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102 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
manifests itself in this country for all the revelations of the
Russian character in art, learning, and practical life is the
outcome of the tacit or open recognition by Englishmen
that they can find in Russia much to enrich their own lives,
and to broaden their outlook 011 human affairs.
The benefits to be derived from an intellectual Entente
embrace different aspects. Both countries are in many
respects complements to each other, not only from an
economic and political but also from an intellectual point of view.
To begin with, English education is pre-eminent for its
appreciation of the practical side of life, while the Russian
pedagogy is more theoretical. Both sides have carried their
peculiarity to an extreme which makes mutual adjustment
desirable. Great Britain, with her rich cultural experience
of the past, has the possibility of educating her youth first of
all on practical lines, and in so doing she consciously and
avowedly lays stress on the building up of character. Russia,
lacking such experience, had to revert to theoretical methods,
which from that point of view bore good results. There are
textbooks in Russian which would easily bear comparison
with similar volumes in the English language, and which are
even considered by competent authorities to be superior.
During his years of study, the Russian youth acquires in the
aggregate a greater range of knowledge than the English
student. Russian educated men generally possess a more
universal training and a greater amount of knowledge than
Englishmen. But the former are often deficient in the
practical application of such knowledge, and here they may be
improved and made more efficient by being taught English
ways. In the struggle for life Englishmen are superior to
Russians. The success in life of the English is partly due to
factors in which Russians are inferior—namely, firmness of
character, tenacity of purpose, and eagerness for work.
English education does not consist so much of cramming
into the students’ heads the greatest possible amount of
positive knowledge as in making them fit to be useful workers
in State and Society, an aim which is palpably much more
concrete and useful, and produces not so brilliant but more
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