Hi Bonnie
LOL, there are some who are referring to the Florida Secretary of State as Katherine the Great.
God, I hope they don't presume to compare her to Catherine the Great who was a lady of high intellect, a tireless worker for the good of Russia, and above all, she was human and she was kind. She was a legend in her own time.
If she lived today, she'd be a Democrat, no question.
There were few schools in Russia. Catherine converted a convent in St. Petersburg into a boarding school for girls, the Smolny Institute. . In 1786, Catherine issued the Statue for Schools for all of Russia. Every district town was to establish a minor school with two teachers, every provincial town a major school with six teachers. She did not tackle the founding of Universities, as she knew that Russia lacked qualified teachers for such institutions. She did, however, increase the number of grants for the study abroad.
When she looked at public health at the beginning of her reign, she found the same lack as in education. She knew that the worst killer among children was small-pox. Dr. Thomas Dimsdale, who held a medical degree from Aberdeen, Scotland, had published a paper on inoculating for the small-pox. She brought him to St. Petersburg, where he inoculated Catherine on October 12, 1768. She had volunteered to set an example. She developed some pustules and a sore throat, but returned to her duties three weeks later. Dimsdale declared the vaccination a success and many followed her example. Catherine bought houses in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which Dr. Dimsdale operated as vaccination hospitals. In the year of 1763 Catherine had founded Russia's first College of Medicine, consisting of a director, a president and eight members. The College was instructed to train Russian doctors, surgeons and apothecaries to serve in the provinces. Peter the Great had built military hospitals; Catherine founded hospitals for civilians. When she re-organized the provinces in 1775, she decreed that each provincial capital must have a hospital, each county with a population between 20,000 and 30,000 should have a doctor, a surgeon, an asst. surgeon and a student doctor. Catherine's efforts prompted her gentry to follow her example. Baron von Kleichen founded a 300 bed hospital in St. Petersburg, overlooking the Fontanka Canal. In the 1790's the College added 250 more beds. These are some of the visible results of Catherine's domestic reforms. There would be many more during her long reign, but one can get an idea of her tireless striving for improvements.
It was her great regret during her long reign that she was unable to abolish serfdom. She realized that she would alienate the nobility with such an act, who depended on the labor of the serfs for their great estates. She did, however, issue several decrees for the humane treatment of the serfs. It is plain that Catherine hoped that her grandson Alexander would be in a stronger position to free the people. As she so often wrote to Baron von Grimm: "in the time of Monsieur Alexander....". Catherine continued throughout the years to help the underprivileged and the poor.
Mind you some historians see her as a clever and selfish woman eager to pave her own way to glory. Perhaps that is the context of the comparison with the Florida Secretary of State. |
