n was
engaged with other matters, he never neglected to maintain and add to
the institutions of general education and special schools, and to order
the translation of such works as were adapted to the requirements of his
people, as he understood those requirements.

His views on the subject of literature were as peculiar as those on
culture, and were guided by the same sternly practical considerations.
But it must be said, that under him the printing-press first acquired in
Russia its proper position of importance, and became the instrument for
the quick, easy, and universal dissemination and exchange of thought,
instead of serving merely as an indifferent substitute for manuscript
copies. Not only were books printed, but also speeches and official
poetry for special occasions; and at last the "Russian News" (January,
1703), the first Russian newspaper, keenly and carefully supervised by
Peter the Great himself, made its appearance.

At the end of the seventeenth century, only two typographical
establishments existed in all Russia: one in the Kieff Catacombs
Monastery (which does an immense business in religious books, and cheap
prints and paper _ikoni_, or holy pictures); the other in Moscow, in the
"Printing-House." In 1711 the first typographical establishment appeared
in St. Petersburg, and in 1720 there were already four in the new
capital, in addition to new ones in Tchernigoff, Novgorod-Syeversk, and
Novgorod; while another had been added in Moscow. Yet Peter the Great
distrusted the literary activity of the monks--and with reason, since
most of them opposed his reforms, while many deliberately plotted
against him--and in 1700-1701 ordered that monks in the monasteries
should be deprived of pens, ink, and paper.

His official, machine-made literature offers nothing of special
interest. But one of the curious phenomena of the epoch was the peasant
writer Ivan Tikhonovitch Pososhkoff (born about 1670), a well-to-do,
even a rich, man for those days, very well read, and imbued with the
spirit of reform. Out of pure love for his fatherland he began to write
projects and books in which he endeavored to direct the attention of the
government to many social defects, and to point out means for correcting
them. One of the most interesting works of Peter the Great's period was
Pososhkoff's written "Plan of Conduct" for his son (who was one of the
first young Russians sent abroad, in 1708, for education), entitled, "A
Fat