be very well that the arithmetical exercise should consist in “measuring the 
tail of the cat”. 
Metrical measures are recommended so that the “children should forget 
as soon as possible the old Russian measures”, etc. etc. 
All this and many things besides must the little city and village 
children learn to know during the conversations on the theme “Nature”. 
The other theme: “Society” introduces first of all the system of the 
communistic local and central administration; great stress is, of course, 
laid on the benefits of the October Revolution; the question of the family 
is but slightly touched upon. But it is especially during the discussions on 
the theme “Labour” that the most incredible things are demanded of the 
children (at least they are set down on the program). The pupils are made 
to perform all the different tasks about which they are learning. They 
must work in the flower and vegetable garden, in the field, in the cow- 
shed and pig-sty; they must make their own boots, clothes, they must store 
fodder and food-stuffs; they must draw placards for processions; they 
must study the statistical data of local economic life and of trade. 
Experimental work in the laboratories and countless excursions also fill out 
the program. 
At the same time it is not taken into consideration whether the schools. 
which are actually huddled together into mud huts and tumble down cottages, 
because many of the remaining former school buildings have been taken 
up by administrative or party organisations, have vegetable or other gardens, 
or experimental fields, or laboratories. No one takes into consideration 
the physical impossibility of certain demands; the age of the children: 
the time and strength of the teacher. 
The following picture is an illustration of the actual results of this 
system. A travelling lecturer and pedagogue is speaking with the teacher of 
a village school: “At first the teacher answered timidly, as if he felt a 
little ashamed of speaking about his school. ‘Our school is a very ordinary 
one... I work very slowly...” But as soon as it grew clear to him that 
all schools were more or less in the same condition he began to speak in 
quite another tone: ‘I have succeeded in collecting some kind of data 
during the last years. Please, notice the methods which we apply in or- 
sanizing our “Labour School”. At first we introduced the method of self- 
help: All was done to make the children to help themselves...” “And how 
was general instruction given?” ‘Well, to speak the truth, no instruction was 
imparted at all... The children were too tired to learn’.” 
After that another method was introduced: the “Discussion Method’; 
then it was abandoned for the “Active Labour and Laboratory Method”, a 
Method which is closely connected with the “Excursion Method”. Then it 
was the turn of the “Concentration Method”. However we did not stop for 
(87