FAMILIES OF MOBILIZED MEN : 145
during their stay at these institutions. In some of the provinces the
cost of maintaining one hundred children in a nursery for a period
of one month and a half was found to be about 500 rubles. The management
 was often in the hands of the local school teacher.
It must not be imagined, however, that institutions of this kind
were established all over Russia, and in sufficient numbers. This
organization was very different from the vast enterprise by which
hospital facilities were provided for the sick and wounded soldiers.
In the latter case there was a codrdinated, nation-wide plan, prepared
 and carried out by the Unions of Zemstvos and of Towns,
after they had succeeded in convincing the authorities that it was
absolutely necessary for the Government to allocate adequate funds
for this purpose. The day nurseries, on the contrary, were supported
 merely by local enterprise on a modest scale, aided only in
a few favorable instances by the official charitable organizations.
The problem of what particular form, or forms, the care of war
orphans should take was discussed many times in the course of the
War by various government institutions, but no definite action was
ever decided upon. There were numerous committees which were
supposed to look after these matters, but they proved incapable of
making any concentrated effort and of creating local organs for the
realization of their plans. It must be conceded, therefore, that the
care of war orphans, as also the relief of disabled soldiers, left much
to be desired.
A third form of assistance, agricultural relief, was at first granted
only to the families of mobilized men; gradually, however, the zemstvos
 found themselves compelled to extend their aid to many other
categories of peasant homes, which had suffered heavily as a result
of the War. This matter will be dealt with in the following chapter.