ABSTRACT
Outside the state educational system there were a number of other agencies and associations which directly or indirectly made some attempt to raise the level of peasant education. In most cases the impulse came from the more altruistically minded townsmen, who realized some of the shortcomings of the state system and attempted to supplement it. Owing to lack of funds on the part of such organizations for undertaking extensive educational campaigns, their efforts were necessarily sporadic and limited, but some could have achieved more had it not been for the attitude of the government. Recognizing that educational work could be used as a means of gaining political influence over the people, the government was very jealous of non-official organizations undertaking it, even when these were apparently loyal to the aim of Yugoslav unity. This appears in the rules governing the working of the ‘Narodni Universiteti’ (People’s Universities), which as a movement originating in Serbia might have been considered to be above suspicion. 1
