| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 22 July 1880 |
ENGELS TO MINNA GORBUNOVA
IN BIARRITZ
London, 22 July 1880
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Madam,
After a number of vagaries, your letter from Biarritz 29 has safely reached me here, where I have been living for the past 10 years, and I hasten to let you have such information as it is within my power to give.
I have talked over the matter with my friend Marx, and we both take the view that no better sources on the English industrial school system are to be had over here than the official reports[1] you already possess. The content of other non-official literature on the subject amounts to little more than window-dressing, where it is not expressly designed to provide an advertisement for some humbug or other. I shall have a look round and see if I can find anything that might interest you among the reports of the SCHOOL BOARDS and the Education Department in recent years, and shall send you further details if you would be so kind as to let me know to what address I should write or send packages, either within the next fortnight or so, or else in the autumn (since I shall be away from London for some time 30). The industrial education of young people is in an even worse state here than in most countries on the Continent and what is being done, is done mostly for appearances' sake. You will have seen from the actual reports that the 'INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS' are by no means on a par with continental industrial schools, but are a kind of penal institute where neglected children are committed for a given number of years by order of court.
On the other hand, the efforts made in America might perhaps be of greater interest to you. The United States has sent a wealth of material connected with this to the Paris Exhibition, material which must be lodged in the big library in the rue Richelieu 32 and of which you will find details in the catalogue of the exhibition at the said library.
I am further endeavouring to find out for you the address of a Mr Da Costa[2] in Paris; his son[3] played a part in the Commune in 1871, and the father is himself employed in education, is passionately interested in his profession and would be more than willing to be of assistance to you.
Again, the schools for the further education of adult working men over here are not as a rule up to very much. Where anything worth while is done, it is usually thanks to special circumstances and individual personalities, i. e. local and temporary. In all such matters, the only element that systematically recurs here is humbug. The best of establishments relapse after a short while into a stultifying routine and the avowed purpose increasingly becomes a pretext for the employees to earn their keep as comfortably as possible. So much is this the rule that even establishments for the education of the children of the middle classes — bourgeoisie — form no exception. Indeed I have latterly come across a number of notable instances of this very kind.
I am sorry that at this stage I should not myself be able to place any fresh material at your disposal; for a number of years it has unfortunately been impossible for me to follow the course of public education in any detail. Otherwise I should have been only too delighted to be able to offer you more. Everything that furthers public education and hence the movement, however indirectly, in a country such as Russia, which stands on the threshold of a world historical crisis, and has produced a dynamic party of exceptional devotion and vigour—everything of this nature commands our most ardent sympathy.
I am, Madam,
Yours truly,
F. Engels