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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



dren sometimes have to walk three and 

 more miles, in the darkness of an early 

 winter morning", through wind and cold 

 and snow, to school, and trudge back to 

 their homes in the dark at nightfall. 



Sometimes the village where the school 

 was desired was so poor that the in- 

 habitants did not have a building for the 

 school, but formed one in a peasant's 

 house ; in one room the peasant and his 

 family would live and in the other room 

 would gather some thirty or forty boys 

 and girls for their lessons. 



TEACHING REGARDED A NOBLE CALLING 



Our best young men and women, for 

 the last twenty-five years, have regarded 

 the mission of a village teacher as an 

 apostolic mission. These young people, 

 the best students of our universities, 

 leave the university, sacrifice their ca- 

 reers, their comforts, and go into the re- 

 motest provinces in the far-away villages 

 of Russia to bring light, knowledge, and 

 education to the peasants so long de- 

 prived of it. 



It was indeed an apostolic mission on 

 the part of the teacher. He would be 

 everything to the peasant ; he would not 

 only teach the children, but the peasants, 

 men and women, would come to him for 

 everything they needed, for all the advice 

 that he could give them, even on domestic 

 questions. There were communities that 

 could not pay the teacher at all, that 

 would collect some small sum of money 

 only twice a year, at Christmas and at 

 Easter, and hand it to him. 



In some villages the peasants would 

 "feed" the teacher in turn — one day the 

 teacher had food at one house, another 

 day at another house. But these hard- 

 ships would not depress the spirit of the 

 teacher and his faith in his mission. 

 When he went to the village he knew 

 what conditions he would meet. 



There were other hardships : the gov- 

 ernment officials would regard the teach- 

 ers in most cases as "dangerous" men. 

 All the good work that a teacher was do- 

 ing was always hindered by some petty 

 official. Only certain books were allowed 

 to be read to the peasant, and only cer- 

 tain books, permitted by the government, 

 could be given to the peasant to read, 



and if it were found out that the teacher 

 gave other books he would be impris- 

 oned, and even exiled to Siberia. 



Many and many of these young men 

 and women during the last twenty-five 

 years paid with their lives for their good 

 work. I have had personal friends who 

 paid that price. 



A YEARNING EOR KNOWLEDGE 



The striving for education in Russia is 

 really very great. The majority of our 

 students in the universities are young 

 men whose fathers are peasants — work- 

 ing men, small shopkeepers. On the 

 whole, the people could not afford to pay 

 for education, and the students have to 

 go through the university by earning 

 their own living, and even in the high 

 schools many of the students have to earn 

 their way from the age of twelve and 

 thirteen. 



They go to school in the morning and 

 in the afternoon work somewhere, often 

 doing manual labor, and at night they 

 study. They would go practically pen- 

 niless to the big university cities, having 

 had only a handful of money to pay the 

 expenses of the journey. Many of them 

 would live seven or nine students in one 

 room, sleep on the floor, and go for weeks 

 and weeks without having what we are 

 accustomed to call a meal. 



I know cases where seven students had 

 only four pairs of shoes among them and 

 three or four overcoats, and they would 

 go to the university by turn — one day 

 one would put on shoes and overcoat 

 and another day another student — and 

 so they would live in the winter, study- 

 ing, and studying hard, and in the sum- 

 mer they would go to the villages and 

 work as laborers, to gather again just 

 enough money to take them to the uni- 

 versity, buy some books, and continue 

 their education. 



The university life in Russia is quite 

 different, or at least was quite different, 

 from the Western or American univer- 

 sity life. No games, no sport, no socie- 

 ties — associations were not allowed — and 

 all social intercourse of the students was 

 forbidden by the government. Circles of 

 various branches of study had to gather 

 secretly ; and yet, with all these obstacles, 



