Main charity activities in the development of male secondary education in the West Siberian school district

The object of the following article are five philanthropy activities which played a significant role in the development of male classical education in West Siberia in the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. The first activity was represented by ordinary one-time private donations. The analysis of this income item in the budget of male classical gymnasiums based on the report by a trustee of West Siberian school district (1885-1916) shows that in the second decade of the 20th century this form of charity almost came to naught. Its rare acts were connected with the most relevant events in towns' history. For example, the opening of a new grammar school in Ishim in 1913. The second activity refers to capital donations, interest on which implemented the will of a grantor. It also almost disappeared by the second decade of the 20th century giving place to some more organized forms of philanthropy. The third activity was represented by nominal grants. It functioned closely to the mechanism of capital donations but it had its own peculiarities: the constitutor of a scholarship could be a private person, a public organization or a local government. The reasons for scholarship constitution were also different. Loyalty to the emperor, aspiration to immortalize somebody's name, often their own or their relative's, celebration of Russian memory days, etc. were among them. The fourth form, guardianship of a school, partly combines some traits of the already mentioned activities. It also has a long-term nature and is essentially represented by merchants. Basing on archival documents, the article gives examples of guardian work and briefly states the problems secondary schools faced during their work with a trustee. The fifth form of charity, the activity of charity organizations, has a fundamental difference as this help started to reach mass levels attracting various strata of society. Intellectuals, including teachers themselves, were involved a lot into this activity. Another peculiarity of social charity can be its loan nature. The development of this form of charity reached its highest point in the beginning of the 20th century both throughout the empire and in Western Siberia. Its biggest center was Tomsk, the university capital of Siberia. After analyzing and characterizing the main charity activities, the author has learned that philanthropy activities did not interfere but supplemented each other. However, social participation in male classical education was not significant. The formation of social charity proclaims the social evolution of the region and the development of public civil awareness.

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