Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral TalesTolstoy, Leo, graf
General
Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Russian literature -- Translations into English
I am not going to repeat about the artificiality of the education, but
how the whole matter has been arranged. In Krapívensk County there are
forty thousand souls, including girls, according to the last census.
According to Bunyakóvski's table of the distribution of ten thousand of
the Orthodox population for the year 1862, there ought to be, of the
male sex between six and fourteen years, 1,834, and of the female sex,
1,989,--in all 3,823 to each ten thousand. According to my own
observations, there ought to be more, no doubt on account of the
increase of the population, so that the average school population may
boldly be put at four thousand. In a school there are, on an average, in
the large centres, about sixty pupils, and in the smaller, from ten to
twenty-five. In order that all may receive instruction, the smaller
centres, forming the greater half of the population, need schools for
ten, fifteen, and twenty pupils, so that the average of a school, in my
opinion, would be not more than thirty pupils. How many schools are,
then, needed for sixteen thousand pupils? Divide sixteen thousand by
thirty, and we get 530 schools. Let us assume that, although at the
opening of the schools all pupils from seven to fifteen years of age
will enter, not all will attend regularly for the period of eight years;
let us reject one-fourth, that is 130 schools and, consequently, 4,200
pupils. Let us say that there are four hundred schools. Only twenty have
been opened. The County Council gives two thousand roubles and has added
one thousand roubles, making in all three thousand roubles. From some of
the peasants, not from all, fifteen kopeks are levied from each soul, in
all about four thousand roubles. On the building of schools seven
hundred roubles are spent, and on the pedagogical courses twelve hundred
roubles have been used in one year. But let us suppose that the County
Council will act quite simply and sensibly, and will not waste money on
pedagogical courses and other trifles; let us suppose that all peasants
will pay the new school tax of fifteen kopeks, what will the future of
this matter be? From the peasants six thousand, from the County Council
three thousand, in all nine thousand. Let us assume that ten more
schools will be added. Nine thousand roubles will barely suffice for the
support of these schools, and that only in case the school council will
act most prudently and economically. Consequently, with the County
Council administration, thirty schools to forty thousand of the
population are the highest limit of what the dissemination of the
schools in the county may reach. And this limit of the school business
can be attained only if the peasants will levy fifteen kopeks on each
soul, which is extremely doubtful, and if the disbursement of this money
will be in the hands of the peasants, and not of the County Council. I
do not speak of the possible increase of three thousand roubles, because
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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