In contemplating the development and organisation of public instruction in Russia from the time of Peter the Great to these days, one cannot help thinking that the Russians attach infinitely more value to the appearance of progress, than to its real existence. One would say they care very little about scientific and intellectual results, provided their universities and schools be complete in all physical details, and provided they have numerous educational halls graced with the names of all the sciences professed in Europe.
Nevertheless, the sovereigns of Russia have all laboured more or less actively for the propagation of public instruction. Unfortunately they would never suffer themselves to admit that civilisation is a long and difficult work; and incapable of forgetting, even amidst the liberal ideas on which they based their projects, that they were before all things absolute princes, they fancied they could civilise their nation as they had disciplined their soldiers; and then, swayed by vanity and self-conceit, they graciously suffered themselves to be deceived by all the brilliant reports laid before them by the administrative departments.
It was in the reign of Feodor Alexievitz that the first academy was founded in Moscow. The Sclavonic, Greek, and Latin languages were taught there. A university was afterwards established in the same city, and in the reign of Catherine II. St. Petersburg possessed an academy of sciences and the fine arts, and a society of rural economy. But even at that period the spirit of ostentation, which forms the substratum of the Russian character, already revealed itself; and while forming those grand institutions, not a thought had been given to the opening of a single elementary school in either capital. Some writers indeed allege that Peter I. left behind him, at his death, fifty-one schools for the people, and fifty-six for the military; but I have always been disposed to think that those establishments existed but in name, and my researches have but confirmed that opinion.
The first elementary institution of any importance founded in the new capital, dates only from the beginning of the eighteenth century: it is the school of the cadet corps, exclusively reserved for the young nobility, and intended to form officers for the land and sea service, and for the engineers. In order to judge of the instruction afforded in it, one ought to be able at least to mention some of its pupils who have been distinguished for their talents, and who have acquired a certain degree of celebrity; but it is as difficult to name any such, as to discover men of learning and science among the members of the various academies mentioned above. Be this as it may, we cannot help entertaining a very mean opinion of the spirit and organisation of all these establishments founded by Peter the Great, and by the sovereigns who succeeded him during the latter part of the eighteenth century.
The first institution in favour of the people was created in St. Petersburg in 1764: it was an educational establishment for the daughters of burghers and gentlemen of scanty fortune. It was founded by Catherine II., who in taking measures by preference for the education of women, seems to have intended to prepare them for usurping in their domestic circle the same absolute sway which she was herself about to exercise over the whole empire.
Elementary schools were not actually opened to the public until 1783, and that only in some of the great towns of the empire. As all these ill-contrived early institutions possess little interest, I will pass on to the consideration of the present state of public instruction. The existing system dates from Alexander's reign. The course adopted in the beginning was on all points similar to that pursued by Peter the Great and Catherine II. The first thing thought of was the establishment of universities; those of Dorpat and Vilna were re-established; that of Moscow was reformed, and new ones were founded in Kasan and Kharkof. As for elementary schools, they were completely overlooked. The following anecdote will give an idea of the primitive state of the great colleges of the empire.