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t quite us impressive as present-day achie +ints.in the natura sciences, ° In general the Sovict universities appear to be one of the most hopeful forces in Soviet society. By its very nature as ar institution organized to explore the frontiers of knowledge, the university cannot be wholly regimented, for then it would cess to function as a university, and the vital sources of our expand ing knowledge about man and the world would begin to dry up ‘The great emphasis that is placed on the natural sciences anc the scientifie method in Soviet education tends to cultivate ir Soviet students and scholars an attitude of mind that is unlikel; to prove compatible very long with any dogmatism, including the present dogmatic interpretations of Marxism. It will be interesting to see what the ultimate consequences will be of th present emphasis on science in Soviet education. One wonder: what significance there may be even now in the proportions Communist Party members in university faculties. While 34. per cent of all teachers in higher education in 1947 were Party members, the percentage among full professors was only 25. and among professors in enginecring technical fields only 17 During World War II, when Wendel! Willkie visited th Soviet Union on his trip around the world, he told Stalin he wa: impressed by the schools and libraries he had seen. “But if you continue to educate the Russian people, Mr. Stalin,” he said “the first thing you know you'll educate yourself out of a job.” It must be admitted that the Communist Party is a lon; way as yet from having educated its own dictatorship out o existence. But in the emphasis it has placed upon education~ even though that education is as “partisan” and biased as th Party can make it—the Party has set in motion a force that ma: possibly have a significant leavening influence, in the course o time, upon the Communist dictatorship itself. Thirst for Culture Few things in Russia impressed us so much as the well nigh inexhaustible thirst of the Russian people for culture. I Leningrad we saw crowds of unsophisticated-looking Russian walking wide-eyed through the galleries of the Hermitage Mu seum, which holds one of the richest art collections in the worlc In Moscow, where the Dresden art treasures (taken out of Ger many at the end of World War II) were placed on display fo the three summer months before being returned to Germany ‘Wendell Wilikie, One World (New York: Pocket Books, Inc., 1943 pp. 70-71. 62