Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/100

 their children educated?" I asked, specially interested in everything that concerned education. "Have you any difficulty with them?"

"Yes, we have. Many of them do not yet understand the value of education nor the wisdom of compulsion in the matter. We are slowly educating the parents to keep the law. When there are enough schools for the children we shall bring great pressure to bear on the parents."

The schools we visited in Petrograd were three, and included one said to be the best in the city. Considering the limited resources of the authorities it was certainly very good. There was a fine school-house, fairly well equipped, in which the children took their meals. We sat down to a typical lunch. We had a large plate of vegetable soup, followed by a herring and brown bread, with a rather dry and hard piece of cake and thin coffee to follow. The children are not given coffee, but the rest of the food we were assured was their customary diet. It was much better than most meals eaten by the people of Petrograd.

The children slept in a separate building, the boys in one part and the girls in another. The little beds had a very attractive look, ranged in their white rows; but a close look here and there revealed a pathetic improvisation, with such inadequate materials as they had, to meet the needs of the little pupils.