The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-10-07
RURAL SCHOOLS
IN LAND OF CAR
POVERTY OF COUNTRY SCHOOL
MASTER-TERRIBLE CONDITION
OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.

While children in America are attend
ing their comfortable public schools,
young Russians cannot have similar
agreeable comforts even if the recent
official report about the school system
in Russia did conceal a part of that
systems worst aspects. A general re-
organization of the public instruction
was ordered few months ago by the
imperial government, and numerous
commissions of inquest have been in
stituted Their work of investigation
was relatively easy when it referred to
schools situated in towns, but it be-
came very difficult when information
had to be collected about the schools in
the country. No official was anxious to
proceed to villages lost in the steppes,
the forests or the swamps. Still some
persons especially NJ. Ponomareff, in
spectOr of primary schools, have under
taken journeys more fatiguing than eX-
plorations in Thibet or Patagonia.
The report of NJ. Ponomareff in effect
rs that in Russian villages the shepherd
is happier than the male teacher and
the latter happier than the female
teacher The moujik considers the
teacher man who lives out at his ex-
pense, and he pays him less than the
shepherd. When snow has fallen and
the boys are without anything to do,
being unable on account of the winter
to be of help to their parents, the lat
ter thing of their education. An "Out-
chietl," or schOolmaster is hired by the
villagers, who agree to feed and to pay
him. The price varies from 10 to so
rubles $50 to $40) for the whole winter,
which is very long in Russia. AS to the
food, it is not so good as that of the
shepherd; each family whose children
frequent the school feeds in it's turn the
schOOlmaster. The school building is a
miserable hut, often contiguous to the
house of the mOujik, where pigs, hens
and cows are fed twice a day. 1t is the
business of the teacher to keep his
school clean, says NJ. Ponomareff in
his official report. There is no ventila-
ton; at the approach of the cold wea-
ther all windows are Theoretically clos
ed with clay or glaciers putty. The
moujik cannot understand that any
thing should be opened in winter time.
In regard to the heating, it is quite
primitive. Each scholar is bound to
bring some pieces of wood to heat the
school. When it is freezing too hard
the pupils do not come and the teacher
being compelled to remain until the
evening, envelops himself in his tou-
loupe, or sheepskin, and stays notion
less in corner of the 'khata," or
school hut.
Such is the custom of poor villages. In
the rich villages the schoolmaster, in
stead of being a martyr, becomes a
tyrant He strikes the pupils brutally
tears off their ears and pulls their hair
and breaks their teeth, for he is almost
continually drunk. The official report
instances many cases in which chill
dren were violently thrown on the
ground and bruised by the teachers
feet to such a point that blood gushed
out from their noses and mouths. But
what is most extraordinary, says M e..
Ponomareff, is that those queer school
masters intrust the task of teaching to
the best scholars. These are called the
first group" or 1.-THE professors" and
they are not above eight or ten years Of
age. While they I to teach their
little comrades the choomaster sits
down to drink in the T. Xt "kabako'
The st, Petersburg correspondence
which gives this summary of M. Pono-
mareff's report says that on receiving 1t
the minister of public instruction sent
numerous commissioners to run over,
incognito, every part of Russia at the