Letter to Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova, December 14, 1915

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Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova,

Malaya Gruzinskaya, 7, Apt. 13,

Moscow,

Russia

December 14

Dear Manyasha,

Did you receive the long letter I sent you in spring? I wrote then, amongst other things, that Mother had died, gave some details of our way of life, etc.[The letter has been lost—Editor]

Now I am writing for one special reason. We shall soon be coming to the end of our former means of subsistence and the question of earning money will become a serious one. It is difficult to find anything here. J have been promised a pupil, but that seems to be slow in materialising. I have also been promised some copying but nothing has come of it. I shall try something else, but it is all very problematic. I have to think about a literary income. I don’t want that side of our affairs to be Volodya’s worry alone. He works a lot as it is. The question of an income troubles him greatly.

This is what I wanted to ask you about. Lately I have been putting in a lot of study on education in general and the history of education in particular, so I am well equipped in this field. I have even written a whole pamphlet, “The Elementary School and Democracy”. The first part of it is ready and is called “The Role of Productive Labour in Public Education”. A hundred odd pages. I think it has turned out quite interesting. I should like to ask you to find me a publisher. I can send the manuscript by return of post if asked for, Perhaps S vobodnoye Vospitaniye or some other publisher would take it. By the way, I have sent an article on Rousseau to Svobodnoye Vospitanlyc. They must have received the letter because they have begun sending me the journal, but I don’t know whether they have received the manuscript. Can you find out whether they got the article and whether it will be published? I shall soon be sending them something on other, more topical subjects.

I asked Rakhil’s brother[L. S. Rivlin.—Editor.] to go to Svobodnoye Vospitaniye, but he has quite a few affairs of his own to look after and is not a very suitable person for such negotiations.

It is a pity, too, that business with the Granats went wrong. Volodya wrote to them in summer[Collected Works, Volume 36, page 317.—Editor.] but got no answer, and so I don’t know whether they left a place for my article "Labour School

what size it should be and by what date it had to be submitted. I am now busy working on the question of apprenticeship. The libraries in Switzerland are, in general, well equipped and work goes well. I also have plenty of time, but the real problem is to find whom to write for. It is difficult to arrange anything from here. Do what you can.

Do you know what has happened to Lidya? I have had no news of her since summer. Is she well? How is she doing?

I write to our people from time to time, although there is nothing much to write about.

I send you many kisses, dear Manyasha, drop me a couple of lines some time. Keep well!

Nadya

Do you ever see Zinaida Pavlovna? Has she completely recovered from the operation? Where are they? What are they doing?