No lasting good effects can be expected from the emancipation law, till the further step shall have been taken of granting the peasant the right of acquiring a property in land. Only then can the industry of the peasant be awakened only then will he manifest a wish for improvement ; only then will he struggle to raise himself from his present abasement. The prosperity of the whole country would be promoted, and doubtless the nobles themselves w ould benefit largely ; but there appears so very little prospect of so desirable an event, that it is hardly worth while to speculate much on the results. If the cause of the Lettes and Esthonians could be treated separately, there woidd be some hopes for them ; but the government dare not., if they would, on account of their other enslaved provinces, yield full freedom to the serfs on the Baltic; and the few who are anxious to do so, are overpowered by the miJtitudes wha either desire the contrary, or take no interest in the affair. Until the constitution of Russia itself is changed, the hberation so well begini, will hardly progress much further.
^ As the most important consequence of the emancipation of the Esthonians and Lettes, we may designate the efforts made of late years for their mental improvement. The acquired knowledge of these races was
formerly almost solely of a religious character, for though reading was often taught them, yet It was entirely confined to hymns and psalm-booka, and their religious knowledge did not extend beyond the church-catechism. Schools there were very few, and the little knowledge they possessed was communicated by their parents, generally by their mothers. Parents who could not read themselves, but who wished their children to learn, engaged the services of old and infirm people, who, unfit for active employments, were accustomed to travel about from Gesinde to Gesmdcj earning their livelihood by teaching what they could. The pastor also made his periodical visits, to superintend the progress of his fiock. In summer, however, every thing was generally forgotten that had been learned in winter.
It is very difficult to calculate any thing like a correct average of the degree of knowledge and cultivation attained by the Esthonians and Lettes. There are no materials, for instance, for the formation of statistical tables, intended to show how many among them have acquired the faculty of reading and writing. The nation is so dependant on its superiors, that the differences observable in different villages, and on different estates, are very great. One master, who governs justly and beneficently, may exert himself for the enlightenment of his people, by the establishment of schools and the payment of teachers, and will thus often exercise the most fovourable influence on them, and make them civilized, intelligent, virtuous, and enlightened ; whilst the carelessness, the severity, or the inattention of another, mil thoroughly demoralize and barbarize those subject to him. A friend in Courland gave me the following calculation of the state of cultivation among his parishioners : Of 2470 Lettes who had been confirmed, 2056 could read more or less well, and on an average, seventy-seven out of every hundred males who had received the rites of confirmation, and eighty-eight out of every hundred females, could read. It will often happen, however, that the most marked contrast manifests itself between the peasants on two estates immediately adjoining to each other, and to estimate the general condition of the people It would be necessary to have separate returns from each estate.
Since the emancipation of the serfs, a great impulse has been given to the progress of these people. Translations of popular German works have appeared In both languages ; Esthonian and Lettish journals have been pubhshed for their instruction and amusement ; German dictionaries and grammars for the use of Lettes and Esthonians have been printed, and schools have very much Increased in number, particularly in Courland. One natural consequence of the education and comparative freedom of the Lettes, Is their Germanization. As uncultivated slaves, they obstinately retained for centuries their old traditions, their ancestral customs, their national costume, and their barbarous superstitions. As educated freemen, all this becomes repugnant to them, and as the first impulse of freedom and refinement was given by their German lords, and not by themselves, it naturally leads them to the imitation of those lords.
^ It is too late now to exalt the dialects of the Esthonians and Lettes into civilized languages, all the intelligent and cultivated among them professing a great contempt for their own people and a great attachment to every thing German, and It may be therefore expected that they will become every day more and more German. The number of them who learn German daily increases. The influence of the old heathen supersti-