Catherine II felt that Russia needed too many reforms. Education is too backward and must be reformed! So she read books about education. She accepted the British philosopher Locke's theory that "life is a blank sheet of paper, and knowledge comes from experience" and the French enlightenment thinker Rousseau's thought that teenagers should be accompanied by teachers for a long time and children should learn skills. At the same time, she appreciates the closed education in Russian monasteries. She thinks that by combining these aspects, we can cultivate young people who can not only absorb European civilization, but also inherit Russian excellent traditions.
So she ordered Betsky to draft an education program for boys and girls in this spirit and set up some schools. The most famous is the Smolny Girls' School in Petersburg, which was founded in 1764. It originally belonged to the Resurrection Monastery for Women in Smalley, and most of the students were 6-year-old aristocratic girls. They stayed in school 12 and graduated 18. They are not allowed to drop out of school, have no holidays and are almost isolated from the world. The school building is in a monastery, with no windows facing the street, and studied theology and French. 1765, another girls' school was established in Petersburg to recruit girls from other social classes to receive basic education and learn sewing and housekeeping. These two schools are the origins of Russian girls' schools.
Since 1762, when nobles were exempted from military service and public office, many of them settled in their hereditary territory and devoted themselves to developing their own economy. Some of them felt the low productivity and frequent riots of serfs, and asked the state to promote the improvement of agricultural technology and make some small reforms for serfs. This opinion was exactly what Catherine wanted, so she ordered the establishment of a free economic society in 1765. The organization is run by the queen, but she tries to use the word "freedom" to show that it is private rather than state.
She stipulated that the purpose of this society is to popularize agricultural knowledge to the people, study the domestic agricultural situation and economic life, and introduce western agricultural technology. In addition, we should also study the advantages and disadvantages of public ownership and private ownership of land, independent labor and serf labor. In view of these problems, the society has issued some survey forms, asking aristocratic landlords all over the country to answer them, which has aroused their fears.
A landlord in Pinz province wrote in a reply: "Your letter asks which is better, serf independent labor or aristocratic management in agriculture. We think this problem is tantamount to mocking law-abiding citizens. They are ignorant serfs and have always been stubborn and rebellious towards benefactors and elders. Once they know your letter, they will be more arrogant and uncontrollable. Is the aim of your association to advocate absolute freedom? It is really hard for us to understand. "
There is more than one such reply. 1766, Catherine set up a special prize in the Institute of Free Economy, and received 120 papers at home and abroad written in Russian, French, German, Latin and other languages on the topic of "What rights should the tiller enjoy on the cultivated land". After the selection, the first prize is the thesis of Rabi Altai Taitai, an academician of the French Dijon Academy of Sciences. Through the work of this society, Catherine once again felt that serfdom was difficult to change in Russia.
She also thought about how the serfs would treat her, the empire and the nobility once liberated. It was the nobles who helped her gain and consolidate the throne. How can she take them to the bottom? She wrote: "The act of liberating serfs cannot win the approval of landlords. Since the disadvantages of serfdom have existed in Russia for a long time, the best thing we can do now is to take some measures to reduce the losses of serfs. "
From then on, she no longer let the free economic society discuss serfdom. Later, this society only studied specific issues such as trade, tariffs, currency circulation and grain storage. It existed until the beginning of the 20th century.