ENDS AND MEANS
absolutely obligatory character for pupils as well as for
teachers. This ruling must be the fundamental document
... which strictly establishes the regime of studies and the
basis for order in the school . . . Underlying the ruling
on the conduct of pupils is to be placed a strict and
conscientious application of discipline. ... In the personal
record there will be entered for the entire duration of his
studies the marks of the pupil for every quarter, his prizes
and his punisbnents-----A special apparatus of Communist
Youth organizers is to be installed for the surveillance of
the pupil inside and outside of school. They are to watch
over the morality and the state of mind of the pupils. . . .
Establish a single form of dress for the pupils of the
primary, semi-secondary and secondary schools, this
uniform to be introduced, to begin with, in 1936 in the
schools of Moscowl*
This decree was followed by another, issued in February
1937, ordering that the existing organizations for giving
military training to young children (from eight years old
upwards) should be strengthened and extended. Such
systems of infantile conscription already exist in the
Fascist countries and, if the threat of war persists, will
doubtless soon be imposed upon the democracies of the
West.
Any change for the worse in educational methods means
a change for the worse in the mentality of millions of
human beings during their whole lifetime. Early con-
ditioning, as I have pointed out, does not irrevocably and
completely determine adult behaviour; but it does un-
questionably make it difficult for individuals to think, feel
and act otherwise than as they have been taught to do in
childhood. Where social conditions are in harmony with
the prevailing system of education, the task of getting
outside the circle of early conditioning may be almost
insuperably difficult. Stalin has made it practically certain
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