Care for the Religious-moral Education of Children. Sunday Schools and Bible Classes. The Christian Association of Young People. The Society for the Suppression of Vice. The Temperance Society. The Civic Virtue of the American People. The Essence of American Democracy and its Instructive Aspect. (Cont.)

“The Christian Association of Young Men”[1] has existed in America since 1852, and although its concept was borrowed from England, in its practical application it fully reflects that profound religious-moral and also practical-life wisdom that characterizes the American people. Its idea is very simple and could easily have arisen in the mind of anyone more or less inspired by love for humanity, someone who had occasion to observe the lives of young people in such large centers of public life as Paris, London, and New York. Into these, so to speak, basins of public life, thousands and tens of thousands of young people flow each year who, stepping out onto life’s stage for the first time, seek their first paths here, leading to the alluring career for youthful minds. By its very nature this is clearly a critical moment in a person’s life, and upon it depends whether one will manage to come through one’s life path whole and unharmed, or whether one’s strength will weaken in the struggle with the flood of new impressions and the abyss of life will draw him in and carry him toward ruin. The tragedy of the situation is increased further by the fact that the young man, far from his homeland and the beneficial influence of his native hearth, finds himself completely alone here amid a sea of strangers who care nothing for his struggle and suffering. And it is unsurprising that while many strong in spirit and patience make their way forward, many others despair and fall, unable to endure the heavy struggle of life and the pernicious temptations—they perish amid indifference, and sometimes perhaps even amid the malice of those around them. It was precisely this observation and the compassion for young people flowing from it that led to the founding of the “Christian Association of Young Men.” According to the charter of the New York chapter of this society, it “aims at the improvement of the spiritual, mental, and social condition of young men in the city of New York through the organization of lectures, discussions, libraries, reading rooms, public meetings, and all other means and aids that can contribute to achieving this goal.” But the most remarkable aspect of this society is that it, in accordance with the prevailing sentiment in American society, immediately assumed a deeply religious character, and by its fundamental idea this society aims “to unite, as stated in one circular, those young men who, recognizing Jesus Christ as their God and Savior, according to Holy Scripture, desire to be His disciples in their faith and in their life, and to combine their efforts in spreading the kingdom of Christ among young men”[2]. As something called forth by a deep and pressing need, the society found sympathetic response everywhere and in just a few years succeeded in spreading to all the more or less significant cities of America. And now, in its current organization, it produces incalculable benefits for the young generation of the country. This society represents a kind of religious-moral brotherhood. Any young man contributing annually two dollars to the treasury can become a member, and for a trifling sum he gains the opportunity to use all the extensive rights afforded by the society. In New York the society owns a huge building housing a large library, a magnificent reading room, and gymnasium facilities. Lectures on all manner of subjects calculated to meet the needs of young people are held weekly; there is prayer meeting every day, at which sacred hymns are sung; from time to time famous scholars and theologians are invited to deliver public lectures on the most pressing questions; and finally, at certain intervals there are even entertainment gatherings where young people have the opportunity to spend time pleasantly in innocent recreation. And all this members of the society enjoy free of charge. But the best aspect of this society lies in the fact that within it every young man feels himself as if in his native environment: all members invariably call one another brothers, and in the society’s representatives every young man can find familial sympathy for any misfortune or disaster that befalls him. Finding himself in a completely unfamiliar city without a place, he can boldly turn to the society in full confidence that he will not only receive sympathy but also be helped to find suitable work, will receive temporary aid, will be visited in illness, and during hours of evening boredom and despondency he can count on finding encouraging and uplifting diversion in that very “Christian Association of Young Men.” And how many young forces are thus preserved for public life, forces that would otherwise have not withstood the struggle for existence or the struggle with pernicious temptations of noisy city life! This highly useful society has branches in almost all American colleges and universities; chapters of it exist in almost all more or less significant cities, and we ourselves have more than once experienced its moral and religious influence. As a foreigner cast into the midst of a world entirely alien, I sometimes experienced attacks of that oppressive feeling called homesickness. The melancholy heaviness weighed on my heart, work fell from my hands, and in such heavy moments more than once I sought encouragement and diversion precisely in the “Christian Association of Young Men,” in its reading room and in its public meetings. And more than once in such circumstances did I find my thoughts turning to our northern capital. How many young people gather there each year from all corners of Russia, arriving with the brightest hopes and youthful enthusiasm, with a hunger for higher education; and how many disappointments, crushing despair, oppressive loneliness do these enthusiasts have to endure solely because they nowhere encounter strong moral support, which is what young nature most needs. And in view of this there is nothing surprising in the fact that our student youth presents such easy prey for all manner of dark agitators. Having no morally healthy recreations, they seek low and crude diversions; encountering no morally ennobling solidarity, they are drawn to the solidarity of criminal associations and perish by the dozens—for the Church, society, science, and the state. The Americans in this respect are more practical and more philanthropic than we are. According to the latest report we have (for 1882), the “Christian Association of Young Men” has up to one hundred thousand members, and this hundred-thousand-strong army of deeply religious and highly moral young people constitutes a reliable bulwark of the moral well-being of the country not only in the present but, most importantly, in the future.

But besides such societies that aim at the positive promotion and strengthening of religious-moral spirit in the people, there are also in America societies that wage direct struggle against negative phenomena of moral life, and among this latter kind of societies perhaps the most remarkable and at the same time least known among us is the so-called “New York Society for the Suppression of Vice”[3]. It is perhaps most remarkable because it demonstrates how strong is the feeling of moral self-protection in young American society and how much sounder judgment the inhabitants of the democratic republic display in this regard than representatives of our liberal journalism. I recall how this journalism with fury and the cynical coarseness characteristic of it fell upon our great, now lamented patriot Ivan Sergeyevich Aksakov, when in the darkest and most shameful epoch of our society—the nihilist bloody debauchery—he proposed a plan for forming in society itself, apart from the police, so to speak public organs for uncovering dens of sedition. Inquisition, espionage, Middle Ages—all this, along with many other terrible things, was brought up there, solely to throw mud at the thought of the great patriot. And yet precisely such a society as Ivan Sergeyevich envisioned exists and flourishes on the soil of the freest country in the world—precisely in the democratic republic of North America. And I now must ask forgiveness before the great shade of the passionate patriot, that despite his written request to me, I did not succeed in timely acquainting the Russian public with this aspect of American life in print, and I fulfill the promise I gave only now. “The Society for the Suppression of Vice” is precisely an expression of public self-initiative in the struggle against moral-social evil. The direct responsibility for the pursuit and suppression of vice and crime naturally rests upon the official organs of the police and administration. But not only among us but also in America do the official organs not always display sufficient energy in carrying out their direct duties, and not being morally interested in them, they usually confine themselves to merely formal compliance. If to this we add the possibility of bribery and other temptations offered by agents of dark deeds to the official guardians of order, it is unsurprising that many measures directed at suppressing vice and protecting public morality remain without strict enforcement. And so, to better protect public morality in this very respect, the “Society for the Suppression of Vice” was formed in New York. It is composed of enthusiasts of public virtue, numbers many respected persons from society and the clergy, and is chaired by the former rector of New York University, the distinguished Comstock. And this very society—horribile dictu!—has secret agents who watch all those spreading and making vice, catch them even where the official eye of police officials does not penetrate or does not wish to penetrate, and deliver them into the hands of justice; they themselves appear in court as prosecutors, provide witnesses to prove the truth of the accusation, and rest content only when vice and crime receive their deserved punishment before the law. But the chief and special aim of this society is the persecution of immoral and corrupting literature in all its forms, and its activity in this regard is tireless. They are the strictest censors of immoral elements in literature, especially popular and children’s literature, and one can confidently say that they would subject to merciless burning and destruction no small portion of that children’s and popular literature which is published each year in our country with permission of the official censorship. We say—destruction and burning—in the literal sense. Agents of the society sometimes seize and confiscate entire editions of immoral books and, turning the publishers over to the court, literally burn the editions in flames, as is shown in the vignette adorning the front page of the society’s reports. Thus we see here a remarkable example of public censorship in a country that enjoys the fullest freedom of the press. Thanks to the efforts of this very society, important laws have been enacted in the New York state to limit the spread of immorality through literature and the press, and members of the society are relentless guardians of these laws. The society’s influence extends to all colleges and universities, and it especially concerns itself with protecting student youth from the harmful influence of immoral literature, and to this end directly appeals to the leadership of educational institutions for cooperation. The zeal of this society in pursuing its goals can be judged by the fact that each year it destroys entire thousands of pounds of immoral literature and subjects publishers to fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars before the law. Last year the society fined such publishers three hundred thousand rubles in our currency. Finally, this same society extends its influence to all public and private libraries, compiles catalogs of books it considers harmful, and these books cease to be distributed in the library to any more or less youthful, spiritually not yet established readers. Therefore, in the celebrated country of free press, works of, for example, Zola are less accessible to young men and women than what we call “forbidden” works are to gymnasium students and schoolgirls—even those in the first grades.