it possible for socialist society to train the coming generation most successfully, at lowest cost, and with the least expenditure of energy.
The social education of children, therefore, must be realised for other reasons besides those of pedagogy. It has enormous economic advantages. Hundreds of thousands, millions of mothers will thereby be freed for productive work and for self-culture. They will be freed from the soul-destroying routine of housework, and from the endless round of petty duties which are involved in the education of children in their own homes.
That is why the Soviet Power is striving to create a number of institutions for the improvement of social education, which are intended by degrees to universalise it. To this class of institutions belong the kindergartens, to which manual workers, clerks, etc., can send their children, thus entrusting them to experts who will prepare the children for school life. To this category, too, belong the homes or residential kindergartens. There are also children’s colonies, where the children either live permanently, or for a considerable period, away from their parents. There are in addition the creches, institutions for the reception of children under four years of age; in these the little ones are cared for while their parents are at work.