Beginning with that year a number of elementary Crown schools for Jewish children were opened in various cities of the Pale.
The cruel persecutions of the outgoing regime affected the development of the schools in a twofold manner.

On the one hand, the Jewish population could not help turning away with disgust from the gift of enlightenment which its persecutors held out to it.

On the other hand, the horrors of conscription induced many a Jewish youth, to seek refuge in the new rabbinical schools which saved their inmates from the soldier's uniform.

Many a parent who regarded both the barracks and the Crown schools as training grounds for converts preferred to send his children to the latter, where, at least, they were spared the martyrdom of the barracks.

The pupils of the rabbinical schools came from the poorest classes, those that carried on their shoulders the whole weight of conscription.