Future Good Men and Women

Abstract

While visiting Soviet schools my opinion has often been sought about vospitanie, the ‘upbringing’ or moral education which schools provide. Could I, as a British educationist, suggest any measures which might improve the performance of Soviet teachers in bringing children up properly? (British pedagogues, restrain your ironic laughter.) This, for the Soviet teacher, is not just a matter of encouraging good behaviour in any trivial sense, of stopping pupils dropping litter or committing acts of minor vandalism, but of instilling moral qualities, the highest possible moral qualities, those worthy of the ‘new Soviet person’ which it is the aim of the education system to mould. Educators speak of being ‘sculptors of personality’ and of engaging in the all-round development of character, to use a phrase — perhaps even a cliche — which is heard everywhere in educational discussion. True, under glasnost’, questions have been asked even about this sacred cow. None the less, the notion that the school has a duty to instil a set of moral principles is not questioned, nor is it likely to be.