The broad education of the prerevolutionary Russian intellectual was primarily a result of the humanistic and philological culture which permeated the secondary schools of the period. In all types of secondary schools established after the reform of 1864, linguistic training formed the basis of education. Following the reform, three categories of secondary schools were established: (1) classical gymnasia in which one modern foreign language and two classical languages were taught, (2) gymnasia in which one modern foreign language and one classical language were taught, (3) real-gymnasia in which two modern foreign languages and no classical languages were taught. A study of the curricula of these schools shows the dominant position held by the classical languages over the greater part of the nineteenth century; it also gives evidence of their gradual decline and the strengthening of the status of the modern foreign languages.