Chapter III (2)

After that, Prince Chernýshev, with his good-natured and merry carelessness, entirely acquiesced, the more so since he knew full well that he had not "appropriated" any land of the peasants, as was said in the petition of the peasants. If the land was "appropriated," his father had done it, and since then more than forty years had passed. He knew that the peasants of the village of Izlegóshcha were getting along well without that land, had no need of it, and lived on terms of friendship with him, and was unable to understand why they had become so infuriated against him. He knew that he never offended and never wished to offend any one, that he lived in peace with everybody, and that he never wished to do otherwise, and so could not believe that any one should think of offending him. He hated litigations, and so did not defend his case in the Senate, in spite of the advice and earnest solicitations of his lawyer, Ilyá Mitrofánov; by allowing the time for the appeal to lapse, he lost the case in the Senate, and lost it in such a way that he was confronted with complete ruin. By the decree of the Senate he not only was to be deprived of five thousand desyatínas of land, but also, for the illegal tenure of that land, was to be mulcted to the amount of 107,000 roubles in favour of the peasants.

Prince Chernýshev had eight thousand souls, but all the estates were mortgaged and he had large debts, so that this decree of the Senate ruined him with his whole large family. He had a son and five daughters. He thought of his case when it was too late to attend to it in the Senate. According to Ilyá Mitrofánov's words there was but one salvation, and that was, to petition the sovereign and to transfer the case to the Imperial Council. To obtain this it was necessary in person to approach one of the ministers or a member of the Council, or, better still, the emperor himself. Taking all that into consideration, Prince Grigóri Ivánovich in the fall of the year 1817 with his whole family left his beloved estate of Studénets, where he had lived so long without leaving it, and went to Moscow. He started for Moscow, and not for St. Petersburg, because in the fall of that year the emperor with his whole court, with all the highest dignitaries, and with part of the Guards, in which the son of Grigóri Ivánovich was serving, was to arrive in Moscow to lay the corner-stone of the Church of the Saviour in commemoration of the liberation of Russia from the French invasion.

In August, immediately after receiving the terrible news of the decree of the Senate, Prince Grigóri Ivánovich got ready to go to Moscow. At first the majordomo was sent away to fix the prince's own house on the Arbát; then was sent out a caravan with furniture, servants, horses, carriages, and provisions. In September the prince with his whole family travelled in seven carriages, drawn by his own horses, and, after arriving in Moscow, settled in his house. Relatives, friends, visitors from the province and from St. Petersburg began to assemble in Moscow in the month of September. The Moscow life, with its entertainments, the arrival of his son, the débuts of his daughters, and the success of his eldest daughter, Aleksándra, the only blonde among all the brunettes of the Chernýshevs, so much occupied and diverted the prince's attention that, in spite of the fact that here in Moscow he was spending everything which would be left to him after paying all he owed, he forgot his affair and was annoyed and tired whenever Ilyá Mitrofánov talked of it, and undertook nothing for the success of his case.

Iván Mirónovich Baúshkin, the chief attorney of the peasants, who had conducted the case against the prince with so much zeal in the Senate, who knew all the approaches to the secretaries and departmental chiefs, and who had so skilfully distributed the ten thousand roubles, collected from the peasants, in the shape of presents, now himself brought his activity to an end and returned to the village, where, with the money collected for him as a reward and with what was left of the presents, he bought himself a grove from a neighbouring proprietor and built there a hut and an office. The case was finished in the court of the highest instance, and everything would now proceed of its own accord.

The only ones of those concerned in the case who could not forget it were the six peasants who were passing their seventh month in jail, and their families that were left without their heads. But nothing could be done in the matter. They were imprisoned in Krasnoslobódsk, and their families tried to get along as well as they could. Nobody could be invoked in the case. Iván Mirónovich himself said that he could not take it up, because it was not a communal, nor a civil, but a criminal case. The peasants were in prison, and nobody paid any attention to them; but one family, that of Mikhaíl Gerásimovich, particularly his wife Tíkhonovna, could not get used to the idea that the precious old man, Gerásimovich, was sitting in prison with a shaven head. Tíkhonovna could not rest quiet. She begged Mirónovich to take the case, but he declined it. Then she decided to go herself to pray to God for the old man. She had made a vow the year before that she would go on a pilgrimage to a saint, and had delayed it for another year only because she had had no time and did not wish to leave the house to the young daughters-in-law. Now that the misfortune had happened and Gerásimovich was put into jail, she recalled her vow; she turned her back on her house and, together with the deacon's wife of the same village, got ready to go on the pilgrimage.

First they went to the county seat to see her old man in the prison and to take him some shirts; from there they went through the capital of the Government to Moscow. On her way Tíkhonovna told the deacon's wife of her sorrow, and the latter advised her to petition the emperor who, it was said, was to be in Pénza, telling her of various cases of pardon granted by him.

When the pilgrims arrived in Pénza, they heard that there was there, not the emperor, but his brother Grand Duke Nikoláy Pávlovich. When he came out of the cathedral, Tíkhonovna pushed herself forward, dropped down on her knees, and began to beg for her husband. The grand duke was surprised, the governor was angry, and the old woman was taken to the lockup. The next day she was let out and she proceeded to Tróitsa. In Tróitsa she went to communion and confessed to Father Paísi. At the confession she told him of her sorrow, and repented having petitioned the brother of the Tsar. Father Paísi told her that there was no sin in that and that there was no sin in petitioning the Tsar even in a just case, and dismissed her. In Khótkov she called on the blessed abbess, and she ordered her to petition the Tsar himself.

On their way back, Tíkhonovna and the deacon's wife stopped in Moscow to see the saints. Here she heard that the Tsar was there, and she thought that it was evidently God's command that she should petition the Tsar. All that had to be done was to write the petition.

In Moscow the pilgrims stopped in a hostelry. They begged permission to stay there overnight; they were allowed to do so. After supper the deacon's wife lay down on the oven, and Tíkhonovna, placing her wallet under her head, lay down on a bench and fell asleep. In the morning, before daybreak, Tíkhonovna got up, woke the deacon's wife, and went out. The innkeeper spoke to her just as she walked into the yard.

"You are up early, granny," he said.

"Before we get there, it will be time for matins," Tíkhonovna replied.

"God be with you, granny!"

"Christ save you!" said Tíkhonovna, and the pilgrims went to the Kremlin.

* * * * *

After standing through the matins and the mass, and having kissed the relics, the old women, with difficulty making their way, arrived at the house of the Chernýshevs. The deacon's wife said that the old lady had given her an urgent invitation to stop at her house, and had ordered that all pilgrims should be received.

"There we shall find a man who will write the petition," said the deacon's wife, and the pilgrims started to blunder through the streets and ask their way. The deacon's wife had been there before, but had forgotten where it was. Two or three times they were almost crushed, and people shouted at them and scolded them. Once a policeman took the deacon's wife by the shoulder and, giving her a push, forbade her to walk through the street on which they were, and directed them through a forest of lanes. Tíkhonovna did not know that they were driven off the Vozdvízhenka for the very reason that through that street was to drive the Tsar, of whom she was thinking all the time, and to whom she intended to give the petition.

The deacon's wife walked, as always, heavily and complainingly, while Tíkhonovna, as usual, walked lightly and briskly, with the gait of a young woman. At the gate the pilgrims stopped. The deacon's wife did not recognize the house: there was there a new hut which she had not seen before; but on scanning the well with the pumps in the corner of the yard, she recognized it all. The dogs began to bark and made for the women with the staffs.

"Don't mind them, aunties, they will not touch you. Away there, accursed ones!" the janitor shouted to the dogs, raising the broom on them. "They are themselves from the country, and just see them bark at country people! Come this way! You will stick in the mud,--God has not given any frost yet."

But the deacon's wife, frightened by the dogs, and muttering in a whining tone, sat down on a bench near the gate and asked the janitor to take her by. Tíkhonovna made her customary bow to the janitor and, leaning on her crutch and spreading her feet, which were tightly covered with leg-rags, stopped near her, looking as always calmly in front of her and waiting for the janitor to come up to them.

"Whom do you want?" the janitor asked.

"Do you not recognize us, dear man? Is not your name Egór?" asked the deacon's wife. "We are coming back from the saints, and so are calling on her Serenity."

"You are from Izlegóshcha," said the janitor. "You are the wife of the old deacon,--of course. All right, all right. Go to the house! Everybody is received here,--nobody is refused. And who is this one?"

He pointed to Tíkhonovna.

"From Izlegóshcha, Gerásimovich's wife,--used to be Fadyéev's,--I suppose you know her?" said Tíkhonovna. "I myself am from Izlegóshcha."

"Of course! They say your husband has been put into jail."

Tíkhonovna made no reply; she only sighed and with a strong motion threw her wallet and fur coat over her shoulder.

The deacon's wife asked whether the old lady was at home and, hearing that she was, asked him to announce them to her. Then she asked about her son, who was an official and, thanks to the prince's influence, was serving in St. Petersburg. The janitor could not give her any information about him and directed them over a walk, which crossed the yard, to the servants' house. The old women went into the house, which was full of people,--women, children, both old and young,--all of them manorial servants, and prayed turning to the front corner. The deacon's wife was at once recognized by the laundress and the old lady's maid, and she was at once surrounded and overwhelmed with questions: they took off her wallet, placed her at the table, and offered her something to eat. In the meantime Tíkhonovna, having made the sign of the cross to the images and saluted everybody, was standing at the door, waiting to be invited in. At the very door, in front of the first window, sat an old man, making boots.

"Sit down, granny! Don't stand up. Sit down here, and take off your wallet," he said.

"There is not enough room to turn around as it is. Take her to the 'black' room," said a woman.

"This comes straight from Madame Chalmé," said a young lackey, pointing to the iris design on Tíkhonovna's peasant coat, "and the pretty stockings and shoes."

He pointed to her leg-rags and bast shoes, which were new, as she had specially put them on for Moscow.

"Parásha, you ought to have such."

"If you are to go to the 'black' room, all right; I will take you there." And the old man stuck in his awl and got up; but, on seeing a little girl, he called her to take the old woman to the black room.

Tíkhonovna not only paid no attention to what was being said in her presence and of her, but did not even look or listen. From the time that she entered the house, she was permeated with the feeling of the necessity of working for God and with the other feeling, which had entered her soul, she did not know when, of the necessity of handing the petition. Leaving the clean servant room, she walked over to the deacon's wife and, bowing, said to her:

"Mother Paramónovna, for Christ's sake do not forget about my affair! See whether you can't find a man."

"What does that woman need?"

"She has suffered insult, and people have advised her to hand a petition to the Tsar."

"Take her straight to the Tsar!" said the jesting lackey.

"Oh, you fool, you rough fool," said the old shoemaker. "I will teach you a lesson with this last, then you will know how to grin at old people."

The lackey began to scold, but the old man, paying no attention to him, took Tíkhonovna to the black room.

Tíkhonovna was glad that she was sent out of the baking-room, and was taken to the black, the coachmen's room. In the baking-room everything looked clean, and the people were all clean, and Tíkhonovna did not feel at ease there. The black coachmen's room was more like the inside of a peasant house, and Tíkhonovna was more at home there. The black hut was a dark pine building, twenty by twenty feet, with a large oven, bed places, and hanging-beds, and a newly paved, dirt-covered floor. When Tíkhonovna entered the room, there were there the cook, a white, ruddy-faced, fat, manorial woman, with the sleeves of her chintz dress rolled up, who with difficulty was moving a pot in the oven with an oven-fork; then a young, small coachman, who was learning to play the balaláyka; an old man with an unshaven, soft white beard, who was sitting on a bed place with his bare feet and, holding a skein of silk between his lips, was sewing on some fine, good material, and a shaggy-haired, swarthy young man, in a shirt and blue trousers, with a coarse face, who, chewing bread, was sitting on a bench at the oven and leaning his head on both his arms, which were steadied against his knees.

Barefoot Nástka with sparkling eyes ran into the room with her lithe, bare feet, in front of the old woman, jerking open the door, which stuck fast from the steam within, and squeaking in her thin voice:

"Aunty Marína, Simónych sends this old woman, and says that she should be fed. She is from our parts: she has been with Paramónovna to worship the saints. Paramónovna is having tea.--Vlásevna has sent for her--"

The garrulous little girl would have gone on talking for quite awhile yet; the words just poured forth from her and, apparently, it gave her pleasure to hear her own voice. But Marína, who was in a perspiration, and who had not yet succeeded in pushing away the pot with the beet soup, which had caught in the hearth, shouted angrily at her:

"Stop your babbling! What old woman am I to feed now? I have enough to do to feed our own people. Shoot you!" she shouted to the pot, which came very near falling down, as she removed it from the spot where it was caught.

But when she was satisfied in regard to the pot, she looked around and, seeing trim Tíkhonovna with her wallet and correct peasant attire, making the sign of the cross and bowing low toward the front corner, felt ashamed of her words and, as though regaining her consciousness after the cares which had worn her out, she put her hand to her breast, where beneath the collar-bone buttons clasped her dress, and examined it to see whether it was buttoned, and then put her hands to her head to fasten the knot of the kerchief, which covered her greasy hair, and took up an attitude, leaning against the oven-fork and waiting for the salute of the trim old woman. Tíkhonovna made her last low obeisance to God, and turned around and saluted in three directions.

"God aid you, good day!" she said.

"You are welcome, aunty!" said the tailor.

"Thank you, granny, take off your wallet! Sit down here," said the cook, pointing to a bench where sat the shaggy-haired man. "Move a little, can't you? Are you stuck fast?"

The shaggy man, scowling more angrily still, rose, moved away, and, continuing to chew, riveted his eyes on the old woman. The young coachman made a bow and, stopping his playing, began to tighten the strings of his balaláyka, looking now at the old woman, and now at the tailor, not knowing how to treat the old woman,--whether respectfully, as he thought she ought to be treated, because the old woman wore the same kind of attire that his grandmother and mother wore at home (he had been taken from the village to be an outrider), or making fun of her, as he wished to do and as seemed to him to accord with his present condition, his blue coat and his boots. The tailor winked with one eye and seemed to smile, drawing the silk to one side of his mouth, and looked on. Marína started to put in another pot, but, even though she was busy working, she kept looking at the old woman, while she briskly and nimbly took off her wallet and, trying not to disturb any one, put it under the bench. Nástka ran up to her and helped her, by taking away the boots, which were lying in her way under the bench.

"Uncle Pankrát," she turned to the gloomy man, "I will put the boots here. Is it all right?"

"The devil take them! Throw them into the oven, if you wish," said the gloomy man, throwing them into another corner.

"Nástka, you are a clever girl," said the tailor. "A pilgrim has to be made comfortable."

"Christ save you, girl! That is nice," said Tíkhonovna. "I am afraid I have put you out, dear man," she said, turning to Pankrát.

"All right," said Pankrát.

Tíkhonovna sat down on the bench, having taken off her coat and carefully folded it, and began to take off her footgear. At first she untied the laces, which she had taken special care in twisting smooth for her pilgrimage; then she carefully unwrapped the white lambskin leg-rags and, carefully rubbing them soft, placed them on her wallet. Just as she was working on her other foot, another of awkward Marína's pots got caught and spilled over, and she again started to scold somebody, catching the pot with the fork.

"The hearth is evidently burned out, grandfather. It ought to be plastered," said Tíkhonovna.

"When are you going to plaster it? The chimney never cools off: twice a day you have to bake bread; one set is taken out, and the other is started."

In response to Marína's complaint about the bread-baking and the burnt-out hearth, the tailor defended the ways of the Chernýshev house and said that they had suddenly arrived in Moscow, that the hut was built and the oven put up in three weeks, and that there were nearly one hundred servants who had to be fed.

"Of course, lots of cares. A large establishment," Tíkhonovna confirmed him.

"Whence does God bring you?" the tailor turned to her.

And Tíkhonovna, continuing to take off her foot-gear, at once told him where she came from, whither she had gone, and how she was going home. She did not say anything about the petition. The conversation never broke off. The tailor found out everything about the old woman, and the old woman heard all about awkward, pretty Marína. She learned that Marína's husband was a soldier, and she was made a cook; that the tailor was making caftans for the driving coachmen; that the stewardess's errand girl was an orphan, and that shaggy-haired, gloomy Pankrát was a servant of the clerk, Iván Vasílevich.

Pankrát left the room, slamming the door. The tailor told her that he was a gruff peasant, but that on that day he was particularly rude because the day before he had smashed the clerk's knickknacks on the window, and that he was going to be flogged to-day in the stable. As soon as Iván Vasílevich should come, he would be flogged. The little coachman was a peasant lad, who had been made an outrider, and now that he was grown he had nothing to do but attend to the horses, and strum the balaláyka. But he was not much of a hand at it.

ON POPULAR EDUCATION

1875

ON POPULAR EDUCATION

I suppose each of us has had more than one occasion to come in contact with monstrous, senseless phenomena, and to find back of these phenomena put forward some important principle, which overshadowed those phenomena, so that in our youthful and even maturer years we began to doubt whether it was true that those phenomena were monstrous, and whether we were not mistaken. And having been unable to convince ourselves that monstrous phenomena might be good, or that the protection of an important principle was illegitimate, or that the principle was only a word, we remained in regard to those phenomena in an ambiguous, undecided condition.

In such a state I was, and I assume many of us are, in respect to the principle of "development" which obfuscates pedagogy, in its connection with the rudiments. But popular education is too near to my heart, and I have busied myself too much with it, to remain too long in indecision. The monstrous phenomena of the imaginary development I could not call good, nor could I be persuaded that the development of the pupil was bad, and so I began to inquire what that development was. I do not consider it superfluous to communicate the deductions to which I have been led during the study of this matter.

To define what is understood by the word "development," I shall take the manuals of Messrs. Bunákov and Evtushévski, as being new works, which combine all the latest deductions of German pedagogy, intended as guides for the teachers in the popular schools, and selected by the advocates of the sound method as manuals in their schools.

In discussing what is to form the foundation for a choice of this or that method for the teaching of reading, Mr. Bunákov says:

"No, an opinion about the method of construction based on such near-sighted and flimsy foundations (that is, on experience) will be too doubtful. Only the theoretical substratum, based on the study of human nature, can make the judgments in this sphere firm and independent of all casualties, and to a considerable degree guard them against gross errors. Consequently for the final choice of the best method of teaching the rudiments, it is necessary first of all to stand on theoretic soil, on the basis of previous considerations, the general conditions of which give to this or that method the actual right to be called satisfactory from the pedagogical standpoint. These conditions are: (1) It has to be a method which is capable of developing the child's mental powers, so that the acquisition of the rudiments may be obtained together with the development and the strengthening of the reasoning powers. (2) It must introduce into the instruction the child's personal interest, so that the matter be furthered by this interest, and not by dulling violence. (3) It must represent in itself the process of self-instruction, inciting, supporting, and directing the child's self-activity. (4) It must be based on the impressions of hearing, as of the sense which serves for the acquisition of language. (5) It has to combine analysis with synthesis, beginning with the dismemberment of the complex whole into simple principles, and passing over to the composition of a complex whole out of the simple principles."

So this is what the method of instruction is to be based upon. I will remark, not for contradiction, but for the sake of simplicity and clearness, that the last two statements are quite superfluous, because without the union of analysis and synthesis there can be not only no instruction, but also no other activity of the mind, and every instruction, except that of the deaf and dumb, is based on the sense of hearing. These two conditions are put down only for beauty's sake and for the obscuration of the style, so common in pedagogical treatises, and so have no meaning whatever. The first three at first sight appear quite true as a programme. Everybody, of course, would like to know how the method is secured that will "develop," that will "introduce into the instruction the pupil's personal interest," and that will "represent the process of self-instruction."

But to the questions as to why this method combines all those qualities you will find an answer neither in the books of Messrs. Bunákov and Evtushévski, nor in any other pedagogical work of the founders of this school of pedagogy, unless they be those hazy discussions of this nature, such as that every instruction must be based on the union of analysis and synthesis, and by all means on the sense of hearing, and so forth; or you will find, as in Mr. Evtushévski's book, expositions about how in man are formed impressions, sensations, representations, and concepts, and you will find the rule that "it is necessary to start from the object and lead the pupil up to the idea, and not start with the idea, which has no point of contact in his consciousness," and so forth. After such discussions there always follows the conclusion that therefore the method advocated by the pedagogue gives that exclusive real development which it was necessary to find.

After the above-cited definition of what a good method ought to be, Mr. Bunákov explains how children ought to be educated, and, having given an exposition of all the methods, which in my opinion and experience lead to results which are diametrically opposite to development, he says frankly and definitely:

"From the standpoint of the above-mentioned fundamental principles for estimating the value of the satisfactoriness of the methods of rudimentary instruction, the method which we have just elucidated in its general features presents the following plastic qualities and peculiarities: (1) As a sound method it wholly preserves the characteristic peculiarities of all sound method,--it starts from the impressions of hearing, at once establishing the regular relation to language, and only later adds to them the impressions of sight, thus clearly distinguishing sound, matter, and the letter, its representation. (2) As a method which unites reading with writing it begins with decomposition and passes over to composition, combining analysis with synthesis. (3) As a method which passes over to the study of words and sounds from the study of objects it proceeds along a natural path, coöperates with the regular formation of concepts and ideas, and acts in a developing way on all the sides of the child's nature: it incites the children to be observant, to group their observations, to render them orally; it develops the external senses, mind, imagination, memory, the gift of speech, concentration, self-activity, the habit of work, the respect for order. (4) As a method which provides ample work to all the mental powers of the child, it introduces into instruction the personal interest, rousing in children willingness and love of work, and transforming it into a process of self-instruction."

This is precisely what Mr. Evtushévski does; but why it is all so remains inexplicable to him who is looking for actual reasons and does not become entangled in such words as psychology, didactics, methodics, heuristics. I advise all those who have no inclination for philosophy and therefore have no desire to verify all those deductions of the pedagogues not to be embarrassed by these words and to be assured that a thing which is not clear cannot be the basis of anything, least of all of such an important and simple thing as popular education.

All the pedagogues of this school, especially the Germans, the founders of the school, start with the false idea that those philosophical questions which have remained as questions for all the philosophers from Plato to Kant, have been definitely settled by them. They are settled so definitely that the process of the acquisition by man of impressions, sensations, concepts, ratiocinations, has been analyzed by them down to its minutest details, and the component parts of what we call the soul or the essence of man have been dissected and divided into parts by them, and that, too, in such a thorough manner that on this firm basis can go up the faultless structure of the science of pedagogy. This fancy is so strange that I do not regard it as necessary to contradict it, more especially as I have done so in my former pedagogical essays. All I will say is that those philosophical considerations which the pedagogues of this school put at the basis of their theory not only fail to be absolutely correct, not only have nothing in common with real philosophy, but even lack a clear, definite expression with which the majority of the pedagogues might agree.

But, perchance, the theory of the pedagogues of the new school, in spite of its unsuccessful references to philosophy, has some value in itself. And so we will examine it, to see what it consists in. Mr. Bunákov says:

"To these little savages (that is, the pupils) must be imparted the main order of school instruction, and into their consciousness must be introduced such initial concepts as they will have to come in contact with from the start, during the first lessons of drawing, reading, writing, and every elementary instruction, such as: the right side and the left, to the right--to the left, up--down, near by--around, in front--in back, close by--in the distance, before--behind, above--below, fast--slow, softly--aloud, and so forth. No matter how simple these concepts may be, I know from practice that even city children, from well-to-do families, are frequently, when they come to the elementary schools, unable to distinguish the right side from the left. I assume that there is no need of expatiating on the necessity of explaining such concepts to village children, for any one who has had to deal with village schools knows this as well as I do."

And Mr. Evtushévski says:

"Without entering into the broad field of the debatable question about the innate ability of man, we only see that the child can have no innate concepts and ideas about real things,--they have to be formed, and on the skill with which they are formed by the educator and teacher depends both their regularity and their permanency. In watching the development of the child's soul one has to be much more cautious than in attending to his body. If the food for the body and the various bodily exercises are carefully chosen both as regards their quantity and their quality, in conformity with the man's growth, so much more cautious have we to be in the choice of food and exercises for the mind. A badly placed foundation will precariously support what is fastened to it."

Mr. Bunákov advises that ideas be imparted as follows:

"The teacher may begin a conversation such as he deems fit: one will ask every pupil for his name; another about what is going on outside; a third about where each comes from, where he lives, what is going on at home,--and then he may pass over to the main subject. 'Where are you sitting now? Why did you come here? What are we going to do in this room? Yes, we are going to study in this room,--so let us call it a class-room. See what there is under your feet, below you. Look, but do not say anything. The one I will tell to speak shall answer. Tell me, what do you see under your feet? Repeat everything we have found out and have said about this room: in what room are we sitting? What are the parts of the room? What is there on the walls? What is standing on the floor?'

"The teacher from the start establishes the order which is necessary for the success of his work: each pupil is to answer only when asked to do so; all the others are to listen and should be able to repeat the words of the teacher and of their companions; the desire to answer, when the teacher directs a question to everybody, is to be expressed by raising the left hand; the words are to be pronounced neither in a hurry, nor by drawing them out, but loudly, distinctly, and correctly. To obtain this latter result the teacher gives them a living example by his loud, correct, distinct enunciation, showing them in practice the difference between soft and loud, distinct and correct, slow and fast. The teacher should see to it that all the children take part in the work, by having somebody's question answered or repeated, now by one, now by another, and now by the whole class at once, but especially by rousing the indifferent, inattentive, and playful children: the first he must enliven by frequent questions, the second he must cause to concentrate themselves on the subject of the common work, and the third he must curb. During the first period the children ought to answer in full, that is, by repeating the question: 'We are sitting in the class-room' (and not in brief, 'In the class-room'); 'Above, over my head, I see the ceiling;' 'On the left I see three windows,' and so forth."

Mr. Evtushévski advises that in this way be begun all the lessons on numbers from 1 to 10, of which there are to be 120, and which are to be continued through the year.

"One. The teacher shows the pupils a cube, and asks: 'How many cubes have I?' and taking several cubes into the other hand, he asks, 'And how many are there here?'--'Many, a few.'

"'Name here in the class-room an object of which there are several.'--'Bench, window, wall, copy-book, pencil, slate-pencil, pupil, and so forth.'--'Name an object of which there is only one in the class-room.'--'The blackboard, stove, door, ceiling, floor, picture, teacher, and so forth.'--'If I put this cube away in my pocket, how many cubes will there be left in my hand?'--'Not one.'--'And how many must I again put into my hand, to have as many as before?'--'One.'--'What is meant by saying that Pétya fell down once? How many times did Pétya fall? Did he fall another time? Why does it say once?'--'Because we are speaking only of one case and not of another case.'--'Take your slates (or copy-books). Make on them a line of this size.' (The teacher draws on the blackboard a line two or four inches in length, or shows on the ruler that length.) 'Rub it off. How many lines are left?'--'Not one.'--'Draw several such lines.' It would be unnatural to invent any other exercises in order to acquaint the children with number one. It suffices to rouse in them that conception of unity which they, no doubt, had previous to their school instruction."

Then Mr. Bunákov speaks of exercises on the board, and so on, and Mr. Evtushévski of the number four with its decomposition. Before examining the theory itself of the transmission of ideas, the question involuntarily arises whether that theory is not mistaken in its very problem. Has the condition of the pedagogical material with which it has to do been correctly defined? The first thing that startles us is the strange relation to some imaginary children, to such as I, at least, have never seen in the Russian Empire. The conversations, and the information which they impart, refer to children of less than two years of age, because two-year-old children know all that is contained in them, but as to the questions which have to be asked, they have reference to parrots. Any pupil of six, seven, eight, or nine years will not understand a thing in these questions, because he knows all about that, and cannot make out what it all means. The demands for such conversations evince either complete ignorance, or a desire to ignore that degree of development on which the pupils stand.

Maybe the children of Hottentots and negroes, or some German children, do not know what is imparted to them in such conversations, but Russian children, except demented ones, all those who come to a school, not only know what is up and what down, what is a bench and what a table, what is two and what one, and so forth, but, in my experience, the peasant children who are sent to school by their parents can every one of them express their thoughts well and correctly, can understand another person's thought (if it is expressed in Russian), and can count to twenty and more; playing with knuckle-bones they count in pairs and sixes, and they know how many points and pairs there are in a six. Frequently the pupils who came to my school brought with them the problem with the geese, and explained it to me. But even if we admit that children possess no such conceptions as those the pedagogues want to impart to them by means of conversations, I do not find the method chosen by them to be correct.

Thus, for example, Mr. Bunákov has written a reader. This book is to be used in conjunction with the conversations to teach the children language. I have run through the book and have found it to be a series of bad language blunders, wherever extracts from other books are not quoted. The same complete ignorance of language I have found in Mr. Evtushévski's problems. Mr. Evtushévski wants to give ideas by means of problems. First of all he ought to have seen to it that the tool for the transmission of ideas, that is, the language, was correct.

What has been mentioned here refers to the form in which the development is imparted. Let us look at the contents themselves. Mr. Bunákov proposes the following questions to be put to the children: "Where can you see cats? where a magpie? where sand? where a wasp and a suslik? what are a suslik and a magpie and a cat covered with, and what are the parts of their bodies?" (The suslik is a favourite animal of pedagogy, no doubt because not one peasant child in the centre of Russia knows that word.)

"Naturally the teacher does not always put these questions straight to the children, as forming the predetermined programme of the lesson; more frequently the small and undeveloped children have to be led up to the solution of the question of the programme by a series of suggestive questions, by directing their attention to the side of the subject which is more correct at the given moment, or by inciting them to recall something from their previous observations. Thus the teacher need not put the question directly: 'Where can a wasp be seen?' but, turning to this or that pupil, he may ask him whether he has seen a wasp, where he has seen it, and then only, combining the replies of several pupils, compose an answer to the first question of his programme. In answering the teacher's questions, the children will often connect several remarks that have no direct relation to the matter; for example, when the question is about what the parts of a magpie are, one may say irrelevantly that a magpie jumps, another that it chatters funnily, a third that it steals things,--let them add and give utterance to everything that arises in their memory or imagination,--it is the teacher's business to concentrate their attention in accordance with the programme, and these remarks and additions of the children he should take notice of for the purpose of elaborating the other parts of the programme. In viewing a new subject, the children at every convenient opportunity return to the subjects which have already been under consideration. Since they have observed that a magpie is covered with feathers, the teacher asks: 'Is the suslik also covered with feathers? What is it covered with? And what is a chicken covered with? and a horse? and a lizard?' When they have observed that a magpie has two legs, the teacher asks: 'How many legs has a dog? and a fox? and a chicken? and a wasp? What other animals do you know with two legs? with four? with six?'"

Involuntarily the question arises: Do the children know, or do they not know, what is so well explained to them in these conversations? If the pupils know it all, then, upon occasion, in the street or at home, where they do not need to raise their left hands, they will certainly be able to tell it in more beautiful and more correct Russian than they are ordered to do. They will certainly not say that a horse is "covered" with wool; if so, why are they compelled to repeat these questions just as the teacher has put them? But if they do not know them (which is not to be admitted except as regards the suslik), the question arises: by what will the teacher be guided in what is with so much unction called the programme of questions,--by the science of zoology, or by logic? or by the science of eloquence? But if by none of the sciences, and merely by the desire to talk about what is visible in the objects, there are so many visible things in objects, and they are so diversified, that a guiding thread is needed to show what to talk upon, whereas in objective instruction there is no such thread, and there can be none.

All human knowledge is subdivided for the purpose that it may more conveniently be gathered, united, and transmitted, and these subdivisions are called sciences. But outside their scientific classifications you may talk about objects anything you please, and you may say all the nonsense imaginable, as we actually see. In any case, the result of the conversation will be that the children are either made to learn by heart the teacher's words about the suslik, or to change their own words, place them in a certain order (not always a correct order), and to memorize and repeat them. For this reason all the manuals of this kind, in general all the exercises of development, suffer on the one hand from absolute arbitrariness, and on the other from superfluity. For example, in Mr. Bunákov's book the only story which, it seems, is not copied from another author, is the following:

"A peasant complained to a hunter about his trouble: a fox had carried off several of his chickens and one duck; the fox was not in the least afraid of watch-dog Dandy, who was chained up and kept barking all night long; in the morning he had placed a trap with a piece of roast meat in the fresh tracks on the snow,--evidently the red-haired sneak was disporting near the house, but he did not go into the trap. The hunter listened to what the peasant had to say to him, and said: 'Very well; now we will see who will be shrewder!' The hunter walked all day with his gun and with his dog, over the tracks of the fox, to discover how he found his way into the yard. In the daytime the sneak sleeps in his lair, and knows nothing of what is going on, so that had to be considered: on its path the hunter dug a hole and covered it with boards, dirt, and snow; a few steps from it he put down a piece of horseflesh. In the evening he seated himself with a loaded gun in his ambush, fixed things in such a way that he could see everything and shoot comfortably, and there he waited. It grew dark. The moon swam out. Cautiously, looking around and listening, the fox crept out of his lair, raised his nose, and sniffed. He at once smelled the odour of horseflesh, and ran at a slow trot to the place, and suddenly stopped and pricked his ears: the shrewd one saw that there was a mound there which had not been in that spot the previous evening. This mound apparently vexed him, and made him think; he took a large circle around it, and sniffed and listened, and sat down, and for a long time looked at the meat from a distance, so that the hunter could not shoot him,--it was too far. The fox thought and thought, and suddenly ran at full speed between the meat and the mound. Our hunter was careful, and did not shoot. He knew that the sneak was merely trying to find out whether anybody was sitting behind that mound; if he had shot at the running fox, he would certainly have missed him, and then he would not have seen the sneak, any more than he could see his own ears. Now the fox quieted down,--the mound no longer disturbed him: he walked briskly up to the meat, and ate it with great delight. Then the hunter aimed carefully, without haste, so that he might not miss him. Bang! The fox jumped up from pain and fell down dead."

Everything is arbitrary here: it is an arbitrary invention to say that a fox could carry off a peasant's duck in winter, that peasants trap foxes, that a fox sleeps in the daytime in his lair (for he sleeps only at night); arbitrary is that hole which is uselessly dug in winter and covered with boards without being made use of; arbitrary is the statement that the fox eats horseflesh, which he never does; arbitrary is the supposed cunning of the fox, who runs past the hunter; arbitrary are the mound and the hunter, who does not shoot for fear of missing, that is, everything, from beginning to end, is bosh, for which any peasant boy might arraign the author of the story, if he could talk without raising his hand.

Then a whole series of so-called exercises in Mr. Bunákov's lessons is composed of such questions as: "Who bakes? Who chops? Who shoots?" to which the pupil is supposed to answer: "The baker, the wood-chopper, and the marksmen," whereas he might just as correctly answer that the woman bakes, the axe chops, and the teacher shoots, if he has a gun. Another arbitrary statement in that book is that the throat is a part of the mouth, and so on.

All the other exercises, such as "The ducks fly, and the dogs?" or "The linden and birch are trees, and the horse?" are quite superfluous. Besides, it must be observed that if such conversations are really carried on with the pupils (which never happens) that is, if the pupils are permitted to speak and ask questions, the teacher, choosing simple subjects (they are most difficult), is at each step perplexed, partly through ignorance, and partly because _ein Narr kann mehr fragen, als zehn Weise antworten_.

Exactly the same takes place in the instruction of arithmetic, which is based on the same pedagogical principle. Either the pupils are informed in the same way of what they already know, or they are quite arbitrarily informed of combinations of a certain character that are not based on anything. The lesson mentioned above and all the other lessons up to ten are merely information about what the children already know. If they frequently do not answer questions of that kind, this is due to the fact that the question is either wrongly expressed in itself, or wrongly expressed as regards the children. The difficulty which the children encounter in answering a question of that character is due to the same cause which makes it impossible for the average boy to answer the question: Three sons were to Noah,[1]--Shem, Ham, and Japheth,--who was their father? The difficulty is not mathematical, but syntactical, which is due to the fact that in the statement of the problem and in the question there is not one and the same subject; but when to the syntactical difficulty there is added the awkwardness of the proposer of the problems in expressing himself in Russian, the matter becomes of greater difficulty still to the pupil; but the trouble is no longer mathematical.

[Footnote 1: The Russian way of saying "Noah had three sons."]

Let anybody understand at once Mr. Evtushévski's problem: "A certain boy had four nuts, another had five. The second boy gave all his nuts to the first, and this one gave three nuts to a third, and the rest he distributed equally to three other friends. How many nuts did each of the last get?" Express the problem as follows: "A boy had four nuts. He was given five more. He gave away three nuts, and the rest he wants to give to three friends. How many can he give to each?" and a child of five years of age will solve it. There is no problem here at all, but the difficulty may arise only from a wrong statement of the problem, or from a weak memory. And it is this syntactical difficulty, which the children overcome by long and difficult exercises, that gives the teacher cause to think that, teaching the children what they know already, he is teaching them anything at all. Just as arbitrarily are the children taught combinations in arithmetic and the decomposition of numbers according to a certain method and order, which have their foundation only in the fancy of the teacher. Mr. Evtushévski says:

"Four. (1) The formation of the number. On the upper border of the board the teacher places three cubes together--I I I. How many cubes are there here? Then a fourth cube is added. And how many are there now? I I I I. How are four cubes formed from three and one? We have to add one cube to the three.

"(2) Decomposition into component parts. How can four cubes be formed? or, How can four cubes be broken up? Four cubes may be broken up into two and two: II + II. Four cubes may be formed from one, and one, and one, and one more, or by taking four times one cube: I + I + I + I. Four cubes may be broken up into three and one: III + I. It may be formed from one, and one, and two: I + I + II. Can four cubes be put together in any other way? The pupils convince themselves that there can be no other decomposition, distinct from those already given. If the pupils begin to break the four cubes in this way: one, two, and one, or, two, one and one; or, one and three, the teacher will easily point out to them that these decompositions are only repetitions of what has been got before, only in a different order.

"Every time, whenever the pupils indicate a new method of decomposition, the teacher places the cubes on a ledge of the blackboard in the manner here indicated. Thus there will be four cubes on the upper ledge; two and two in a second place; in a third place the four cubes will be separated at some distance from each other; in a fourth place, three and one, and in a fifth one, one, and two.