Schools for Training Future Clerical Employees in the Russian Empire: Professional Staff and Characteristics of the Learning Process

Abstract

As the bureaucratic apparatus burgeoned in the Russian Empire, an urgent need arose to provide it with professional personnel. The government made a series of attempts to address the issue since the early 19th century. One effort comprised the organization of clerical workforce schools. The institutions were expected to staff various levels of numerous government bodies with properly trained clerks. In the paper, the authors adopted a comprehensive approach to highlight activities of schools for potential clerks. In particular, our study focused on the staff, financing policies in the educational institutions, functions performed by the management in the schools and supervisory bodies and learning process organization. With a variety of research works and sources reviewed, the authors can conclude that, in the environment of the ever growing functional and structural complexity of the bureaucratic apparatus in the Russian Empire, schools for future clerks considerably drove the development of professional qualities required in employees of the state bureaucracy. It was these educational institutions that to a large extend helped set up a flow of junior professional clerks to government agencies and authorities.