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Photograph from Topical Press Agency 



A ROLLLR-CHAIR OUTING A LA RUSSL 



Instead of being trundled about in rubber-wheeled rolling chairs propelled by a minion 

 dressed in duck, the leisure folk of Russia are whirled about in chairs equipped with run- 

 ners, for which an expert skater dressed in fur furnishes the motive power; and instead of 

 the familiar boardwalk of the American seaside resort the course of this promenade is the 

 frozen waters of the river. 



every year more and more young men 

 from the villages and small towns came 

 in search of an education. 



A LAND OF VILLAGES 



Russia is a country of villages and 

 small towns. The life of a small town 

 is really interesting. On the surface it is 

 very calm ; yet everybody is striving to- 

 ward a different life, toward a life much 

 broader, both materially and spiritually. 



I remember one small town, about 120 

 miles from Nizhni Novgorod — a small 

 town where every house was surrounded 

 by a garden — where everything seemed 

 calm and inactive, the streets empty ; 

 everybody just lived from day to day, 

 quietly obeying all the rules and restric- 

 tions — orders given to them from higher 

 up. Life seemed peaceful and that peace 

 uninterrupted and everybody appeared 

 content. 



But that calm was only on the sur- 

 face. From the first day of our arrival 



we began to discover quite a different 

 condition in the town, and the character 

 of the inhabitants became more and more 

 disclosed to us as we lived there a few 

 months. 



One day an old priest came to the 

 house. He said that he welcomed people 

 of education to his neighborhood. He 

 had heard from the men who carried our 

 baggage from the station that we had 

 many cases of books. Perhaps he could 

 read the books that he had not yet read. 

 He said there was no library in the lo- 

 cality and no one from whom he could 

 borrow good books. Being a poor priest, 

 he could not afford to buy books, or even 

 to go to the city for them. 



A PRACTICAL PRIEST 



' The town was situated on a river, and 

 above the town there was a tannery. The 

 hides were washed in this river, and the 

 town, not having a sewage system, had to 

 drink the same water. Of course, dis- 



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