit Jews only in proportion
to the Jewish membership of the Guilds.
=The Government also restricts the establishment of higher schools
under Jewish auspices.= In 1884, it closed the Technical Institute of
Zhitomir (founded in 1862), on the ground that, in the southwestern
Pale provinces, the Jews contributed a majority of the artisans, and
a special Jewish technical school would increase this disproportion.
In 1885 it closed the Teachers’ Institute (a noted center of Jewish
learning) because “there was no further need for it.”
As a consequence of these limitations and restrictions there has been
a scramble among Jews to gain admission to these institutions. Parents
have employed every expedient to have their children enrolled. Another
consequence is that many Jewish young men emigrated to Switzerland,
Germany and France, to obtain a higher education, and thereafter to
return to Russia to enter professional life. A recent calculation shows
that about 3,000 Jewish students from Russia annually exile themselves
in order to attend foreign universities.