Abstract

One of the achievements of the Era of the Great Reforms was the rapid progress of female education manifested in the emergence of new types of educational institutions, an increase in their number and the expansion of the movement for women’s higher education. All this was an important factor in social transformation and led to the expansion of the sphere of women’s social activities. Te adherents of the conservative camp, who generally advocated the dissemination of education, were mainly concerned with maintaining the sociopolitical stability of the all existing establishments. Alexander III’s government responded to the democratic changes in education in the Era of the Great Reforms with narrowing the curriculum by reducing the range of subjects taught, enhancing religious education and attempting to revert to the estate principle of student recruitment. Te Commission for considering some issues of women’s education began work in 1884. It included ofcials from the Departments for the Administration of the Institutions of Empress Maria, the Ministry of Public Instruction and the Department of Religious Afairs. Te establishment of the Commission was instigated by the note submitted by baroness E.F. Raden, an assistant to Empress Maria Feodorovna in the administration of the Mariinsky educational institutions. Raden’s position was fully supported in the Mariinsky department and in the Ministry of Public Instruction. Te discussion of reforms of women’s education mainly developed along the lines formulated in the baroness’s note. She believed that, taking into consideration a lack of primary and vocational schools, the excessive increase in the number of gymnasiums and granting the right to teach in educational institutions to those who did not have special pedagogical education were erroneous. Raden also considered a rash decision to open uncontrolled higher education courses and advocated strengthening moral education in schools and strict supervision over students. Te Commission, which operated from 1884 to 1890, prepared projects and proposals for reforming women’s education. Tey were mostly impractical: some of them contradicted to the Russian laws, the others - to the real practices of social life at that time. Te results of the Commission’s activity revealed the irreversibility of the trends its members opposed.