[chapter six]
No orphanage, but a home for children
Waifs of the Revolution and other Homeless Children
This is an institution which might be called in America an orphange. In Kiev, not so far from the movie studio, this home for children was established. Fifty per cent of the inmates were waifs belonging to child tribes ("byezprizorni") which sprang up after the Revolution. At that time these waifs roamed all over Russia, living in cellars and sleeping on door steps. They fed and clothed themselves by stealing and plundering. The condition eventually became so serious the government began to establish homes for these unfortunates in the various cities throughout the Soviet Union.
While in Leningrad I saw a movie on this very topic. It was a "talkie," an excellent one, on how a government agent set out to capture these children by winning them over in a friendly manner. This particular gang was wild, savage, even violent, fighting among themselves over a loot. The agent watched them• secretly for several days then wormed his way into their confidence with friendly protestations, aided by gifts. After much persuasion he suesceeded in bringing them to one of these institutions. Here, there was more trouble and work to get them to settle down to learn a trade and be orderly. Oncepart of the gang ran away and had to be won all over again and brought back to the institution. They were then given a job building a new railway.
The railway having been completed, a big celesbration was scheduled for the next day when the first train would be sent to a town where it connected with another road. The chief or leader of this gang the night before was to ride a handscar over the rail route to see if everything was in shape for the big event. About half way over the new line, this boy was murdered by one of his rivals and a section of the rails were torn up. The next day when the beribboned and bannered train came to this spot, with the gang taking the first ride to celebrate their work of building the road, the dead boy was placed on the tender of the locomotive and the rails quickly replaced. The train procession, long overdue, steamed slowly into the town, heralded with cheers, of all who turned out to celebrate, until they saw the dead body of the boy laid across the enginetender. It was a sorry event for the gang that day, yet a happy one, with the satisfaction of having built a railroad and brought the first train over the line. So much for the movie.
To return to the institution in Kiev, the ages ofthe children range from four to sixteen. Those who do not require strict watching are given complete freedom to do as they please when not in school.
Some of the children are left there by mothers who work in factories during the day. These are special cases and the mothers are not compelled to do this if they do not wish to. After work, of course, the children who are left are brought to their homes by their mothers. Each of these children, as with the waifs, is given an education and the freedom to choose a trade.
The day of my visit two groups of boys, one group aged six, and the other four, gave a welldrilled performance of marching and calisthenics, some of the motions representing those used infactories in operating different machines. Here was training with a double purpose!
Their Education
What impressed me here most was the common sense way of handling the education problem, a system carried throughout almost the entire country. The aim is not to teach abstract things but let the children learn through coming in contact with the objects, doing practice along with the theory. In this way, the head of the institution informed me, it was discovered that some pupils who were slow in grasping an abstract idea were able to compre-bend the subject by applying the idea in practice, in actual experimentation with the subject. The basic idea is to teach the usefulness of a subject in a person's life.
Take the case of a pupil having a dislike and the consequent difficulty with mathematics--in Russia he is shown where the figures apply to the workings of an engine or motor. Perhaps if this was carried out a little further in our own education system, there might be some beneficial results. In this sort of educational method a liking for an otherwise distasteful subject is stimulated by applying the abstract theory to life. Thus the theory can be seen to be useful and thus the theoretical form of information can be more readily absorbed.
The number of retarded children, I learned were few, However, there were some even with this system, for I was told a place was to be constructed on the same grounds to care for the backward pupils.