A very charming feature of the Russian educational system is the establishment in all parts of the country of boarding-schools for proletarian children, which they describe as “school colonies.” The expropriated houses of wealthy persons are being used for this purpose. The house-buildings have been altered and furnished appropriately, and the large grounds and park-lands frequently attached serve for the fresh-air culture of the children, or are turned into farm lands for the provision of milk and other suitable produce. Although the regulations on account of the scarcity forbid milk to children in towns who have passed the infant years, the rule is most happily broken in the country where it is possible to break it; but sometimes even in the country milk is very, very scarce, and I visited one children’s colony in Samara where the despairing teachers confessed that the children got practically no milk at all. At some of these children’s colonies we had most entertaining times with the children. One little fellow, the musical genius of the place, gave us one of his original compositions on the piano. I have already written of the little chap who rattled off his father’s or his teacher’s pet Communist speech, probably without understanding a word of it. But at one place, a particularly bright boy of twelve or thirteen put us to shame by demanding to know why the English workers were fighting the Russian workers, and why we were trying to starve Russian children with our blockade. This same lad ringingly demanded that we should “go home and tell the British workmen to turn their rich people into the streets.” And here is my sole, real quarrel with the sincere and devoted educationists of Russia. The great outstanding purpose of their ordinary education is to teach Communism. They declare this in their manifestos. The education system has its truly beautiful artistic side, and so long as that is not stultified the soul of Russia is safe; but, for the most part, the Russian system is utilitarian, with, I repeat, Communism as its ultimate purpose, the making of Communists its goal. I could quote extensively from Communist sources to prove this, as to prove other matters; and there are those Socialists who would justify it. But I have been interested in education all my life, and I feel very strongly that it is a wrong to a child to bend its mind towards any special theories, Communist or other. To teach a child to read and write; to think and observe; to sift and weigh evidence; to create in it a love of beauty and a passion for truth; to develop in it gracious manners and a consideration for others--this it seems to me is the whole of the law and the prophets so far as educational ideal is concerned.