18 June 1887
Minister of Education Ivan Delyanov He signed a law cutting gymnasium education. It limited admission to secondary schools for children from "non-noble backgrounds." The document went down in history as the "circular on cooks' children."
Grammar schools will be exempted from admitting children of coachmen, footmen, cooks, laundresses, small shopkeepers and similar people, whose children, with the exception of those gifted with genius abilities, should not at all strive for secondary and higher education.
The new law emerged in the wake of Alexander III's counter-reforms, which sought to "cool" Russian society after the assassination of his father by terrorists. To achieve this, the tsar believed, it was necessary to limit the number of students recruited from the lower classes, who were considered the "most likely" to hold revolutionary views.
The Emperor was supported by the ministers of power and the Russian Orthodox Church.
Filled with the thoughts of Your Majesty... I have the pleasure of most humbly reporting (from Delyanov's report)
At the same time, tuition fees were raised and preparatory classes were closed. In the first year, the total number of students in classical gymnasiums fell by 16%, from 71 to 59. Among those affected was the future writer. Kornei Chukovsky.
School directors began competing in cruelty. Odessa schools expelled anyone who lived in small, cramped apartments. A person had to live in at least four rooms to be eligible to send their son to school! (Chukovsky)
The writer notes that in classes intended for 40 people, there were now no more than 12 students.
By depriving tens of thousands of young people of the right to education, the autocracy embittered them and turned them into excellent fuel for revolution. The country was full of "dropouts" thrown out of the third and fourth grades, who treated the autocratic regime with redoubled hatred.
By 1917, the boys who had been banned from school had become 30-year-old men. They could hold arms and believe the Bolsheviks' promises, which seemed naive to educated people.