The government busies itself so constantly with the matter of private education, that there are already a multitude of laws and regulations concerning " instituteurs, institutrices, and precepteurs." The latest and most remarkable is that of 1834, in which aU the privileges of the examined private tutors are detailed. According to this ukase, they are reckoned in the service of the state, and consequently entitled to wear the " lesser uniform" of the ministry of public instruction. Private tutors in the old noble families are advanced after two years' service into the fourteenth rank; those in merchants' families of the first guild, of preachers, priests, and the lower class of nobility, have the same rank after three years service ; in those of persons of no positive rank, after five years ; and in those classes not entitled to enter the service of the state, the tutors are not entitled to this fourteenth grade till after eight years' service. They may then, like all other officials, expect in process of time to become titular counsellors, court counsellors, &c. &c. There are already counsellors of state in Russia, who have never been any thing else but private teachers. "Instituteurs" are the educators, properly speaking, and take precedence of " precepteurs," who merely give lessons. After fifteen years irreproachable service, the instituteurs m noble families receive the cross of the order of St. Anne of the third class ; the precepteurs, the cross of the order of St. Stanislaus of the fourth class ; the tutors in non-noble houses can only obtain the St. Vladimir's cross of the fourth class after twenty to five-and-twenty or thirty yeais' service. Whoever in five-andtwenty years has prepared three pupils for the University receives the title of Instituteur Emerite. On the receipt of each of these signs of honour they must pay 100 rubles to the fund for the maintenance of impoverished and sick private tutors.
These regulations from the abovenamed ukase are selected as interesting and characteristic. There are similar laws for actors, fencing-masters, drawing-masters, teachers of music, &c. &c. For all these persons cuttings and snippings have been saved from the decorations and libbons of generals and marshals; and thereby have little miniature marks of honour been manufactured, the value of which it requires a moral microscope to discover. Ig not this rather to throw ridicule than confer distinction on a class of jersons whose business is so highly important in itself ?
The German view of Russian education is, that the outward varnish is all that is required or understood ; that the fructifvnng spirit is entirely wanting; that the utmost that is given is external polish and lifeless knowledge. Just as this opinion is on the whole, it would yet be highly unjust to rest satisfied with it, and turn away from the subject without the acknowledgment of much praiseworthy endeavour.
Since Peter the Great first launched her on the ocean of European civilization, Russia has been seized with an enthusiasm, or rather with a frenzy for improvement, such as no people in the history of the world ever experienced before. Academies, universities, national schools, gymnasiums, started forth as at the stroke of a conjurer's wand within the wide limits of the g-iant empire. Multitudes of French and Germans have wandered over the land for the last century, scattering the seed of western cultivation. The rulers of the land have recognised the schooling of the people as an important branch of government; and as for the army, the finances, and commerce, so there is an especial department of the ministry for schools, scholars, and teachers. The emperor and empress spend a great part of their time in the inspection and improvement of the public institutions. In imitation of this example, the chief authorities in the provinces are as much occupied with the control and inspection of the schools as with any other branch of public business. It would be unreasonable, then, not to bestow some interest and attention on so much well-meant labour, even if we cannot approve of the manner and dii'ection of it.