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CHAPTER XII.

POLITICO-SOCIAL IDEAS.

It is not only a Stundist's cottage and the appearance of his wife and children that indicate how alive he is to the influence of the modern Zeit-geist. If we study the industrial lives of those Stundists who are not agriculturists, and who are, therefore, free to adopt improvements on ancient methods of work, we notice at once the difference between the new school and the old. The Stundist is remarkable for his receptivity, the Orthodox peasant is fanatically wedded to the ways of his fathers. And, even in purely agricultural communities, where least scope is given to new methods, and where any departure from received standards and old-time customs is jealously watched, the Stundist is alive to the folly of the Russian communal system of land tenure, and the communal system of rotation; he seeks to improve his allotment; he seeks better implements, more order, a less wasteful system. Imitating the Germans, with their flourishing little patches of fruit and flower garden, he endeavours to cleanse the yard around his cottage, to extirpate the weeds in his garden, to plant trees for shade, and use, and beauty, to rear some simple flowers that will rejoice the hearts of his children and women-folk. We have been assured by reliable witnesses who have travelled about among the mixed Orthodox and Stundist villages of the province of Kherson, that nearly everywhere the Stundists attempt in

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