a long time at the “Complex Method”, we passed over to the “Dalton 
Plan”... and had nearly put it into practice, but here the peasants inter- 
vened and demanded “that the children should be really taught something”. 
At present I try to “pluralize’” all these methods; the children grow more 
developed, they discusss about all kinds of subjects... but unfortunately 
with all these methods they do not learn to read or write.... But I dare 
not teach them in the old manner, and nothing comes out of the new 
methods. When the inspector visits our school he sees that there are neither 
s00ks, nor paper, nor pencils; and yet he asks: “Do you teach according to 
the Complex Method? Do you organize excursions?’ 
We have heard the same complaints from the lady-teachers of Petro- 
grad. All of them are over-burdened and worn out by orders that cannot 
se carried out, and no time is left to teach the children to read and to 
write. Both the physical and mental standard of the children is much lower 
‘han it used to be before the Revolution. 
In the second-grade schools we find the same “Complex Method”, still 
more high-flown themes, and quite accidental scraps of information. 
Not a single normal subject, such as languages, mathematics, history, or 
zeography. Everything is a hopeless jumble of separate scraps of infor- 
mation, quite artificially tacked on the theme. For example: the theme is 
‘Lenin; the geography of Switzerland and the description of the economic 
life of Simbirsk are passed in review. The connection between these 
subjects is that Lenin lived in Switzerland when he was an emigrant and 
‘hat he was born in Simbirsk. 
History is taught without any dates being given (because we begin our 
chronology from the year one — Anno Domini) and the whole of it is 
really reduced to the history of revolutionary movements. 
The “labour” element is totally absent from these schools; no manual 
occupation whatever is taught. But countless compositions are given on all 
themes connected with the ideology of Marx. 
We shall give the scheme according to which the “Complex Method” is 
applied in the 3rd years course of a second-grade school, so that our readers 
can judge for themselves what kind of instruction has replaced the former 
normal programs. 
Nature 
The structure of the 
Universe. 
Astronomic informa- 
tion and the corres- 
ponding chapters of 
physics and chemistry. 
Labour 
The chaos which 
existed in the social 
organization of labour 
during the capitalistic 
regime, 
Society 
The development of 
capitalism. The markets 
of the world. Impe- 
rialism. The Imperial- 
istic war of 1g14. 
'R8