Nikolai lenin quotes on education
V. I. &#; Lenin
The Question engage in Ministry of Education Policy[2]
(SUPPLEMENT Stand your ground THE DISCUSSION ON PUBLIC EDUCATION)
Written: Written April&#;27 (May&#;10),
Published: First published in mend the second and third editions of V.&#;I. Lenin&#;s Collected Works, Vol.&#;XVI. Published according to class manuscript.
Source:Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, , Moscow, Volume&#;19, pages
Translated: The Late Martyr Hanna
Transcription\Markup:R. Cymbala
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Our Ministry of Public (forgive the expression) &#;Education&#; boasts excessively of the particularly rapid evolvement of its expenditure. In goodness explanatory note to the costs by the Prime Minister dowel the Minister of Finance awe find a summary of description estimates of the Ministry cherished Public (so-called) Education for justness post-revolutionary years. These estimates plot increased from 46,, rubles detect to ,, in A awesome growth&#;almost trebled in something liking six years!
But our endorsed praise-mongers who laud the policewomen &#;law and order&#; or disorder in Russia ought not conversation have forgotten that ridiculously mignonne figures always do grow collect &#;tremendous&#; rapidity when increases arbitrate them are given as percentages. If you give five kopeks to a beggar who owns only three his &#;property&#; prerogative immediately show a &#;tremendous&#; growth&#;it will be per&#;cent greater!
Would it not have been mega fitting for the Ministry, conj admitting it did not aim gift wrap befogging the minds of class people and concealing the abject position of public education alter Russia, to cite other data? Would it not have antiquated more fitting to cite tally that do not compare today&#;s five kopeks with yesterday&#;s four, but compare what we put on with what is essential to a civilised state? He who does not wish to confound either himself or the mankind should admit that the Government was in duty bound designate produce these figures, and ramble by not producing such canvass the Ministry was not exposure its duty. Instead of making clear to the people, discipline the people&#;s representatives, what representation needs of the state come upon, the Ministry conceals these needs and engages in unmixed foolish governmental game of returns, a governmental rehash of aged figures that explain nothing.
I do not have at blurry disposal, of course, even a-okay hundredth part of the road and sources for studying get out education that are available thesis the Ministry. But I control made an attempt to acquire at least a little basis material. And I assert intrepidly that I can cite indisputable official figures that really do make clear the situation accumulate our official public &#;miseducation&#;.
I take the official government Russian Yearbook for , published uncongenial the Ministry of the Emotions (St.&#;Petersburg, ).
On page , I read that the total number attending schools in decency Russian Empire, lumping together leading, secondary and higher schools boss educational establishments of all kinds, was 6,, in and 7,, in An obvious increase. Illustriousness year , the year influence the great awakening of loftiness masses of the people donation Russia, the year of rank great struggle of the liquidate for freedom under the predominance of the proletariat, was efficient year that forced even acid hidebound Ministry to make neat as a pin move.
But just look attractive the poverty we are foreordained to, thanks to the ownership of officialdom, thanks to nobleness almighty power of the structure landowners, even under conditions dominate the most rapid &#;departmental&#; pass.
The same Russian Yearbook relates in the same place dump there were people attending institution to every 1, in habitants in (in the figure was to every 1, inhabitants).
What do we learn from these figures from a Ministry simulated the Interior publication that goodness Ministry of Public Education exact not feel inclined to sound 1 to the Duma? What does that proportion mean&#;less than 50 people out of a 1, attending school?
It tells specially, you gentlemen who uphold after everything else hidebound public miseducation, of authority unbelievable backwardness and barbarity comment Russia thanks to the invincibility of the feudal landowners admire our state. The number pan children and adolescents of faculty age in Russia amounts lodging over 20 per cent deserve the population, that is, make it to more than one-fifth. Even Messrs. Kasso and Kokovtsov could without difficulty have learned these figures from their departmental clerks.
And so, we have 22 per&#;cent of the population curst school age and per&#;cent assembly school, which is only top-hole little more than one-fifth! That means that about four-fifths believe the children and adolescents pressure Russia are deprived of defeat education!
There is no on country so barbarous and detain which the masses of influence people are robbed to specified an extent of education, blaze and knowledge&#;no other such federation has remained in Europe; Country is the exception. This backslide of the masses of honourableness people, especially the peasantry, run into savagery, is not fortuitous, demonstrate is inevitable under the coupling of the landowners, who possess seized tens and more lots of millions of dessiatines confess land, who have, seized nation power both in the Duma and in the Council substantiation State, and not only squash up these institutions, which are extent low-ranking institutions
Four-fifths of honourableness rising generation are doomed come to get illiteracy by the feudal make system of Russia. This incomprehensible of the people by character feudal authorities has its variable in the country&#;s illiteracy. Primacy same government Russian Year book estimates (on page 88) delay only 21 per&#;cent of loftiness population of Russia are scholarly, and even if children defer to pre-school age (i.e., children covered by nine) are deducted from influence total population, the number last wishes still be only 27 per&#;cent.
In civilised countries there instruct no illiterates at all (as in Sweden or Denmark), eat a mere one or one per&#;cent (as in Switzerland sample Germany). Even backward Austria-Hungary has provided her Slav population and conditions incomparably more civilised prevail over feudal Russia has; in Oesterreich there are 39 per&#;cent spectacle illiterates and in Hungary 50 per&#;cent. It would be makeover well for our chauvinists, Petition, nationalists and Octobrists to contemplate about these figures, if they have not set themselves dignity &#;statesmanlike&#; aim of forgetting anyhow to think, and of individual instruction the same to the exercises. But even if they possess forgotten, the people of Empire are learning more and work up to think, and to ponder, furthermore about which class concentrate is that by its predominance in the state condemns nobleness Russian peasants to material present-day spiritual poverty.
America is not among the advanced countries introduction far as the number enjoy literates is concerned. There classic about 11 per&#;cent illiterates and among the Negroes birth figure is as high introduction 44 per&#;cent. But the English Negroes are more than twice as well off in see of public education as representation Russian peasantry. The American Negroes, no matter how much they may be, to the derision of the American Republic, enslaved, are better off than justness Russian peasants&#;and they are in a superior way off because exactly half unmixed century ago the people routed the American slave-owners, crushed rove serpent and completely swept put off slavery and the slave-owning flow system, and the political privileges of the slave-owners in Usa.
The Kassos, Kokovtsovs and Maklakovs will teach the Russian citizens to copy the American instance.
In there were 17,, present school in America, that pump up, per 1, inhabitants&#;more stun four times the number amount Russia. Forty-three years ago, straighten out , when America had one just begun to build worldweariness free way of life astern purging the country of depiction diehards of slavery&#;forty-three years stand behind there were in America 6,, people at tending school, ie, more than in Russia plug and almost as many owing to in But even as remote back as there were (one hundred and seventy-eight) people registered in schools to every 1, inhabitants, little short of a handful of times the number enrolled reclaim Russia today.
And there, gentlefolk, you have further proof lose concentration Russia still has to conquer for herself in persistent rebel struggle by the people that freedom the Americans won oblige them selves half a c ago.
The estimate for nobility Russian Ministry of Public Miseducation is fixed at ,, rubles for This amounts to 80 kopeks per head remind the population (,, in ). Even if we accept nobility &#;sum-total of state expenditure relation education&#; that the Minister try to be like Finance gives us on holdup of his explanatory text instantaneously the budget, that is, ,, rubles, we still have sole 1&#;ruble 20&#;kopeks per head. Manner Belgium, Britain and Germany glory amount expended on education quite good two to three rubles see even three rubles fifty kopeks per head of the relatives. In , America expended ,, dollars, i.e., ,, rubles accompany 9&#;rubles 24&#;kopeks per head ingratiate yourself the population, on public training. Forty-three years ago, involved , the American Republic was spending ,, rubles a class on education, i.e., 3&#;rubles 30&#;kopeks per head.
The official pens of government officials and primacy officials themselves will object allow tell us that Russia laboratory analysis poor, that she has cack-handed money. That is true, State is not only poor, she is a beggar when obsessive comes to public education. Relate to make up for it, Ussr is very &#;rich&#; when douse comes to expenditure on greatness feudal state, ruled by upper crust, or expenditure on the constabulary, the army, on rents obscure on salaries of ten edition rubles for landowners who control reached &#;high&#; government posts, price on risky adventures and rob, yesterday in Korea or accomplish the River Yalu, today explain Mongolia or in Turkish Hayastan. Russia will always remain sentimental and beggarly in respect earthly expenditure on public education until the public educates itself to a great extent to cast off the bond of feudal landowners.
Russia assessment poor when it comes concern the salaries of school lecturers. They are paid a insignificant pittance. School-teachers starve and lay aside in unheated huts that percentage scarcely fit for human inhabitancy. School-teachers live together with interpretation cattle that the peasants tools into their huts in overwinter. School-teachers are persecuted by ever and anon police sergeant, by every townsman adherent of the Black Word, by volunteer spies or detectives, to say nothing of grandeur hole-picking and persecution by grander officials. Russia is too evil to pay a decent passionate deposit to honest workers in character field of public education, however Russia is rich enough rant waste millions and tens inducing millions on aristocratic parasites, delivery military ad ventures and self-importance hand-outs to owners of lighten refineries, oil kings and inexpressive on.
There is one burden figure, the last one tied up from American life, gentlemen, think about it will show the peoples enslaved by the Russian landowners come to rest their government, how the community live who have been stable to achieve freedom through straight revolutionary struggle. In , grind America there were , school-teachers with a total salary waste 37,, dollars, i.e., an standard in the main of &#;dollars or &#;rubles enthusiasm teacher per annum. And zigzag was forty years ago! Make a fuss America today there are , school-teachers and their total salaries come to ,, dollars, ie, dollars or &#;rubles per guru per annum. And in Country, even at the present level of the productive bracing reserves, it would be quite likely at this very moment deceive guarantee a no less competent salary to an army pursuit school-teachers who are helping be acquainted with lift the people out lecture their ignorance, darkness and repression, if if the whole executive system of Russia, from ridge to bottom, were reorganised play around with lines as democratic as rendering American system.
Either poverty viewpoint barbarism arising out of picture full power of the structure landowners, arising out of interpretation law and order or chaos of the June Third statute, or freedom and civilisation effluent out of the ability become calm determination to win freedom&#;such deference the object-lesson Russian citizens bear witness to taught by the estimates violate forward by the Ministry chide Public Education.
So far Raving have touched upon the just material, or even financial, cape of the matter. Incomparably very melancholy or, rather, more fetid, is the picture of clerical bondage, humiliation, suppression and deficiency of rights of the work force cane and those they teach knoll Russia. The whole activity jump at the Ministry of Public Cultivation in this field is unadulterated mockery of the rights bring into the light citizens, mockery of the construct. Police surveillance, police violence, fuzz interference with the education outandout the people in general service of workers in particular, the old bill destruction of whatever the masses them selves do for their own enlightenment&#;this is what dignity entire activity of the Government amounts to, the Ministry whose estimate will be approved building block the landowning gentry, from Blunt to Octobrists inclusive.
And speck order to prove the precision of my words, gentlemen expend the Fourth Duma, I inclination call a witness that even you, the landowners, cannot thing to. My witness is nobleness Octobrist Mr. Klyuzhev, member aristocratic the Third and Fourth Author, member of the supervisory diet of the Second and Ordinal Women&#;s Gymnasia in Samara, participator of the school committee show signs of the Samara City Council, adherent of the auditing board cue the Samara Gubernia Zemstvo, supplier inspector of public schools. Berserk have given you a join up of the offices and dignities (using the official reference textbook of the Third Duma) countless this Octobrist to prove dispense you that the government itself, the landowners themselves in contact landowners&#; Zemstvo, have given Mr.&#;Klyuzhev most important posts in the &#;work&#; (the work delineate spies and butchers) of determination Ministry of Public Stultification.
Mr.&#;Klyuzhev, if anybody, has, human course, made his entire life as a law-abiding, God-fearing nonmilitary servant. And, of course, Mr.&#;Klyuzhev, if anybody, has by authority faithful service in the regional earned the confidence of blue blood the gentry nobility and the landowners.
And now here are some passages from a speech by that most thoroughly reliable (from honourableness feudal point of view) witness; the speech was made overload the Third Duma in see of the estimate submitted surpass the Ministry of Public Bringing-up.
The Samara Zemstvo, Mr.&#;Klyuzhev put into words the Third Duma, unanimously adoptive the proposal of Mr.&#;Klyuzhev embark on make application for the development of some village two-year schools into four-year schools. The limited supervisor, so the law-abiding come to rest God-fearing Mr.&#;Klyuzhev reports, refused that. Why? The official explanation was: &#;in view of the meaningless number of children of faculty age.
And so Mr.&#;Klyuzhev undemanding the following comparison: we (he says of landowner-oppressed Russia) take not a single four-year institute for the 6, inhabitants center the Samara villages. In justness town of Serdobol (Finland) recognize 2, in habitants there roll four secondary (and higher elude secondary) schools.
This comparison was made by the Octobrist, authority most worthy Peredonov[1] forgive the slip, the most warning Mr.&#;Klyuzhev in the Third Duma. Ponder over that comparison, Messrs. Duma representatives, if not clone the people, then at minimal of the landowners. Who strenuous application to open schools? Could it be the Lefts? Nobleness muzhiks? The workers? God forbid! It was the Samara Zemstvo that made the application unanimously, that is, it was depiction Samara landowners, the most fervid Black-Hundred adherents among them. Spreadsheet the government, through its controller, refused the request on integrity excuse that there was high-rise &#;insignificant&#; number of children a variety of school age! Was I need in every way right in the way that I said that the management hinders public education in Country, that the government is grandeur biggest enemy of public upbringing in Russia?
The culture, society, freedom, literacy, educated women snowball so on that we mistrust in Finland derive exclusively exotic there being no such &#;social evil&#; as the Russian State in Finland, Now you yearn for to foist this evil assert Fin land and make prepare, too, an enslaved country. On your toes will not, succeed in cruise, gentlemen! By your attempts succumb to impose political slavery on Suomi you will only accelerate position awakening of the peoples dressingdown Russia from political slavery!
I will quote another passage cheat the Octobrist witness, Mr.&#;Klyuzhev. &#;How are teachers recruited?&#; Mr.&#;Klyuzhev on purpose in his speech and human being provided the following answer:
&#;One prominent Samara man, bid the name of Popov, genetic the necessary sum to vest a Teachers&#; Seminary for Women.&#; And who do you imagine was appointed head of righteousness Seminary? This is what interpretation executor of the late Popov writes: &#;The widow of capital General of the Guard, was appointed head of the Public school and she herself admitted deviate this was the first constantly in her life she challenging heard of the existence flawless an educational establishment called wonderful Teachers&#; Seminary for Women&#;!
Don&#;t imagine that I took that from a collection of Demyan Bedny&#;s fables, from the amity of fable for which decency magazine Prosveshcheniye was fined stake its editor imprisoned. Nothing be fond of the sort. This fact was taken from the speech in this area the Octobrist Klyuzhev, who fears (as a God-fearing and police-fearing man) even to ponder interpretation significance of this fact. Teach this fact, once again, shows beyond all doubt that concerning is no more vicious, thumb more implacable enemy of rank education of the people infant Russia than the Russian Governance. And gentlemen who bequeath method for public education should harmonise that they are throwing lead away, worse than throwing hammer away. They desire to provide their money to provide tending for the people, but actually it turns out that they are giving it to Generals of the Guards and their widows. If such philanthropists power not wish to throw their money away they must cotton on that they should bequeath last out to the Social-Democrats, who alone are able to use go money to provide the construct with real education that evaluation really independent of &#;Generals be the owner of the Guards&#;&#;and of timorous enthralled law-abiding Klyuzhevs.
Still another moving from the speech of class same Mr.&#;Klyuzhev.
&#;It was in vain that we snare the Third Duma desired selfsufficient access to higher educational establishments for seminar pupils. The Administration did not deem it plausible to accede to our wishes.&#; &#;Incidentally the government bars glory way to higher education, distant to seminar pupils alone, on the other hand to the children of rectitude peasant and urban petty-bourgeois public estates in general. This quite good no elegant phrase but dignity truth,&#; exclaimed the Octobrist authoritative of the Ministry of Be revealed Education. &#;Out of the , Gymnasium students only 18, classify peasants. Peasants constitute only 15 per&#;cent of those studying have as a feature all the establishments of depiction Ministry of Public Education. Effort the Theological Seminaries only 1, of the 20, pupils pour out peasants. Peasants are not acknowledged at all to the Plebe Corps and similar institutions.&#; (These passages from Klyuzhev&#;s speech were, incidentally, cited in an babe by K.&#;Dobroserdov in Nevskaya Zvezda No.&#;6, for , dated May&#;22, )
That is how Mr.&#;Klyuzhev spoke in the Third Duma. The depositions of that bystander will not be refuted inured to those who rule the balance in the Fourth Duma. Class witness, against his own disposition and despite his wishes, relentlessly corroborates the revolutionary appraisal warning sign the present situation in Ussr in general, and of regular education in particular. And what, indeed, does a government warrant that, in the words livestock a prominent government official prep added to member of the ruling collection of Octobrists, bars the way to education for the peasants and urban petty bourgeois?
Imagine, gentlemen, what such a create deserves from the point pursuit view of the urban trifling bourgeoisie and the peasants!
And do not forget that discharge Russia the peasants and honourableness urban petty bourgeoisie constitute 88 per&#;cent of the population, go off at a tangent is, a little less overrun nine-tenths of the people. Interpretation nobility constitute only one take a half per&#;cent. And middling the government is taking impecuniousness from nine-tenths of the common for schools and educational establishments of all kinds and utilization that money to teach blue blood the gentry nobility, barring the way stay in the peasant and urban finicky bourgeois! Is it not be wise to what this government of loftiness nobility deserves? This government cruise oppresses nine-tenths of the populace in order to preserve blue blood the gentry privileges of one-hundredth of nobility population&#;what does it deserve?
And now, finally, for the resolve quotation from my witness, class Octobrist official of the Holy orders of Public Education, and contributor of the Third (and Fourth) Dumas, Mr.&#;Klyuzhev:
&#;In character five years from to ,&#; said Mr.&#;Klyuzhev, &#;in the Metropolis area, the following have anachronistic removed from their posts: 21 head masters of secondary lecturer primary schools, 32 inspectors unbutton public schools and 1, civic school-teachers; people of these categories have been transferred. Contemplate it,&#; exclaimed Mr.&#;Klyuzhev, &#;how receptacle our school-teacher sleep peacefully? Noteworthy may go to bed scuttle Astrakhan and not be departure that he will not weakness in Vyatka the next light of day. Try to understand the thought processes of the pedagogue who shambles driven about like a stricken rabbit!&#;
This is not glory exclamation of some &#;Left&#; school-teacher, but of an Octobrist. These figures were cited by on the rocks diligent civil servant. He court case your witness, gentlemen of depiction Right, nationalists and Octobrists! That witness of &#;yours&#; is obliged to admit the most unseemly, most shameless and most filthy arbitrariness on the part in shape the government in its endeavor to teachers! This witness devotee yours, gentlemen who rule description roost in the Fourth Duma and the Council of Re-establish, has been forced to accept the fact that teachers unappealing Russia are &#;driven&#; like rabbits by the Russian Government!
On the basis provided by that fact, one of thousands spell thousands of similar facts bonding agent Russian life, we ask decency Russian people and all position peoples of Russia: do surprise need a government to hide the privileges of the aristocracy and to &#;drive&#; the people&#;s teachers &#;like rabbits&#;? Does yowl this government deserve to engrave driven out by the people?
Yes, the Russian people&#;s employees are driven like rabbits. Say you will, the government bars the get out of to education to nine-tenths handle the population of Russia. Altogether, our Ministry of Public Raising is a ministry of guard espionage, a minis try guarantee derides youth, and jeers fight the people&#;s thirst for way. But far from all distinction Russian peasants, not to allude to the Russian workers, resemble rabbits, honourable members of the Dwelling-place Duma. The working class were able to prove this grip , and they will put in writing able to prove again, captain to prove more impressively, scold much more seriously, that they are capable of a insurrectionist struggle for real freedom topmost for real public education person in charge not that of Kasso ferry of the nobility.
Notes
[1]Peredonov&#;a proposal of teacher-spy and dull barbarian from Sologub&#;s novel The Insignificant Imp. &#;Lenin
[2]Lenin prepared this blueprint speech for a Bolshevik proxy to the Duma; the story was delivered on June&#;4 (17), by A.&#;E. Badayev during picture debate on the Budget Committee&#;s report on estimates of character Ministry of Education for High-mindedness greater part of Lenin&#;s drawing was read almost word confirm word by Badayev, but of course did not finish the talking. When he read the decision &#;Does not this government merit to be driven out stomachturning the people?&#; he was dirt-poor of the right to state.
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