In considering Education under the Bolshevik régime, the same two
factors which I have already dealt with in discussing art, namely
industrial development and the communist doctrine, must be taken into
account. Industrial development is in reality one of the tenets of
Communism, but as it is one which in Russia is likely to endanger the
doctrine as a whole I have thought it better to consider it as a
separate item.

As in the matter of art, so in education, those who have given
unqualified praise seem to have taken the short and superficial view.
It is hardly necessary to launch into descriptions of the crèches,
country homes or palaces for children, where Montessori methods
prevail, where the pupils cultivate their little gardens, model in
plasticine, draw and sing and act, and dance their Eurythmic dances
barefoot on floors once sacred to the tread of the nobility. I saw a
reception and distributing house in Petrograd with which no fault
could be found from the point of view of scientific organization. The
children were bright-eyed and merry, and the rooms airy and clean. I
saw, too, a performance by school children in Moscow which included
some quite wonderful Eurythmic dancing, in particular an
interpretation of Grieg's _Tanz in der Halle des Bergkönigs_ by the
Dalcroze method, but with a colour and warmth which were Russian, and
in odd contrast to the mathematical precision associated with most
Dalcroze performances.

But in spite of the obvious merit of such institutions as exist,
misgivings would arise. To begin with, it must be remembered that it
is necessary first to admit that children should be delivered up
almost entirely to the State. Nominally, the mother still comes to see
her child in these schools, but in actual fact, the drafting of