Russian Universities.

The new year in the Russian colleges was probably anything but a happy one, owing to the university regulation recently promulgated by the government. The prevalence of socialistic doctrines at the universities has always been a thorn in the flesh of the Russian Government, and it is now resolved to eradicate the evil by the most rigorous measures. Hereafter the universities are to be under the immediate supervision of the police. A body of special police is to be installed within the walls of each university; a most rigid scrutiny of the doings of the inmates is to be maintained; and thus the communication of radical ideas is to be cut short. A curious part of the regulation is that, while these police overseers are to be maintained out of the Universities' funds, they are not to be at all under the control of the university authorities. The fact is that, in Russia, the faculty of a college needs to be under the espionage of the police quite as much as the students.

The other regulations are no less arbitrary than the one above. The rectors or presidents of the universities are to be appointed by the Minister of Police. As the rector's authority is superior to that of the faculty, it will be seen what an immense power for good or ill this right of appointment places in the Minister's hands. If he fills the office with his parasites and henchmen, he destroys the influence of the universities at a blow.

Such are some of the conditions by which education in Russia is suppressed. It is a state of affairs, however, only consistent with the previous policy of Alexander III. The press has been for some time deprived of its freedom, and the fettering of education is merely in the natural sequence of events. But probably the government cannot go much farther in its course, at least with success. It has already reached the point which has proved fatal to most despotisms, and there seems to be no reason for expecting the government of the Czars to prove the exception to the rule.