XIV
A LETTER TO RUSSIAN LIBERALS*
I SHOULD be very glad to join you and your associates — whose work 1 know and appreciate — in standing up for the rights of the Literature Committee and opposing the enemies of popular education. But in the sphere in which you are working I see no way to resist them.
My only consolation is that I, too, am constantly engaged in struggling against the same enemies of enlightenment, though in another manner.
- Though published a,s A Letter to Bussian Liberals, this
letter was, in the first instance, addressed to a Russian lady who wrote to Tolstoy asking his advice or assistance when the Literature Committee (Komitet Gramotnosti) was closed. The circumstances were as follows : A ' Voluntary Economic Society ' (founded in the reign of Catherine the Great) existed, and was allowed to debate economic problems within certain limits. Its existence was sanctioned by, and it was under the control of, the Ministry of the Interior. A branch of this society was formed, called the ' Literature Committee.' This branch aimed at spreading good and wholesome literature among the people and in the schools, by establishing libraries or in other ways. Their views as to what books it is good for people to read did not, how- ever, tally with those of the Government, and in 1896 it was decreed that the ' Voluntary Economic Society ' should be transferred from the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior to that of the Ministry of Education. This, trans- lated into unofficial language, meant that the activity of the Committee was to terminate, and the proceedings of the society to be reduced to a formality.
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