OTHER LANDS RUSSIAN CHILDREN IN MANCHURIA

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21404, 21 February 1935, Page 4 (Supplement)

OTHER LANDS RUSSIAN CHILDREN IN MANCHURIA

I was born in a little settlement on the Chinese Eastern Railway called Tsitsihar, in the state now known as Manchukuo. When I lived there the country was called Manchuria, and was part of China. Russia had leased a strip of land across it to build a railway to serve as a short cut to Vladivostok. If you study the map of China and Manchuria shown here you will see that the railway to Vladivostok through Harbin is very much shorter than the one through Bochkarevo. Manchuria now is a separate Empire ruled by the Emperor Khan-De. The railway belongs to Japan, to whom the U.S.S.R., or the United Soviet Social Re-

public, as Russia is called now, sold it last year. As the railway was built Russian settlements and towns sprang up al3ng it. Harbin is the largest of them all. It stands on the Sungari river, in the heart of Manchurian trade, so it quickly grew and prospered. The children had to be educated, so schools were built at all the larger settlements, and, of course, in Harbin. There were many schools in Harbin, but the largest and best, the one we were so proud of, was the one you would call the Commercial High School. At the age of nine we were admitted to the preparatory class —then there were eight classes, so we usually finished school at about seventeen. Before the preparatory class the children went to a special primary or infant schooL All

(By Valentine Diakoff)

the high schools had either seven or eight classes. The children who did not go on to high schools had four years at primary schools, and if they wanted to continue their education they had two, three and sometimes four years at super-primary schools. The education was not compulsory, so parents could take their children from school when they liked, besides they had to pay at high schools, and not many parents could afford .that. If the children behaved very badly they could be expelled from their school, and that was the most terrible punishment, as no school would want to admit an expelled scholar.

We went to school six days a week, Saturday was just as hard a school day as any other. We started at eight o'clock—the younger ones went home at half past two, sometimes three, but the others stayed till half past three, sometimes four, as they had more subjects to do. There was always homework, too—two, three and often more hours of it. We did work hard in winter, but we were given a chance to make the best of our short summer. We used to break up for holidays in the middle of May, and did not start school till September. Just think of it—three and a half months away from school getting our strength for the cold hard winter: We had no sport in schools my time, though they play it a great deal now. An American game "Volley Ball" was intro-

duced during my last year at school, but only some parents allowed their girls to play. We played many other games—our favourite was "Lapta," something like your rounders. We played skipping and hop-scotch (our bases were something like yours), hide and seek, wolf, blind man'.? buff, twos and threes (we called it "third not wanted," and other games very much like yours. The games I haven't seen here were "Gorelki," where wefcan in pairs one after another, the odd player trying to catch one; "Tsar Gosudar," in which we had to express ourselves in actions; "Cossacks and Robbers," "Paints," and numbers of, others that would take too long to describe. In winter we played with snowballs, and spent most of our leisure time skating. We loved Christmas with its Christmas trees and presents—. only the children received Christmas presents—the poor grownups were never given any. But best of all we loved our Easter, as it was always in spring, when the snow began to melt and the trees came out in buds. The songs of returning birds, the joyous peals of church bells all Easter Sunday, the wonderful times we had rolling our coloured Easter eggs—l shall never forget them! Our Easter, Christmas, and other special holidays were full of interest, as we had ever so many customs connected with them; perhaps I'll tell you about them some other .time.

The Carnegie Corporation Dr. F. P. Keppel, third president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, was staying in Christchurch last week. He is visiting the Dominion so that he can acquaint himself with the work. of . the corporation in New Zealand. The Carnegie Corporation of New York was founded in 1911 by Andrew Carnegie, a Scotsman, "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding . • This corporation is" the biggest of the various foundations of Andrew Carnegie for the exten-

sion of learning, and although there are many Carnegie bodies operating in Great Britain, it is the Carnegie Corporation of New York which is responsible for the expenditure of large sums of money annually in British dominions and colonies. There are nearly 30 Carnegie library buildings in New Zealand. The corporation now aims at providing competent librarians for these libraries and then makes grants of money to them for the purchase of books, provided the buildings and policy are satisfactory.