Page:Pavel Ivanovich Biryukov - The New Russia - tr. Emile Burns (1920).djvu/21

 and to Society. But anyone with any knowledge of children realises that, especially in the higher forms, this compulsory idleness is a real torment to them, and they suffer because the most natural of their instincts, the desire to be useful to other people, remains unrecognised. The schools of to-day artificially develop their ignorance of how to apply their energy and render it productive. At the completion of his studies a boy who has been to college looks everywhere without success for some work in which he might be useful to mankind, and he does not see the humdrum daily work, which is just as necessary, because he does not know how to apply himself to it."

The principle of self-government has also been introduced in the new schools, and Mme. Lenin shares on this subject the views of those American teachers, who believe in the greatest possible freedom for the development of their pupils' social instincts. She writes:—