The article "Cultural Volhynia" published in the periodical "Świat", 1925, no. 27, pp. 7-8 (public domain, reprinted from the KUL University Library) describes the state of Polish education in Volhynia. The most important schools are listed, including the Krzemieniec secondary school and the school located in the former Wiśniowiecki palace in Białokrynica.

A modernised reading of the text

The Krzemieniec Lyceum and the palace of Bialokrynica in Volhynia.

We know and write little about the eastern provinces; perhaps least of all about the pearl of the Commonwealth - the fertile and beautiful Volhynia. We imagine it to be a neglected land, completely destroyed by war, half-feralised. Meanwhile, thanks to its fertile soil, it has regained its former wealth, is flourishing and making rapid progress in every field. In many respects, Volhynia is today much better off than it was before the war. The development of education is particularly striking. Suffice it to say that the number of schools has more than doubled in comparison with the pre-war period, and the number of pupils has tripled.

There are now around 1,100 schools and almost 90,000 pupils. The quantitative growth has been matched by qualitative development. Teachers in pre-war Russian schools were inadequately qualified; teachers' seminaries stood idle, churning out under-educated children, who even what they had learned, no one cared to refresh their knowledge, further their education, keep them in touch with the world of science and with the achievements of pedagogy. Teaching in people's schools took place only in the winter months - from the first snow until Easter. Nowadays, great attention has been paid to the professional qualifications of teachers, and twenty training courses are organised every year, so that out of a total of 1,983 teachers, 843 are fully qualified, 588 are temporarily qualified, and only 552 are unqualified, a category equivalent to the pre-war teacher.

The school year normally lasts for ten months; there is a tendency to establish schools of a higher type - five- and seven-section schools - which significantly increases the level of education of young people. A weakness of education is the lack of school buildings, as around 900 schools do not have their own buildings but are housed in rented village cottages. One of the most important factors that increase the value of general schools in Volyn is the provision of craft workshops: carpentry, locksmithing, blacksmithing, shoemaking, tailoring, basketry and the like. After finishing school, young people are equipped with a whole range of practical knowledge, which is applied in the household or allows them to go to a special vocational school.

More and more such schools are being established in Volhynia, and all of them are well attended. They are maintained both by district assemblies and social associations, headed by the School Society. In Lutsk, for example, the Polish Educational Society founded a three-year commercial school of a strictly practical character some years ago. We had the opportunity to visit an exhibition of the pupils' work, held at the end of the school year. Bookkeeping notebooks, typing and shorthand templates, charts on commercial geography, statistics, political economy, samples of commodities science, maps, plans, preparations of industrial chemistry - everything made by the pupils themselves attested to the high and proper direction of teaching.

Something similar, only on a much larger scale can be seen in Ostrog. On the initiative of the local school inspector, a so-called 'Work House' was established there, a large workshop for the practical teaching of crafts for pupils of all schools - secondary and general. So we have exemplary drawing rooms, laboratories, physics rooms, craft workshops and, finally, school gardens, meticulously tended by the pupils. The young people have become so enthusiastic that they spend all their free time in the "Work House". An exhibition of manufactured items, a veritable museum of industry and craftsmanship, has also been created there. Some of the exhibits travelled from Ostrog to the international school exhibition in Florence, where they received recognition.

It is fair to say that Volyn schools are doing more and better than elsewhere in preparing young people for practical life. It is being done with great enthusiasm and vigour. For example, the Krzemieniec Seym bought the historic and magnificent palace in Višniavec, together with a huge park, and installed a handicraft school there. Sixty boys from all parts of the district are learning carpentry and lathing there (in addition to the theoretical subjects within the usual scope of a comprehensive school), and the opening of locksmith and shoemaking workshops has been announced for next year.

The school is run in an exemplary pedagogical and professional manner; it deserves special emphasis that, in contrast to other schools of this type, it has a predominance of pupils of Ukrainian nationality, who feel perfectly at home there and coexist perfectly well both with their Polish colleagues and with the teaching staff. Among other vocational institutions in Volhynia, we should mention the state agricultural school in Trościaniec, Łuków county, and the schools for boys in Kunkow and for girls in Horyńgród, Rówień county, which are currently being organised. Secondary education in Volhynia is represented by 7 co-educational state gymnasiums, of which Ostrońce, Lutsk and Kowel stand very well, a state teachers' seminar in Ostrońce, 18 private gymnasiums, in oz. 8 with Polish as the language of instruction, 3 with Ukrainian, 4 with Russian, 3 with Hebrew.

In 1924/25, 2,573 male and female pupils attended state secondary schools, of whom Poles - 1,951, Ukrainians - 50, Russians - 319, Germans - 8, Czechs - 53 and Jews - 287. Private secondary schools are attended by - 1,635 male and female pupils, of whom Roman Catholic - 1, Evangelical - 6, Orthodox - 374 and Mosaic - 1,254; hence it can be seen that the bulk of private secondary schools (schools with Polish and Hebrew language) are maintained for Jewish youth.

The crown of Volyn education is the Krzemieniec Lyceum, which is a separate school complex; it includes: 1) a natural-mathematical gymnasium, 2) a teachers' seminary with an exercise school - both co-educational establishments, located in the high school buildings in Krzemieniec, 3) a secondary male agricultural and forestry school in Białokrynica near Krzemieniec, occupying a magnificent palace that once belonged to the Wiśniowiecki family. About 1,000 children are educated at these schools, half of whom live in boarding schools.

In addition, a secondary school of commerce and a lower school of horticulture are in the organisational stage. The large estates in forests and arable land belonging to the Krzemieniec Lyceum make it an exemplary educational establishment.