As to the former of these there cannot possibly be any difference of opinion.

Many of them can neither read nor write, and are forced to keep their accounts in their memory, or by means of ingenious hieroglyphics, intelligible only to the inventor.

Others can decipher the calendar and the lives of the saints, can sign their names with tolerable facility, and can make the simpler arithmetical calculations with the help of the stchety, a little calculating instrument, composed of wooden balls strung on brass wires, which resembles the "abaca" of the old Romans, and is universally used in Russia.

It is only the minority who understand the mysteries of regular book-keeping, and of these very few can make any pretensions to being educated men.
All this, however, is rapidly undergoing a radical change.

Children are now much better educated than their parents, and the next generation will doubtless make further progress, so that the old-fashioned type above described is destined to disappear.