Norka a German colony in Russia Education
According to Dr. Igor Pleve in his book The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, schools arose in the first year the colonists arrived on the Volga. At the place of settlement, the colonists first constructed a school, the building which simultaneously served as a prayer house, and only then did they construct a church.
Norka Schulemeister (Schoolmaster) Carl Leonhardt and family in 1904 or 1905
A characteristic of the German-Russians, is their ambivalence toward formal education. This attitude may stem from the past history of the German-Russians, since they viewed schools in Russia and later in the United States as threats to their cultural and religious integrity. This fear was compounded by the German-Russian belief that education was not essential for those engaged in agricultural pursuits.
According to Emma Schwabenland Haynes, it was customary to chose teachers whose chief qualification consisted of a willingness to serve for a small amount of money. In some cases the school teacher himself had difficulty in reading and writing, and as he usually had hundred of children under his care, it is easy to assume that he was not able to teach them a great deal. Many of the pastors tried to get laws passed which would better the educational conditions of their parish, but as a whole, school rooms remained crowded and the instruction consisted primarily of learning to read the Bible and Catechism and of memorizing church songs out of the "Volga Gesangbuch."
Norka Mitteldorf School - May 2001
Teachers from Norka. Standing from left to right: 1. Lydia K. Schreiber (nee Braun, wife Alexander Wilhelm Schreiber), 2 Mina Merkel, 3 unknown, 4 O.D. Harttman, 5 M.K. Leonhardt (nee Braun, sister of Lydia Schreiber), 6 unknown, 7 Altergott, 8 Klein, 9 unknown. Photograph from Elvira Schreiber.
Teachers from Norka, January
2, 1930. An inscription on the photograph reads: "Оlga, the Rose and Маria". On
the far right is M.K. Braun. Photograph from Elvira Schreiber.
Excerpt from the Autobiography of Jacob Miller written in 1936 on the subject of education
I, Jacob Miller, as the second to the oldest son of my parents, Johnnes Peter and Elisabeth Miller, was born on the 2nd day of July, 1871, in the colony of Norka, State Saratov, Russia, a colony of about 11,000 people at that time.
My father was a well-to-do farmer and was able to give his children an education. There were three large school houses in this colony in which was taught mostly religion and reading, writing and arithmetic.
Drawing of a Volga German school
The teachers were all German teachers. Only about 75 children, all boys, had a separate schoolroom and were taught history and geography, in the Russian language, and grammar in both German and Russian. I and my four brothers were privileged to attend this school. The rest of the children did not know anything about the outside world, only what someone had told them.
There were no newspapers of any kind, except the pastor of the church, which was a Reformed church, got a few copies of a church paper from Germany.
I was confirmed at the age of 14, and at that time my father had leased a farm away from the colony. In connection with the farm was a small waterpower flour mill which only ground about 75 bushels of grain in 24 hours. Besides this we kept cattle and sheep, and hogs. Since the land was very productive we were doing very well.
When I was 16 years of age I was permitted to go to high school in a neighboring colony, Grimm. I soon got to the last class, and on my father's uncle's advice I had to quit without finishing high school. But my youngest brother, Peter, was privileged to go through the University.
Norka School and Teachers House in 1912
Excerpt from the Memories of Norka by Conrad Brill
Two of the older Norka schools were replaced with new ones in about 1915. One in Oberdorf, and one in Unterdorf. The new and larger Russian school had been built next to the church in 1905 when we were ordered to learn the Russian language along with the German we had been wholly learning previously. The old Unterdorf school in my school days had been known as the Kaiser school. It was because it was located next to the property of a family named Kaiser. Old timers who came to America still referred to it as the Kaiser school. In 1909, when I went to the Russian school in Mitteldorf, my teacher’s name was Hill. He was referred to as Gigl Schnitter. I attended for about a year, then just stayed home and helped do the farming and hauling merchandise to help support the family. The most affluent of the village would send their children to Saratov to boarding school, where they learned both German and Russian. They were then capable of getting good employment, in cities, or higher positions in the Russian military.
Norka Unterdorf School
Higher education at boarding and technical schools was available to students who had the means to study in the nearby cities of Engels and Saratov.
Technical Vocational School in Engels