Army : his one plea was for public service as
the aim and object of life.
When we saw him in his office, he had only just recovered from a short illness ; in spite of this he was all eagerness to tell of his schemes for better education. He was a little cynical and bitter about England and our ruthless blockade ; sad and angry at the effects of this action of our Government in preventing the children of Russia getting their chance : but all the time he expressed his confident hope that the difficulties of to-day would be overcome. He explained at length the condition of the country when he took over the work of education. We heard from him disgraceful stories of how teachers who had served under the old regime refused to work when the Soviet Government was established and deliberately set to work to hinder the spread of education. He seemed convinced that education would only really start when the young people now being trained were ready to enter the schools.
Kindergarten schools are not schools as we know them and up to eight years of age the word education is not used : after that age the boys and girls go to schools for varying degrees of training up to the age of sixteen when the choice is made whether to go on to university or to industrial training. This is decided not by ordinary examination, but by talks between
