The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1877-06-21
MisreNanenns.
EDUCATION IN RUSSIA.

There is saying, which since the Aus
tro-Prussan war of 1865 has become very
common in Europe, that "the Prussian
schoolmaster gained the battle Of Sa'
dowa." If this saying is extravagant as
TO the actual results of a battle, or even
to the military success Of campaign, 1t
is undoubtedly 30 far we'll founded that
the political results of war mainly de-
pend upon the degree of instruction and
civilization of a country which has won
the victory. Even successful war may
become a curse to a nation which cannot
counterbalance the influence it acquires
by its scientific and educational force.
The successes Of mere brutal strength in
spire hatred abroad and are likely to
lead to tyranny at home.
In forecasting the probable results of
the present Russo.Turkish war for Eu-
rope as well as for Russia itself therefore,
it is necessary to get an accurate idea OF
the moral and intellectual forces Of the
Russian people, Of its instruction and of
its literature. Does the Russian nation
possess in itself the resources necessary
fol maintaining a predominant position
in Europe, without endangering liberty
and civilization at home and abroad
We have shown that the autocratic Rus
sia of former days is rapidly deCaying
and is nearing its end. Has the Russian
nation acquired sufficient strength and
development to be able to pass victori-
ously through such crisis and begin
afresh life of liberty and self-govern'
ment?
The same historical fact which arrested
the social development, of the Russian
people and gave rise to the autocratic
power of the Czars-the conquest of Rus
sia by the Mongols-served also to keep
Russia aloof from all the intellectual and
scientific progress of Western Europe. If
it be true that knowledge is sorrow"
ancient Russia must have been the hap.
pieat country of the world. The boyar
was as ignorant as his peasant. The
monasteries were the only places where
even reading and writing were taught,
but while the monks Of Western Europe
became the founders of science and phil
osophy, the Russian monks, partly under
the influence of the Byzantine creed and
partly in consequence Of the general stag
nation around them never achieved any
thing more than writing out copies of the
Scriptures and chronicling in brief bu.
siness.like way The different events which
disturbed the TRANQUILITY Of their dull
monastiC life.
The first symptoms of real learning
and science arose in the south, at Kieff,
where the Russian nationality, religion
and clergy had to contend with the Pol
ish nobility and Catholic faith, and, not
having been doomed to pass under the
yoke of the Tartars, had kept abreast
with the rest of Europe in scientific and
social developments. There, in the midst
ofthe strife between democratic Russia
and oligarchical Poland, an academy for
religious science sprang up, in which
pupils from all classes of society were
educated. The sons of mobiles, Cossacks
and village priests were imbued with the
wisdom of Aristotle, curiously mixed up
with the preCepts Of the holy fathers of
the church; and this peculiar course of
study, half scholastic, half classical, Great.
ed a strange, gaunt type of the scholar
which, under the name of bursdk from
burSa, the Russian name for seminary,
for a long time remained predominant
among the clerical and middle classes of
Russian society,
In what direction this semi clerical
learning might have further developed
itself is difficult to say, for it was arrested |
at the very outset by the powerful hand |
of Peter |. Determined, as the Russian
poet Pushkin says, to open a window in.
to Europe, and seeing some danger for
his great plans of reform in the exclusive
ly cerical direction which the Russian
school learning had taken, he conceived
the bold idea OF transplanting German
science to the Russian soil, and gathering
its fruits for his country without having
sown the seeds. He instituted in his
new capital of St. Petersburg an academy
of sciences, filed it with German profess
sors and bade the loyal mobiles send their
sons thither to be instructed in the Seer
man science" (RemitzkaiG ndsuka, as all
not strictly religious learning was then
styled). But this did not seem sufficient
to the restless spirit of the imperial re-
former With all the angry impatience
of genius and an undaunted will, he saw
well enough that in al! the different bran
ches Of social life which he intended to
push onward Russia needed well-educat-
ed workmen and specialists The army
had no officers, the growing fleet needed
and mechanics, the roads
and mines needed engineers. Accord
ingIy the houses which sprung up as if
by magic out of the marshes of the NeVa
were special professional schools most of
which in an altered form continue to ex-
list to the present day. OF course, these
few schools, concentrated in the capital,
could not produce an immediate Civiliz-
ing effect on the whole Russian society.
But Peter understood his boyars well
enough TO know tDat, however attached
they might be to their old customs and
ignorance, court manners and court Gus.
toms and vanity we're after all their real
daily bread, and that if education and
learning were once made the fashion at
court the mobiles would naturally follow
it and their servility prove stronger than
their attachment to the good old times.
Accordingly in very short time it be-
came the fashion among the higher and
middle classes of the Russian nobility to
give their children some sort Of instruc-
ton; of what kind that learning was will
be best understood if we state the fact
that most ofthe foreign teachers who at
that time appeared in Russia turned out
to be German sergeants or French hair
dressers, But the first impulse was Civ
en-, and knowledge has such strength
and such life of it's own that, from what
ever quarter it may come, it never APP