Editing Elizabeth of Russia (section)

===Educational reforms===
[[File:Elizabeth of Russia visiting Lomonosov's mosaic workshop by A.V.Makovskiy (priv.coll.).jpg|thumb|Elizabeth visits Russian scientist [[Mikhail Lomonosov]].]]
Despite the substantial changes made by Peter the Great, he had not exercised a really formative influence on the intellectual attitudes of the ruling classes as a whole. Although Elizabeth lacked the early education necessary to flourish as an intellectual (once finding the reading of secular literature to be "injurious to health"),{{sfn|Bain|1899|p=137}} she was clever enough to know its benefits and made considerable groundwork for her eventual successor, Catherine the Great.{{sfn|Hoetzsch|1966|p=83}} She made education freely available to all social classes (except for serfs), encouraged establishment of the first [[University of Moscow|university in Russia founded in Moscow]] by [[Mikhail Lomonosov]], and helped to finance the establishment of the [[Imperial Academy of Fine Arts]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Russian Academy of Arts – History |url=https://en.rah.ru/academy/history/ |access-date=13 November 2022}}</ref>