A FEW GLIMPSES INTO RUSSIA 



251 



ent time is a unique opportunity for its 

 spread, when the renunciation of the 

 vodka habit is leaving the peasant with 

 financial resources on a scale hitherto 

 undreamed of by him. 



The cooperative societies have opened 

 many schools, not only elementary 

 schools in the villages, but they have in 

 many Russian towns established profes- 

 sional schools — agronomical schools for 

 teaching the peasants intensive farming. 

 They also helped to establish schools of 

 technology, libraries, etc. 



A UNIVERSITY WITH 7,000 STUDENTS 



During the last fifteen or twenty years 

 there has been a growth of so-called 

 popular, or free, universities, with even- 

 ing courses for those who work during 

 the day. A popular university of this 

 nature was endowed by a rich man in 

 Moscow, Scheniavsky, about ten years 

 ago. It started in a small building and 

 had a limited program of study. 



A few years later the affluence of those 

 who desired to attend the university was 

 so great that the Moscow people decided 

 to extend the activities of the institu- 

 tion, and later a magnificent building was 

 specially constructed for the purpose. 

 Now the institution is attended by more 

 than 7,000 students at the day and even- 

 ing courses, with more and more branches 

 being added to its course of study. 



Russia has given to the world great 

 men in every branch of human thought. 

 In literature our folklore is one of the 

 richest in the world. Our modern litera- 

 ture dates from the eighteenth century. 

 Lomonosov by his work on the Russian 

 language paved the way for style and 

 composition. He was a fisherman's son, 

 from a northern district of Kholmogory, 

 of the province of Arkhangelsk. 



His father often took him to far-off 

 towns, and from his early boyhood he 

 had access to books and had a great de- 

 sire for knowledge which he could not 

 satisfy in his native town, and when sev- 

 enteen years of age he stole away with a 

 caravan of peasants going to Moscow, 

 and there he started his new life. He 

 was a man of great learning, and the Uni- 

 versity of Moscow, in 1755, was founded 



under his influence. He is called the 

 father of Russian literature. 



The names of Pushkin, of Lermontov, 

 Gogol, Turgueniev, Dostoyevsky, Gorky, 

 and Tolstoi are known to the whole 

 world. 



From the second half of the nineteenth 

 century Russian music has had world 

 prominence. Glinka, Dargomij ski, Tschai- 

 kovsky, Moussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky- 

 Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Glazunov, Stra- 

 vinsky, and Skryabin are known to every 

 lover of music in the whole world. 



Our painters are not so well known to 

 the world, but a few of them have world- 

 wide fame, such as Repin, Serov, Vasnet- 

 zov, Vereshtchagin, and Aivazovskv. 



FAMOUS RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS 



In science, mathematics, the two names 

 which stand highest are those of Lobach- 

 evskuy and Minkovsky. These two in- 

 vestigators illustrate the type of bold 

 originality which marks the Russian in- 

 tellect. The former was the discoverer 

 of the new non-Euclidean geometry, 

 which has revolutionized science. Be- 

 sides these important names, among manv 

 others in the science of mathematics is 

 that of Imsheretsky, who did work on 

 differential equations in regions previ- 

 ously untouched in western Europe. 



In physical science Lebedev is a physi- 

 cist of the first rank to whom we owe 

 the detection, by means of most difficult 

 and ingenious experiments, of the minute 

 pressure exerted by light upon a reflect- 

 ing surface. 



The works of Egorov on spectroscopy, 

 the Avorks of Umov on light — to mention 

 but two of the names of Russian work- 

 ers — show with what vigor the science of 

 physics is being pursued. 



In astronomy Russia has taken an im- 

 portant place ever since Peter the Great 

 built the observatory at Petrograd. The 

 most famous Russian men in astronom- 

 ical science and research were Glasenapp 

 and Kovalsky on double stars and Belo- 

 polsky in spectroscopic analysis. 



Geographical explorations and research 

 have been pursued actively in Russia 

 since the seventeenth century. The Rus- 

 sian Imperial Geographical Societv was 

 founded in 1845, and has established 



