ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION 21
in the work of the zemstvos, and the intellectual element which could
not rest satisfied with the dead routine work of the bureaucratic
government services also began to flock to the institutions of local
government. We may say without hesitation that there was no other
mstitution in Russia that attracted such large numbers of unselfish,
devoted workers as did the zemstvos.
The results were not slow in manifesting themselves. First of all,
the zemstvos turned their attention to problems of education and
health. Rural Russia, mostly illiterate and hitherto lacking all pro-
vision for medical attendance, was now being covered rapidly with a
network of schools, hospitals, and dispensaries. Of course, the zem-
stvo institutions were not everywhere and constantly displaying full
capacities. Much depended upon the composition of the zemstvo
assemblies. Sometimes one would come across conservative district
zemstvos side by side with others that were progressive and active;
but, broadly speaking, those provinces that had zemstvos soon out-
distanced in cultural progress the non-zemstvo provinces that re-
mained under the rule of the bureaucracy. The following figures
relating to medical conditions® are illuminating: in 1895, there was
one hospital bed per 6,500 population in the thirty-four zemstvo
provinces, as against one bed per 41,000 in the fourteen non-zem-
stvo provinces of European Russia. The per capita disbursement
for medical services in the thirty-four zemstvo provinces was 34 co-
pecks in 1892 and 56 copecks in 1904, while in the fourteen non-
zemstvo provinces the disbursement for the respective years was 17
and 22 copecks.
It appears from these figures that the difference between the
medical service in provinces enjoying and not en joying local gov-
ernment, which had been very marked even during the first quarter
of a century of zemstvo work, was growing even greater as time went
on.
Similar results became apparent in the educational field. Accord-
ing to a census of rural schools in 1911, there were then 46 pupils
for every thousand rural population of both sexes in the thirty-four
zemstvo provinces, as against 34 pupils in other parts of European
Russia and 18 only in Asiatic Russia.
° V. Veselovsky, Istorya Zemstv (History of Local Government), Vols.
I-IV, St. Petersburg, 1905-1909.
