Chapter IX: Education

Education, like everything else in Russia, has, in the course of its existence, experienced many sharp ups and downs, which were the outcome in the past of the vicissitudes of history, and, in less remote times, of changes in the policy of successive governments.

The birthplace of education in Russia was the Church. Until the Tartar invasion, education was entirely in the hands of the clergy; and like everything else in Russia, it necessarily suffered an eclipse during the epoch of the Tartar domination. Peter the Great created secular schools, sowed the seed of technical education, which was later to bear such abundant fruit, and planned an Academy of Sciences which was executed by his widow Catherine.

The University of Moscow was founded in 1755, in the reign of the Empress Elisabeth. Catherine II. encouraged education in many ways; but it was not until the reign of Alexander I. that an attempt was made to organize a national system of education. From that time until the present day, education has experienced spurts of progress and relapses into stagnation, according as the political pendulum swung from reform to reaction. From 1812 to 1855 reaction was predominant. In 1855 education, as everything else, revived under the influence of the great reforms. After the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II., in 1881, another period of reaction set in, which lasted more or less until the Russo-Japanese War; then came the revolutionary movement which broke down certain barriers, and was succeeded, as far as education is concerned, by a Government policy whose constant tendency has been towards reaction, and here as elsewhere, and in other matters, to take back or to curtail and limit with one hand what it had given with the other. But although the Government has constantly interfered with and hampered the organization of education, it has not only been powerless to withstand the great movement towards the extension and progress of education which is at this moment taking place in Russia, but it has in some cases taken the initiative in educational reform, so that if it curtails with one hand it has none the less given with the other; and the gift is more important than the limitations, because, once made, it opened windows that could never be shut again in spite of all possible curtailments. In Russia at the present moment there is a great and ever increasing demand for primary, secondary, technical, and higher education.

Primary education, which in Russia is always gratuitous, is in the hands either of—

(_a_) The Zemstvos, in the country.

The Municipalities, in the towns.

(_b_) The Church.

(_c_) The Minister of Education, to a small extent in that part of
Russia where Zemstvos exist, and a large extent in the
ukraines where there are no Zemstvos.

The course of primary education is planned on a basis of from three to six years. In all primary schools, reading, writing, and arithmetic, and religion are taught.

The tendency towards a longer and slower course, because a three years’ course, while it teaches a boy to read once and for all, has been found not to leave a lasting impression on him as far as writing is concerned.

The boy after a three years’ course will never forget how to read, but he will entirely forget how to write.

The primary schools are full to overflowing, and have to turn back pupils all over the country.

As far as the teachers are concerned, 60 per cent. of them are women, 40 per cent. are men. Only a small proportion are specially trained teachers; the rest, especially among the women, have merely finished their course at a Government Gymnasium.

Of the three classes of primary schools, the best are those which are in the hands of the Zemstvo; then next in order of merit come those which are in the hands of the Minister of Education; and next the Church parish schools,[15] which are gradually being suspended and ousted by the others.

All these schools were till quite lately (three or four years ago) supported either by the respective authorities in whose control they are, or by private persons. As the sums of money rendered available by such a system were totally insufficient to defray the necessary expenses, the consequence was that the general progress was slow. A radical change in this situation was made by an Education Bill, which was introduced into the Duma by the Government, and passed by the Duma a few years ago. This most important measure provided that the various authorities indicated above, which control the schools, should receive yearly from the Government a sum of about £40 in order to pay for the schooling of fifty children—that is to say, for the salary of one teacher for every fifty children, on the condition that the Zemstvo, or the other controlling authorities, as the case might be, should undertake to build, in a period of ten years, a number of schools sufficient to meet the needs of the whole population of their respective districts. The result of this Bill will be that in about five to six years’ time Russia will have enough schools for the whole of its population, and will be able to contemplate the practical realization of compulsory education.

As it is now, in European Russia the percentage of people who can read or write is only 22·9 in Siberia, and in the Caucasus it is less (12·3 and 12·4); but it is higher in Poland (30·5), in the Baltic provinces (71–80), and in certain governments, such as Moscow (40) and St. Petersburg (43–53).[16]

Before considering the question of secondary education in Russia, it must be pointed out that all secondary and higher education in Russia is of two kinds—namely, technical and general.

General secondary education is either directly in the hands of the Minister of Education, or in the hands of private persons under the close supervision of the Minister of Education. There are, as in Germany, two classes of general secondary education—classical, which is taught in the gymnasia, and non-classical, which is taught in the Real Schools; the gymnasia are attended by boys and girls, but the schools are as a rule not mixed. The Gymnasium’s course of instruction lasts eight years; that of the Real Schools, seven.

The subjects taught in the gymnasia are as follows: Religion, Latin, Greek, Russian, mathematics (as far as logarithms and the binomial theorem, and including trigonometry), history, natural sciences, French or German, English (optional).

The course of the Real Schools is the same, except that it excludes Latin and Greek, attaches much more importance to mathematics and natural science, and has two obligatory foreign languages (French and German), and one optional foreign language.

The course for girls is the same in kind, but less in degree. The tendency for girls is to go to the Real Schools in preference to the gymnasia; and besides the gymnasia and the Real Schools, there are also for girls a certain number of institutes and gymnasia founded by the Empress Marie, open only to the daughters of the nobility, and to foundlings and orphans. These gymnasia are more or less the same as the ordinary Government gymnasia; the institutes are closed pensions, organized more or less on the lines of a French convent; the pupils are boarders, and the teaching of languages in these institutes is especially good.

In the ordinary gymnasia the average number of pupils is 372, and the average number of pupils in each class is 35. These schools are open to people of every class; but this does not exclude the possibility of nobles or other persons founding special private schools for members of their particular class.

In the gymnasia and Real Schools the pupils are mostly children of town dwellers and guild artisans; the pupils live at home, and go to the school only during school hours.

The school terms last from September 1 until Christmas, and from Christmas until June 1, leaving a holiday of three months in the summer.

The hours of work in school are from 9 a.m. until noon, and then, after an hour’s interval for lunch, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., making five hours a day. Preparation is done at home. There are no half-holidays. On the other hand, there are many whole holidays, since every saint’s day in Russia is a whole holiday, and besides the saints’ days there are other holidays as well. One point of interest, in comparing Russian secondary schools with English secondary schools, is that in Russian schools there is no such thing as corporal punishment, and if a Russian schoolboy were chastised or beaten by a teacher he would be almost ready to commit suicide from shame. In the Russian gymnasia and High Schools, the level and quality of the teaching are high. A university degree is required from all teachers, except in some rare cases in the lower classes of girls’ gymnasia. On paper, and theoretically, nothing could appear better than the system of Russian secondary education. It seems to have all the advantages of the German system, and at the same time to be a little less strenuous.

Nevertheless, almost any Russian, if you ask him what is the chief characteristic of Russian secondary education at present, will answer that the education received is bad and unsatisfactory.

And if you ask whether this is the result of an incomplete or faulty programme of instruction, or of incompetent and inadequate teaching, he will say, No; the scheme of instruction is sufficiently extensive and difficult, the teachers are well trained, competent and conscientious; it is in spite of this, they tell you, that the education which is the fruit of this laborious course is unsatisfactory, and the culture obtained comparatively low. If you press for the reason, they will point to the influence of the Government over the schools. The Government do not exercise an open and direct pressure on the schools, but they never cease from interfering indirectly with them. They exercise a kind of censorship over education; the teachers are being constantly checked; certain subjects and certain topics are tabooed; and the nature of the censorship varies with the changing ministers.

Thus it is that education tends to be intensive in one direction and incomplete in another; and the net result is that the culture obtained is to a certain extent superficial, and that the product of the Russian secondary schools is a youth who is intellectually half-baked.

One of the chief results of the attitude of the administration towards the schools is that the pupils look upon their course of education solely as a means of getting a diploma; they cease to be interested in the education itself which is provided for them, and they throw themselves with exaggerated vehemence into any other political or philosophical channel outside it—into socialism, materialism, theoretical and practical anarchy.

This is what Russians tell you, and it is no doubt true from their point of view; nevertheless, if you compare the average level of secondary education in Russia with that which exists in England, you will notice at once that the average Russian, as I have said earlier in this book, is infinitely better instructed. I use the word “instructed” purposely; because if you take education in the larger sense, it is often the case that the more ignorant Englishman has on the whole a better balanced education than the over-instructed Russian. That is to say, the intellectually immature product of the English schools will often be saner and nearer to reality and practical life, and fitter to deal with the emergencies of life, than the intellectually overripe Russian, who is immature in his very overripeness; and who, by nature being intellectually plastic, agile, and assimilative, receives an education of a kind that starves him where he needs feeding, and overfeeds him where he needs a low diet, and leads him to seek for himself just that kind of intellectual food and drink which is likely to inebriate him, and to ruin his intellectual digestion. With regard to the course of education itself, he becomes simply and solely a diploma-hunter.

These remarks do not apply to technical secondary education. There are in Russia technical secondary schools of agriculture, engineering, mining, forestry, and railways (all under the management of the different ministries). The general course of education received here is the same in character as that given in the gymnasia and the Real Schools; but it is combined with a special course, and the technical schools produce a type of youth who is not only more practical and nearer to reality, but who is more really cultivated in spite of the fact that the pupils of the gymnasia have the advantage of the more general course of education.

There are also cadet schools and special schools for officers under the Ministry of War, which are sufficiently good; and commercial schools (similar to the Real Schools), under the direction of the Minister of Commerce.

The number of schools in Russia is still not really sufficient for the demand; and since the regulations binding on the institution of schools by private persons have become less stringent, the increase in the number of such privately organized schools has been enormous, and this testifies to the greatness of the general demand for education.

Higher education in Russia is also of two kinds, technical and general.

General higher education is supplied by the universities. There are universities at Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Kharkov, Yurieff, Warsaw, Kazan, Odessa, Tomsk, and Saratov.

The largest university is that of Moscow, where there are nearly ten thousand students; and that of St. Petersburg, where there are eight thousand. Admission to the university takes place once a year, and admittance is given to all students who have passed what the Germans call their _Abiturienten Examen_, at their secondary school—that is to say, their leaving-certificate examination. Besides the universities, there are higher technical schools, which we will come to presently.

The system of university teaching is the same as that which exists in the rest of Europe and in Scotland; the faculties include jurisprudence, physics and mathematics, medicine, historical philology, Oriental languages, and divinity.

But the part played by the universities in Russian life and the special character of Russian university education are unique.[17]

Every Englishman who is at all interested in Russia will be probably aware of the immense influence that the universities have had on the current of modern history in Russia.

The young, the adolescent in all countries, have often played a part in politics, whenever the politics of a country have been in a state of ferment. Sometimes the expression of their zeal takes the form of patriotism, as in the War of Liberation in Germany; sometimes, if the form of the Government is reactionary, it leads them to go and fight at the barricades.

In Russia the students have always taken an interest in political matters; but at the beginning of the century the universities were small and aristocratic. Nevertheless, in 1825, secret societies existed all over Russia, largely recruited from the ranks of the young, and these finally organized an insurrection in St. Petersburg, which has become famous in Russian history as the Decembrist Rising; and which stands in contrast with all later insurrectionary risings in Russia, in that it was exclusively the work of the nobility and the gentry, and was confined to that class. The society which brought about this insurrection modelled itself on the German association of students, the _Tugendbund_; and although its practical results were nil, it left a tradition which the students on the one hand, and the Government on the other hand (although unconsciously), never permitted to die out.

All through the ’forties and the ’fifties, as secondary education first became a fact and subsequently went on increasing, the universities grew not only large, but democratic, and formed a democratic nucleus; and it was here that the rationalistic movement which started in Western Europe found the most grateful soil and the quickest response. Liberal ideas had always flourished among the students, and this blend of liberal and rationalistic ideas, as soon as it began to spread and to increase, met with a counter-movement of repression from all successive governments. And it is the glory of the Russian universities that they never ceased to keep the flag of their ideal, their demand for political freedom, flying, and were always the soul of any progressive political movement.

The universities were originally autonomous, and though they were deprived of their liberties for a time in the early part of the century, they retained them fully in the reign of Alexander II.; it was not until then that the universities came to be an important factor, since up to that period they had been, as I have already said, small and aristocratic; and it was only in the fifties that they became democratic and large enough to count. The privilege of autonomy which had been given to the universities meant that they were administered solely by a board of professors, at the head of which was a rector. This state of things lasted until the reign of Alexander III., when the universities were again deprived of their privileges and their autonomy, and the Government tried to administer them directly, with the usual result that trouble ensued; only the trouble brought about by the conflict of the Government with the universities was more turbulent in character than that produced by its clash with any other institutions or classes of society.

A continual state of effervescence and of disturbance on the one hand, and of repression on the other, lasted until 1908, when autonomy was again restored to the universities; and during the next five years university life began, in spite of periodical strikes and closures, more or less to settle down; but as reaction set in, a part of its activity was directed against the liberties of the university. In 1911, for instance, all the professors in Moscow were forced to resign.

At the present moment, if we do not hear of disturbances in the university, this can be attributed to the reaction among the students themselves, who are in a natural state of depression at the result of the revolutionary movement of 1905, which from their point of view was a complete failure. It may safely be said that it is most improbable that such a state of things will last very long, and even now there are unmistakable clouds on the horizon. The policy of the Government of giving, in educational matters, with one hand and of hampering and hindering with the other, was bound and is bound to result in trouble sooner or later. The troubles which occurred in the recent past in the life of the universities, during and subsequent to the revolutionary movement, without doubt lowered the general standard of education. The results obtained at present are worse than they should be, considering the excellence of the professors. Moreover, the constant troubles which arose in the life of the universities during the revolutionary period, caused generally by some move on the part of the Government, and invariably followed by repressive measures (involving temporary closure), drove thousands of students to seek education abroad.

All that I have said about the universities applies to the higher technical institutes, only in a lesser degree. There is a considerable number of such technical institutes in Russia. St. Petersburg alone can boast of a Polytechnic, a Technological Institute, a Mining Institute, an Institute of Civil Engineers, a Higher Commercial Institute; and in addition to these there are institutes in other parts of Russia where higher education can be had in the branches of mining, railways, ways and communications, forestry and agronomy, besides an increasing number of agricultural schools all over the country. The difference between the character of higher technical and higher general education, between the higher technical schools and the universities, is the same as the difference between the character of the technical secondary schools and the general secondary schools.

As in the case of technical secondary education, higher technical education produces a more practical type than the universities; and the students of the higher technical institutes only take part in politics when matters have reached a definite crisis, in which their action can have practical effect. The great importance of the universities and of the higher technical institute in Russia lies in the fact that they supply the ranks of the whole of the higher _intelligentsia_. All lawyers and all doctors come from the universities, and the life and the fate of the universities affect the cultured classes vitally. This works both ways. The universities affect the cultured classes, and the cultured classes act on the universities.

For instance, every medical officer in every county council is a university man, and he will be vitally interested in the fate and doings of his _alma mater_. Any blow at any particular university will affect a whole class of people all over the country; the influence of the universities spreads like a network over the whole length and breadth of Russia, and produces an _esprit de corps_ and a strong spirit of freemasonry among the former students of the various universities.

Games and physical exercise are not a feature of Russian education—certainly not at least in the English sense; and though outdoor sports, such as boating and football, have been introduced, and are popular in some of the universities—Odessa, for instance—it is impossible at present to discern even the dawn of any trend towards physical sports and exercise such as we have in France or Spain, for instance.

Lately, however, an organization of gymnastical societies, under the supervision of Czech instructors, and in some ways resembling the German _Turnvereine_, have taken a firm root in the towns, and enjoy great popularity; these societies hold yearly festivals, and organize competitions between various towns. The popularity of these societies is likely to increase in the future.

Besides the universities and schools I have mentioned, there are still a great many more educational institutions: veterinary institutes, schools of art, archæology, Oriental languages, and law; seminaries, ecclesiastical and naval schools, and private institutions; and at the top of the ladder of education there are two academies, one of art and one of science, consisting of professors, men of science and letters, who are chosen by election. Scholarships and grants to poor students are distributed both by the universities and the higher technical schools.

If one reviews the question of Russian education as a whole, one is forced to the conclusion that the material both of the teacher and the pupil is good; the staff of teachers excellent; but that the whole system is continually and fundamentally vitiated by a policy, not exactly of repression, but of constant censorship, interference, checking, nagging, and hindering which saps the school life of Russia, and deprives it of all potential interest and vitality for the pupil. It is reduced to an official machine, which turns out either a specimen of bureaucratic mediocrity, or a rebel who reacts against it and is driven to anarchy and dynamite. If the Government were to leave the whole matter alone, there is no doubt that the schools would not only manage their own affairs perfectly peacefully and well themselves, but that they would succeed in turning out a type of youth who would be more really cultured than the present overripe and immature, half-baked, yet partially burned specimen, which is the average product of a system of education which cannot fail to be one-sided and unsatisfactory so long as it is cramped and diverted from larger channels by the exasperating supervision of a paternal, officious, and suspicious administration.