to be "an example of obedience and discipline." To the army recruits, who had to look forward to a term of service lasting twenty-five years, the chaplains preached: "God chooses men for all professions as He wills. You are chosen and destined for the military career by the will of God. . . . God wills that you shall serve God and the great tsar as soldiers. . . . Before you were born, it was God's determination that you should become warriors."
Military discipline prevailed in the schools. Count Protasov, a cavalry general, was appointed chief procurator of the synod in 1836 and held office until 1855. Army discipline was introduced into the seminaries. "I know only the tsar," was his favourite saying. Nevertheless he found place in the curriculum for the "revolutionary" natural sciences, since as a soldier he recognised their value.
Nicholas desired in good earnest to realise Uvarov's formula. Russia had the advantage over Europe of possessing the only true faith, and uniformity of religious belief was to prevail. The outcome of this ecclesiastical policy was the adoption of harsh police measures against the raskolniki and other sectaries, such as the dukhobors; and it was the same policy which induced the enforcement of religious uniformity.[1]
Enough has been said to show how Nicholas and his devoted assistants were likely to receive the fierce protest which Čaadaev issued in his Philosophic Essay (1836) renouncing, in the name of religion, Uvarov's formula and Russian theocracy in its entirety.
§ 18.
HARDLY had Nicholas become tsar when he abolished the chair of philosophy at Moscow university. Driving past the university on one occasion, looking very serious, he pointed to the building and said. "There is the wolf's den." The less developed universities were dealt with in accordance with this estimate. A fuller activity had begun at the universities during the liberal epoch of Alexander I, with the issue of the studies' ordinance of 1804, although even then the police outlook towards these institutions was not abandoned. In 1835 Uvarov reorganised the universities in conformity with his general program, making the study of theology and ecclesias-
- ↑ It may be recalled in comparison, that in Austria under Metternich the Zillertal Protestants were driven from their homes.
