The All-Russian Congress of Soviets has temporarily transferred this
power both to its Executive Committee and to the Council of People’s
Commissars.
By the will of the revolutionary people, I have been appointed
People’s Commissar of Education.
The work of guiding in general the people’s education, inasmuch as it
remains with the central government, is, until the Constituent
Assembly meets, entrusted to a Commission on the People’s Education,
whose chairman and executive is the People’s Commissar.
Upon what fundamental propositions will rest this State Commission?
How is its sphere of competence determined?
_The General Line of Educational Activity:_ Every genuinely
democratic power must, in the domain of education, in a country where
illiteracy and ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim the
struggle against this darkness. It must acquire in the shortest time
_universal literacy,_ by organising a network of schools answering to
the demands of modern pedagogics; it must introduce universal,
obligatory and free tuition for all, and establish at the same time a
series of such teachers’ institutes and seminaries as will in the
shortest time furnish a powerful army of people’s teachers so
necessary for the universal instruction of the population of our
boundless Russia.
_Decentralisation:_ The State Commission on People’s Education is by
no means a central power governing the institutions of instruction
and education.
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