(^370) Towards a Modern Army, 1825-1874
working day, and the cost was frequently met from the sums which units set
aside to buy extra food. Soldiers coulrl harrlly hP. P.xpectP.d to re.act po~itively;
nor was there any guarantee that they would be promoted if they ~ed to
read and write.^95 ·
The most fruitful experiments were conducted in the Ukraine, a r~gion
which had played a similar pioneering role in Russia's general edueational
development two centuries earlier. A central school, with a broadened curricu-
lum, was set up in Khar' kov (1865) to train officers and NCOs as teachers.^96
The experience gained here and elsewhere was taken into account by War
Ministry planners. In July 1867 they issued an instruction designed to
systematize the scattered educational initiatives by bringing them under closer
bureaucratic control. All soldiers were henceforth to be taught, and shortly
afterwards it was ruled that all NCOs had to be literate; a 'pedagogicardctach-
ment' (uchebnaya komanda) was set up in each regiment.97 },iowever, the
financial provision made for these schools was inadequate-IO kopecks
per man per year from central funds-and results fell far short of those
·officially claimed. One expert who visited 18 units in. 1870 found that 'the
soldier can scarcely cope with the technique of reading ... in a book he secs
only the letters, not understanding what they mean, and he cannot relate what
he has read'.^98 This was clearly the fault of the under-qualified instructors
rather than the men. Bobrovsky proposed limitations on class size, more inten-
sive tuition, and a pedagogical approach designed to encourage oral and written
self-expression. But to many officers of the old scht>ol all this seemed an
expensive and possibly dangerous luxury.
In 1868 the proportion of literate soldiers was officially put at 27. 7 per cent,
but the real figure was closer to 20 per cent.^99 By 1892 the percentage had more
than doubled, to 54 per cent. Since the literacy rate among recruits during the
same period climbed faster, from 9 per cent to 34 per cent,JOO it is $1 exaggera-
tion to claim, as Milyutin's recent biographer does, that the RU9Sian anny
. became 'the school of the nation' a la franraise.^101 Nevertheless-educational
--standards were higher among soldiers than they were among pcasants._Sappers
and gunners had an appreciable lead over infantrymen and cavalrymen(in that
order), as one might expect. After the 1874 reform, when literate. soldiers
returned home on completing their term of active service, they doubtless
helped to stimulate the peasant's thirst for knowledge, even if they.could not
quench it, as one zealous writer had initially hoped.102
95 Bobrovsky, 'Vzglyad na gramotnost" ', pp. 278-93.
96 P. V., 'Organizatsiya tsentral' noy shkoly gramotnosti v Chuguyeve', VS 89 (1873), 1-2,
pp. ISJ-63.
97 Bogdanovich, Isl. ocherk, iii. 124; Bobrovsky, 'Vzglyad na gramotnost'', pp. 296; (1871),
52; Zayonchkovsky, Voyennye reformy, p. 215.
98 Bobrovsky, op. cit., p. 60.^99 Zayonchkovsky, Voyennn reformy, p. 211.
(^100) Bobrovsky, op. cit., p. 282; Kurochkin. 'Odinochnoye zaklyuchcniye', p. 28S; Bogdanovich,
Isl, ocherk, iii. app. 49; cf. Syrnev, Vseobshchaya voinskaya povinnost ·, p. xxix.
IOI Miller, Miliutin, pp. 91, 141.
102 S. N., 'O gramotnosti v voyskakh', VS 4 (1858), 7, pp. 2, 5, JO.