OFFICIAL VIEWS OF EDUCATION

‘Peter gave Russians bodies, and Catherine—souls’, wrote the poet Heraskov. Certainly, the Empress was very much occupied with the minds and morals of her people, the improvement of which, she thought, would be the principal means of promoting general welfare in Russia. For her, the rule of law was a sine qua non, and, for this reason, it was imperative to obtain better laws. ‘In order to introduce better Laws,’ she wrote in the Instruction, ‘it is essentially necessary to prepare the Minds of the People for their Reception.’ But the rule of law, indispensable though it was, was only a means to an end, for, Catherine argued, ‘A Book of good Laws is nothing but a Bar to prevent the Licentiousness of injurious Men from doing Mischief to their fellow Creatures.’ It was better to prevent crimes than to punish them, and to achieve this prevention, she declared, ‘order it so, that the Light of Knowledge may be diffused among the People’.

During the first five years of her reign, Catherine had industriously applied herself to the task of spreading the light of knowledge among at least some of her people. She had first of all attempted to improve the condition of the educational institutions bequeathed to her. For example, in 1765 the Empress instituted an enquiry into the ailing condition of Moscow University.