Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
The fight against illiteracy and ignorance cannot be confined to a
thorough establishment of school education for children and youths.
Adults, too, will be anxious to save themselves from the debasing
position of a man who cannot read and write. The school for adults must
occupy a conspicuous place in the general plan of popular instruction.
_Instruction and Education:_ One must emphasise the difference between
instruction and education.
Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to
his pupil. Education is a creative process. The personality of the
individual is being “educated” throughout life, is being formed, grows
richer in content, stronger and more perfect.
The toiling masses of the people—the workmen, the peasants, the
soldiers—are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But
they are also thirsting for education. Neither the government nor the
intellectuals nor any other power outside of themselves can give it to
them. The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may here by
only aids. They have their own ideas, formed by their social position,
so different from the position of those ruling classes and
intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have their own
ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems
of personality and society. The city labourer, according to his own
fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear
world-conception permeated with the class-idea of the workers. There is
no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our
nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants: The
building by collective Labour of its own general, rich and free soul.
Instruction will surely be an important but not a decisive element.
What is more important here is the criticism, the creativeness of the
masses themselves; for science and art have only in some of their parts
a general human importance. They suffer radical changes with every
far-reaching class upheaval.
Throughout Russia, particularly among the city labourers, but also
among the peasants, a powerful wave of cultural educational movement
has arisen; workers’ and soldiers’ organisations of this kind are
multiplying rapidly. To meet them, to lend them support, to clear the
road before them is the first task of a revolutionary and popular
government in the domain of democratic education.
_The Constituent Assembly_ will doubtless soon begin its work. It alone
can permanently establish the order of national and social life in our
country, and at the same time the general character of the organisation
of popular education.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account