At its most highfalutin, the goal of Soviet education is "men and women of noble spirit and lofty ideals who will serve their people selflessly." But Russian schools do not inevitably produce bright-eyedc "builders of Communist society"—not in a land of war orphans and working mothers. Three years ago Nikita Khrushchev ordered a Pavlovian solution: boarding schools in which "engineers of the soul" could hatch a new elite under ideal laboratory conditions. By last week Russia had more than 500 such new schools, with an enrollment of 360,000 students. "The time is not far off," Khrushchev has gloated, "when all our children will be raised in boarding schools—provided their parents agree."
The hedge is advisable, for most Russian parents need persuasion. Despite the Communist edict that mothers stick to bearing and let the state do the rearing, Russians prefer more ancient practice—and so do their preachers. Khrushchev's own grandchildren are not in boarding schools, nor are those of his Kremlin colleagues. Most boarding-school children are enrolled because of special circumstances, e.g., overlarge families. Russians able to support their children do not easily surrender them, and the millions of Russians who still place God above Marx may never do so. By this year's end, Russia will have more than 700,000 boarding students; in five years it expects 2.500,000 such students from age 7 to 17. But day schoolers (now 31 million) probably will long outnumber them and delay Khrushchev's prophecy.
Psychology & Chinese. Nonetheless, boarding schools are Russia's most significant new educational wrinkle. Their graduates will soon be the nation's anointed. This is clear from the life being led by 250 first-to-eighth graders at Moscow's new Boarding School No. 2 in the quiet suburb of Pokrovsko-Streshnevo, one of 46 such schools in the Moscow area. Already No. 2's students (65% boys) are impressive specimens, honed by top-notch teachers, and one "upbringer" (counselor) for every 15 children.
No. 2's students hit the deck every morning at 7 for calisthenics and a daylong schedule that keeps them hopping until lights out at 9 or 9:30 p.m. There is no time for mental slouching. All boarding-school students, for example, major together in one foreign language (first choice: English) from second grade. But No. 2's students have a rockier road to mastery than most: they grapple with Chinese. All studies fill 4½ hours of formal classes and up to two hours of homework, six days a week.