Here, too, as in the case of the "Temporary Rules," the Government was resolved to enact the new disabilities by the sovereign will of the emperor, without submitting them to the highest legislative body of the land, the Council of State, for fear that undesirable debates might arise in that august body concerning the expediency of putting an embargo on education.

On December 5, 1886, the Tzar, acting on the suggestion of the Committee of Ministers, directed the Minister of Public Instruction, Dyelanov, to adopt measures for the limitation of the admission of Jews to the secondary and higher educational establishments.
For six long months the Minister, whose official duty was the promotion of education, was wavering between a number of schemes designed to restrict education among the Jews.

Suggestions for such restrictions came from officials of the ministry and from superintendents of school districts.

Some proposed to close the schools only to the children of the lower classes among the Jews; in which "the unsympathetic traits of the Jewish character" were particularly conspicuous.

Others recommended a restrictive percentage for Jews in general, without any class discrimination.