guage as a great moral and political force, and that they should have encouraged its study at a time when even German rulers, like Frederick the Great, professed nothing but contempt for their national German tongue. In one sense it may be said that some of those foreign rulers had a clearer consciousness of the magnificent future which lay before the Russian language than even the Russian aristocracy. For the Russian aristocracy continued to sacrifice native culture to French culture. While they themselves spoke the language of Voltaire, they left the native tongue to the Muzhik. Readers of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" will remember how, in the salons of Moscow, the Muscovite magnates would use the French language even when cursing their French invaders, and how they would submit to the manners of Napoleonic France in the very act of repelling her political influence.
Keeping these historical facts in mind, it may, therefore, be asserted that Russian as a modern vehicle of national culture is barely one century old. The publication of the great "History of Karamzin" may be taken as marking the beginning of the linguistic and literary consciousness of the Russian people. It is all
