Subjects for essays in pre-revolutionary gymnasiums

Topics for essays offered to gymnasium students at the beginning of the 20th century.
It’s already pleasant to read these topics, and immediately think: what kind of children they brought up then!

For elementary grades:

About what the bird saw in distant lands.
The history of building a house and cultivating a garden with it.
Giants and pygmies of the forest kingdom.

For high school students 12-13 years old:

Fading our garden in the fall.
River on a moonlit night.
Meeting troops returning from the campaign.
Forest at its best.
Steamboat Marina
Grandfather's kindergarten.
Arrival of the train.

For senior high school students:

The word as a source of happiness.
Why is life compared to travel?
Homeland and alien side.
About the transience of life.
What items make up Russia's wealth and why?
About the high dignity of the human word and letter.
About the fragility of happiness based solely on material wealth.
On the manifestation of the moral principle in history.
What is the spiritual connection between ancestors and offspring based on?

Commentary by a journalist from Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

“For all its simplicity, these topics required serious thought, memorability and observation. They had respect for the child as a person, and not as a suitcase, which must be filled with knowledge ...
The themes that ... were offered to the teacher and students against the background of the events seemed petty, "not worthy of an era," but with their peaceful intonation they hid the children for several minutes or hours from the unfolding chaos. They reminded that, in addition to political abstractions, there is also a house, a garden, a father and mother, the beauty of falling snow and the mystery of the starry sky. Or here’s an old oak in the yard ... "

Do schoolchildren write essays today about grandfather’s kindergarten and the fragility of happiness based solely on material wealth?

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