The moving spirits of the local branch could not help, to use the language of its president, "losing heart and becoming rather doubtful as to whether the goal pursued by them is in reality a good one, seeing that all the endeavors of our brethren to draw nearer to the Russians are of no avail so long as the Russian masses remain in their present unenlightened condition and harbor hostile sentiments towards the Jews." The pogrom put a temporary stop to the activity of the Odessa branch.
As for the central Committee in St.Petersburg, its experience was not less disappointing.

For, despite all the endeavors of the Society to adapt itself to the official point of view, it was regarded with suspicion by the powers that be, having been included by the informer Brafman among the constituent organizations of the dreadful and mysterious "Jewish Kahal." The Russian assimilators, now branded as separatists, found themselves in a tragic conflict.

Moreover, the work of the Society in promoting general culture among the Jews was gradually losing its _raison d'etre_, since, without any effort on its part, the Jews began to flock to the _gymnazia_ and universities.

The former practical stimulus to general culture--the acquisition of a diploma for the sake of equal rights--was intensified by the promulgation of the military statute of 1874 which conferred a number of privileges in the discharge of military duty on those possessing a higher education.

These privileges induced many parents, particularly among the merchant class which was then drafted into the army for the first time, to send their children to the middle and higher educational institutions.