The official appointed to keep the register of boys for school purposes waxed rich on the bribes paid him by anxious parents who kept their sons in hiding.
After a while the wise Czar changed his mind, or he died,--probably he did both,--and the schools were closed, and the Jewish boys perused their Hebrew books in peace, wearing the sacred fringes[1] in plain sight, and never polluting their mouths with a word of Russian.
And then it was the Jews who changed their minds--some of them.

They wanted to send their children to school, to learn histories and sciences, because they had discovered that there was good in such things as well as in the Sacred Law.

These people were called progressive, but they had no chance to progress.

All the czars that came along persisted in the old idea, that for the Jew no door should be opened,--no door out of the Pale, no door out of their mediaevalism.
FOOTNOTES: [1] A four-cornered cloth with specially prepared fringes is worn by pious males under the outer garments, but with, the fringes showing.
The latter play a part in the daily ritual..