The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-10-04

in our own schools, the walls are
covered with the children's drawings,
decorative work and handicraft. 1t is
now vacation time, when they have
only free" work and study. During
our morning visit, most of the children
were occupied without supervision.
AS we passed thru porch youthful
craftsman appealed to our teacher
guide for help on chart he was max
ing to show the total and proportion
ate number of men killed in the var
ious countries in recent imperialistic
wars, Russia leading in high death
rate, Germany, Austria-Hungary and
France following. This large wall
chart was adapted from small Off
cial statistical record and chart, and
the child was using homemade yard
stick metre-stick, should say.
In an inner class room, four children
had come for help in multiplication
On verandah, a reading group was
learning about birds. Four idle chill
dren followed us about with intelligent
interest. Questioned two had left
mud-houses to dry, while the other
two had finished some work which had
occupied their morning. When the
school is in regular session the study
hours from 10 to IL are given to
theory, while during the two after
noon hours this theory is in some
practical way applied. The home mod
els follow the comparative study of
peoples and field study of birds and
flowers follow the reading. The war
chart was probably related to mathe-
mates, mechanical drawing, history,
sociology, and economies! And the
drawing, painting and modelling illus
trated concretely many of the things
they had learned in the morning
classes. Such activities must be in
geniously directed by the teacher to
relate them to- theory. We saw
half-fnished portrait of Lenin, inlaid
with barks and MOSES. The thin
white birch was used for the face.
and the likeness, copied of course
from portrait, was remarkable.
Over one doorway hung a placard
largely lettered, vladimir Ilyich Lenin
is dead. Children, follow his teach
ings." Nowhere are the people al
lowed for one moment to forget the
ideals of the great leader. Only a
little music is as yet taught in this
school, and that not Systematically,
but the children are taught rote sing
ing, and have given one act of a sim.
pie Tchaikowsky opera. This is only
one of many such schools under the
supervision of the Moscow division of
the educational department.
A school of a different kind l visited
at the village Of Rastorgouyevo, an
hour by train from town This is the
so-called Children's Village, scat
tered group of houses among the for
est trees, where the children from city
homes come in the summer for change
and study. Here the tiniest tots are
taken. We arrived just as the teach
ers were assembling on a broad YER
andah for a Conferences dozen or
more women, and one mantle head
Of the music department for kinder
gartens. He wore white sport trunks,
and open-necked white linen blouse,
and with his closely shaven head and
darkly tanned skin, looked like pol
ished bronze statue. Most of these
people are sunworshippers. The chill
dren, too ran about in scanty slips,
but the women were all more or less
conventionally, tho simply and sem
sibly dressed, most of them with long
hair. Only one or two resorted to
cigarettes to help them thru the ordeal
Of the conference, perhaps because the
vital questions discussed absorbed
their restlessness. For us tea and
jam were brought.
The principal subject of discussion
was the epidemic Of whooping-cough.
Some of the teachers commended that
isolation was absolutely necessary,
others that IL was absolutely impos-