ect with the countries of middle
Europe, viz. Germany, France and England, than during the whole vast
period of their previous existence.

For most of these improvements, however, the preparation had already
been made, in the last ten years before the dissolution of the
republic. The emancipation of the serfs, who comprised the whole
peasantry, one of the fundamental laws of the duchy of Warsaw in 1807,
was confirmed at the creation of the kingdom of Poland in 1815. In the
diet of the kingdom, not only the nobility and the government, but
also the cities and smaller communities, had their own representatives;
and all Christian denominations acquired equal political rights. To
the universities of Cracow, Wilna, and Lemberg,[43] there was added
in 1818 a fourth at Warsaw. The kingdom of Poland contained in 1827,
in each of its eight woiwodships, a palatine school, and besides this
three other institutions for the higher branches of education;
fourteen principal department schools, and nine for sub-departments;
several professional seminaries for miners, teachers, agriculturists,
and others; a military academy, a school for cadets, and a number of
elementary schools, both private and public.[44] The Russian-Polish
provinces, i.e. the part of Poland united with Russia in the three
successive dismemberments of Poland, participate in all the means of
education which the Russian empire affords; the province of West
Prussia and the grand duchy of Posen, in those of the kingdom of
Prussia, where an enlightened government has made, as is generally
acknowledged, the mental improvement of the lower classes one of its
principal objects. The Austrian kingdom of Galicia had in the year
1819 two lyceums, twelve gymnasiums, several other institutions for
education of different names and for specific purposes, and also
numerous elementary schools. The Catholic religion is here the only
reigning one; although the Protestants, who here are still comprised
under the name of dissidents, are tolerated.

The literary activity of the Polish nation occupied in 1827 not less
than sixty printing offices and twenty booksellers. Of the latter,
fifteen were in Warsaw, the rest scattered over all the province
formerly belonging to Poland. At Warsaw alone five daily political
papers and one weekly were published in the Polish language; besides
these there existed only five, viz. one in each of the four larger
cities, Cracow, Lemberg, Wilna, and Posen