COURSES UNKNOWN TO SOVIETS-BEST

"All of the Soviet instruction is based on the three elements, nature study, labor activity, and sociology," said Dr. Lloyd Storr-Best in his talk on Education in Soviet Russia at the Phillips Brooks House last night. Dr. Storr-Best, who has been carrying on investigations in Russia for the British Government, went on to say, "Russian children are taught agriculture and the phenomena of every day natural life in addition to the problems of labor and of their own social relations.

"The most notable feature of the Soviet education is that no subjects, in our sense of the word, are taught. Instead of teaching arithmetic, history, or geography, as such, they bring problems which have a practical application before the class, who then pick up a knowledge of the conventional western subjects through a study of these problems in all their aspects Thus they learn arithmetic by counting the pens in the school room and later by working on the accounts and financial problems of the class.

"The keynote of the present Russian system is teamwork. In everything they do, the children are taught to work with each other, and also to work out their own problems as far as possible. They plan and organize their own course of study, both in its broad outline and smaller details, and take care of all the business of the school themselves.

"The teaching of elementary sociology is considered the most important of the three chief elements in Soviet education. The communist leaders of Russia believe that their only hope of overcoming the unsocial instincts and personal greed of the peasants is through education. Their general plan of training thus comprises the following stages: first the child must be taken at a very early age and his social instincts fostered, then he is taught some practical science, and finally is given some idea of the theories of socialism.

"All the instruction that is given has a practical application. There is no glimmer anywhere of pure knowledge or pure science. In spite of the fact that this system scarcely seems promising of eventual success to a Westerner, it has shown fairly good results so far. The rising generation is certainly far better educated than its totally ignorant predecessors.

Another noteworthy characteristic of Russ an education is that it is frankly altruistic. Lenin said that the most harmful influence among the human beings of the present age is the muddle of superstitions called religion. This sentiment is fully carried out in the Soviet instruction, which seeks completely to eradicate from the minds of the masses the religious feelings which still are lodged in them."