[2] On June 18, 1887, he issued a circular, which would limit the admittance of children of the non-noble origin to the gymnasiums.

According to this document, gymnasiums and progymnasiums had to restrict the enrollment of children of people of lower classes.

[3] The circular stated in part that the new rules free the gymnasiums from children of coachmen, lackeys, cooks, laundresses, petty merchants, with the possible exceptions for those endowed with extraordinary abilities, — all those who should not altogether be taken out the environment they belong to.

For this reason it has become known as the Cookwomen's Children Circular (Циркуляр о кухаркиных детях).

This discriminatory language was capitalized upon by Russian revolutionaries and was the base of the famous phrase of Vladimir Lenin that in the Soviet Union "even a cookwoman may manage the state".