OCR Text |
Show SCHOOLSJNSIBERIA Are More Numerous Than Is Generally Supposed. Various Systems That Are In Use From Elementary to University and Professional Described Attendance Is Optional. Tomsk, Siberia. The prevalent Impression Im-pression today Is that education facilities fa-cilities are sadly lacking in Siberia and the Russias in general. The average man holds the misconception that Russia has very few schools indeed in-deed and Siberia none and no prospect pros-pect of any better schooling than that of the knout and the onslaughts of wolf and arctic cold. First comes the Narodnija utchllist-cha, utchllist-cha, the national free elementary Bchool. It teaches practically nothing more than the three Rs, and if you saw and talked to the average Siberian Siber-ian peasant you would see that In his present state of mental degradation this simple fare Is about as much as is good for his youngsters yet awhile, writes Bassett Dlgby in the Chicago Daily News. He himself expresses no desire to go to any school and often enough he makes himself a nu'lsancG by wanting to keep his children at home as wage earners. This type of school exists In all hut the smallest and most inaccessible villages, and it is decidedly on the increase. We saw several in small villages that had been erected recently. Attendance Is optional. Then there Is the realnaia (in Germany Ger-many the realschule), with a curriculum curricu-lum of history, geography and mathematics. mathe-matics. Special attention is given to geography, the subject being divided Into physical and commercial aspects. The realnaias are met with in the usual run of villages. They occur chiefly in towns and big villages. Attendance At-tendance Is free. Next comes the third of the three free school systems the gymnasium. History, literature and the higher mathematics are taught. French and German are voluntary. English can- t 1 f" i j A Siberian Home. not be taken. Latin and Greek are compulsory, and are rather overdone, according to some of our informants. In 1880 Count A. Tolstoy, cousin of the literary Leo and then minister of education for the Russias, became obsessed with the Idea that in copious doses of the classics would lie the dissipation of the empire's social unrest un-rest and that their study would foster a spirit of conservatism. So he dealt out Latin and Greek with a generous hand and the rising generation still has to stagger along with his unwelcome unwel-come legacy. Gymnasia, of course, are to be found only in the towns and cities. The kommerscheskala are private and trade schools. The courses of mental Instruction are much easier ! than those of the gymnasia. They occur oc-cur in the big towns and cities, and are largely filled with the children of the Jews. In the national free schools of Siberia, Si-beria, only from 2 to 5 per cent of the attendance is permitted to be composed of Jewish lads. This is not much hardship in the villages, but in the towns and cities the position will not right Itself. Great numbers of Jewish lads are on the waiting list of every school. AH-the Siberian schools, free and otherwise, are filled to the utmost limit of their capacity. In many cases today they have to go on double time schedule, detachments of the same class being taught in the morning and In the afternoon. Tomsk is the home of the only university uni-versity in Siberia. Founded in 1S80, and opened seven years later, It has now a very creditable attendance, which has been considerably underrated, under-rated, by the way, in recent books on Siberian affairs. The roll stands at over 1,200, and each succeeding term shows an increase of students. The university is non-residential, students having to find their own quarters in the town. Fees are very moderate, 100 rubles ($50) the year, which- is divided into two long terms one starting in September, the other early in the new year. There, are two "schools" medicine and law. The former is the more important im-portant With it are connected Bpiendldly equipped anatomical laboratories labor-atories and a fine bacteriological Institute. In-stitute. It is under the auspices of the medical school of Tomsk university. |