Maladez, sip^iifies " a clever young man." Vot Muhdcz is a very frequent exclamation of iulnuration, when any thing is done particularly well.
moreover a certain awe of learned people, because they tliink themselves so often looked down on by them.
It is odd enough that the very thing we are apt to reproach the Russians with, they retort upon us. The Germans have the general reputation with them of being wilful, full of humour, and difficult to get on with. They find them so perhaps in comparison with their own very extraordinary capacity for accommodating themselves to the capiices of a superior, while a German who seems to place any value on order, justice, morality, or self-reliance, passes with them for a malcontent and perverse.
Learning and science help the teacher but little in Russia, if they are not sometimes positively injurious to him in his social relations ; the appearance of them is the one tiling needful. Musical talent, pianoforte playing, and singing, ai'e of great value, and will win him many a heart ; but the most valuable quahfications are elegant dancing and address at cards. He who dances well and plays well at cards, is the true man, " comme il faut,'^ and he who is comme il faut, is the man of all others for the Russians. He who can win 500 rubles at whist in an evening, sing German songs well, and display a graceful new step in the dance, he is their most intimate friend, he is more, he is their lord and master, and may rule their hearts at will. There are a multitude of foreigners in Russia, who, by the exercise of accomplishments like these, have obtained the highest influence in famiHes, which they guide as the Jesuits are said to have done formerly.
This is the easier for them, because the Russians have in serious business, more confidence in foreigners than in their own countrymen, and trust the former willingly with their secrets. To this it may be added, that in all Russian houses, many patriarchal customs prevail ; all members of the household come to be looked upon as integral parts of it, and with the little fastidiousness of the Russian in reference to difference of birth, speedily amalgamate with the family. Whoever shows a joyful countenance, takes all things as he finds them, is willing to renounce his individuality, and to make a part of the social dough into which he is baked, like a plum into a cake, may reckon upon an existence outwardly comfortable enough, and his vanity will often enough be agreeably tickled ; but he must not take too rigidly into the account, how often his self-love and sense of honour suffer in the process.
It is well known that the Russians pay their teachers higldy, three to four thousand rubies yearly is a usual salary ; but sometimes as much is given as six or even ten thousand, when they wish to allure an instructer to Siberia, or to any of the more distant provinces. A pension is generally secured at the end of the engagement ; or as the fashion now begins to prevail, a round sum of tliirty or forty thousand rubles when the education is completed. The salaries have of late rather increased than diminished, on account of the sparing manner in which passports have been granted for Russia.
The majority of the tutors are obtained, or " written for," as the phrase runs, from Geraiany and France , the governesses mostly from FrenchSwitzerland.^ Many come from the Baltic provinces, Germanised Esthonians and Livonians of the lower ranks, who tmn the German and French they have picked up to good account in the interior of Russia.
In Dorpat I once met a Russian nobleman, who had engaged sevea governesses for himself and his friends, and was setting off with them for the interior, packed in three kaleshes.
The bonnes, or nursery-maids, for the younger children in St. Petersburg, must be English, who, by general consent, are pronounced better suited for the office than those of any other nation.
The great educational institutions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other places, and the Foundling Hospital, furnish yearly from eight hundred to a thousand young women for the offices of instruction ; they are scattered throughout the empire, where, in too many places, their previously overdelicate education renders them very unhappy.
Governesses are to be met with in all societies in St. Petersburg, of which they are often the best leaven. Tutors are seen in every corner with their pupils, and form a considerable element of the population of the city.