THE Pall Mall Gazette states that the Russian Government have just made a remarkable announcement in its official organ relative to the Russian women students in the University of Zurich. During the last two years, says this document, the number of young Russian women who study at Zurich has rapidly increased ; there are now more than hundred in the University and Polytechnic school in the town. " Very unfavourable reports have reached the Government," it adds " relative to the conduct of these young women. At the time when their number began to increase, the leaders of tho Russian emigration made Zurich the centre of their revolutionary propaganda, and they spared no efforts to draw the student into it. Under their influence all serious study gave place to a fruitless political agitation ; various political parties, representing the most Radical opinions, were formed among the Russian youth of both sexes. A 'Slavonic Democratic Socialist Society,' a ' Slavonic Central Revolutionary Committee,' and a Slavonic and a Russian section of the International Society, have been formed at Zurich, and they number several young Russians of both sexes among their members. In the Russian library, to which certain Russian editors and publishers send their periodicals and newspapers gratis, lectures of n very revolutionary character are delivered. . . . It has become a daily occupation of young Russian girls to attend the meetings of working men ; political agitation absorbs these youthful and inexperienced minds and leads them into wrong courses. . The young women who have thus been dragged into politics are entirely under the influence of the leaders of the emigration, and have become their obedient instruments. Some of them go two or three times in the year to Russia and back again, taking with them incendiary letters and proclamations. . .
Others allow themselves to be deluded by the communistic theories of free love, and, under the protection of a fictitious marriage, act in utter forgetfulness of all the fundamental principles of morality and decorum. The misconduct of these Russian women has so provoked the local population that even the lodging-house keepers hesitate to take them into their homes. . . . Such immorality cannot be allowed by the Government to pass unnoticed., It must not be forgotten that these women will sooner or later come back to Russia, there to become wives mothers, and teachers; and it is the duty of the Russian Government to prevent them as far as possible from corrupting the youth of the country. To those young women who really wish to obtain a scientific education ample opportunities are afforded by the higher schools in Russia itself, to which students of both sexes are freely admitted ; but there can be no doubt that the Russian young women who go to Zurich are actuated by different motives from that of a love of science. . . . The frivolous articles of some of our newspapers, the false notions as to the position of women in society, the attraction exercised by modern ideas—all these causes have more or less bad an influence in bringing a relatively much larger number of young Russian women to Zurich than are to be found there from other European countries to whose Universities women are not admitted. The number of women students from Russia is 108 ; of those from other European States, not 20. . . . In order to put an end to this abnormal state of things, it is hereby announced to all the Russian women who attend the lectures at the University and the Polytechnic school of Zurich, that such of them as shall continue to attend the above lectures after the 1st of January, 1874, will not be admitted on their return to Russia to any examination, educational establishment, or appointment of any kind under the control of the Government.
Rockhampton Bulletin (Qld. : 1871 - 1878),http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51805058
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