protection given by the State to private initiative, gave private schools the 
possibility of trying different kinds of innovations, and thus the adapta- 
bility of the latter could be proved before thev were introduced as obligatory 
into State schools. 
Tt is only now when the Russians have lost their own fatherland and 
are forced to educate their children in foreign schools that they have under- 
stood how superficial their criticism of the former Russian school was. 
[t has now grown quite evident that many of the defects with which 
it used to be reproached are in reality inherent to every European school, 
even to the best among them. 
I1. 
The School in present-day Russia. 
Beginning with the first days of the revolution, even before the 
Bolshevics had established their ascendency, the very basis of the school 
in Russia was shattered. It was obvious, (as no definite program of recon- 
struction had been prepared), that it would be easier to begin by destroying 
that which existed; and as soon as the unstable “Provisional Government”’, 
which was incapable of any creative activity, was routed by the Bolshevics, 
‘his destruction began immediately. To get a clear picture of what has been 
Jone to the Russian school during ten years, it is necessary to subdivide 
this period into two parts. The first was the period of “Military Com- 
munism”; the second of “The New Economic Policy”. 
The first years of the dominion of the Bolshevics were accompanied by 
1 terrible boom. They proclaimed a new era, a new path; they promised 
not only universal primary education, but universal high-school and even 
universal University education. This was to be given cost free and was 
to be accessible to. all, all, all, i. e. to 150 million Russians; and that in 
the shortest possible period of time. Parallel with this, the process of 
destruction was carried on along the whole line. This was done: 1) in a 
direct manner by means of decrees, prohibitions; by closing existing insti- 
tutions, by eliminating from the programs a series of subjects; 2) It was 
also done in an indirect way — by encouraging the most daring experiments 
ooth in the methods and in the programs, which undermined the discipline 
of systematic instruction; 3) and finally, it was done by refusing to supply 
the schools with school equipment, by ceasing to subsidize them. 
By these measures the rich heritage of culture received by the 
Bolshevics was soon scattered to the winds. The first to suffer from the 
policy of the Bolshevics were the first-grade primary schools, though it 
would have seemed, that these ought to have been of the greatest interest 
to them. 
{78