forty tiny peasants that formed my school (I call them tiny peasants
because I found in them the same characteristics of perspicacity, the
same immense store of information from practical life, of jocularity,
simplicity, and loathing for everything false, which distinguish the
Russian peasant), when I saw that susceptibility, that readiness to
acquire the information which they needed, I felt at once that the
antiquated church method of instruction had outlived its usefulness and
was not good for them. I began to experiment on other proposed methods
of instruction; but, because compulsion in education, both by my
conviction and by my character, are repulsive to me, I did not exercise
any pressure, and, the moment I noticed that something was not readily
received, I did not compel them, and looked for something else. From
these experiments it appeared to me and to those teachers who instructed
with me at Yásnaya Polyána and in other schools on the same principle of
freedom, that nearly everything which in the pedagogical world was
written about schools was separated by an immeasurable abyss from
reality, and that many of the proposed methods, such as object-lessons,
the natural sciences, the sound method, and others, called forth
contempt and ridicule, and were not accepted by the pupils. We began to
look for those contents and those methods which were readily taken up by
the pupils, and struck that which forms my method of instruction.
But this method stood in a line with all other methods, and the question
of why it was better than the rest remained as unsolved as before.
Consequently, the question of what the criterion was as to what to teach
and how to teach received an even greater meaning for me; only by
solving it could I be convinced that what I taught was neither injurious
nor useless. This question both then and now has appeared to me as a
corner-stone of the whole pedagogy, and to the solution of this question
I devoted the publication of the pedagogical periodical _Yásnaya
Polyána_. In several articles (I do not renounce anything I then said) I
tried to put the question in all its significance and to solve it as
much as I could. At that time I found no sympathy in all the pedagogical
literature, not even any contradiction, but the most complete
indifference to the question which I put. There were some attacks on
certain details and trifles, but the question itself evidently did not
interest any one. I was young then, and that indifference grieved me. I
did not understand that with my question, "How do you know what to teach
and how to teach?" I was like a man who, let us say, in a gathering of
Turkish pashas discussing the question in what manner they may collect
the greatest revenue from the people, should propose to them the
following: "Gentlemen, in order to know how much revenue to collect from
each, we must first analyze the question on what your right to exact
that revenue is based." Obviously all the pashas would continue their
discussion of the measures of extortion, and would reply only with
silence to his irrelevant question. But the question cannot be
circumvented. Fifteen years ago no attention was paid to it, and the
pedagogues of every school, convinced that everybody else was talking to
the wind and that they were right, most calmly prescribed their laws,
basing their principles on philosophies of a very doubtful character,
which they used as a substratum for their wee little theories.
And yet, this question is not quite so difficult if we only renounce
completely all preconceived notions. I have tried to elucidate and solve
this question, and, without repeating those proofs, which he who wishes
may read in the article, I will enunciate the results to which I was
led. "The only criterion of pedagogy is freedom, the only
method--experience." After fifteen years I have not changed my opinion
one hair's breadth; but I consider it necessary to define with greater
precision what I understand by these words, not only in respect to
education in general, but also in respect to the particular question of
popular education in a primary school. One hundred years ago the
question what to teach and how to teach could have had no place either
in Europe or with us. Education was inseparably connected with religion.
To learn reading meant to learn Holy Writ. In the Mohammedan countries
this relation of the rudiments and religion still persists in its full
force. To learn means to learn the Koran, and, therefore, Arabic. But
the moment religion ceased to be the criterion of what ought to be
taught, and the school became independent of it, this question had to
arise. But it did not arise because the school was not suddenly freed
from its dependence on religion, but by imperceptible steps. Now it is
accepted by everybody that religion cannot serve as the contents, nor as
an indication of the method of education, and that education has
different demands for its basis. In what do these demands consist? On
what are they based? In order that these principles should be
incontrovertible, it is necessary either that they be proved
philosophically, incontrovertibly, or that, at least, all educated
people should be agreed on them. But is it so? There can be no doubt
whatsoever about this, that in philosophy have not been found those
principles on which could be built up the decision of what ought to be
taught, the more so since the matter itself is not an abstract, but a
practical affair, which depends on an endless number of vital
conditions. Still less can these principles be discovered in the common
consent of all men who busy themselves with this matter, in the consent
which we may take as a practical foundation, as an expression of the
universal common sense. Not only in matters of popular, but even of
higher education do we see a complete diversity of opinions among the
best representatives of education, as, for example, in the question of
classicism and realism. And yet, in spite of the absence of any
foundations, we see education proceeding on its own path and on the
whole being guided by only one principle, namely by freedom. There exist
side by side the classical and the real school, each of which is
prepared to regard itself as the only natural school, and both satisfy
some want, for parents send their children to either.
In the popular school the right to determine what the children shall
learn, no matter from what standpoint we may consider this question,
belongs just as much to the masses, that is, either to the pupils
themselves, or to the parents who send the children to school, and so
the answer to the question what the children are to be taught in a
popular school can be got only from the masses. But, perhaps, we shall
say that we, as highly cultured people, must not submit to the demands
of the rude masses and that we must teach the masses what to wish. Thus
many think, but to that I can give this one answer: give us a firm,
incontrovertible foundation why this or that is chosen by you, show me a
society in which the two diametrically opposed views on education do not
exist among the highly cultured people; where it is not eternally
repeated that if education falls into the hands of the clergy, the
masses are educated in one sense, and if education falls into the hands
of the progressists, the people are educated in another sense,--show me
a state of society where that does not exist, and I will agree with you.
So long as that does not exist, there is no criterion except the freedom
of the learner, where, in matters of the popular school, the place of
the learning children is taken by their parents, that is, by the needs
of the masses.
These needs are not only definite, quite clear, and everywhere the same
throughout Russia, but also so intelligent and broad that they include
all the most diversified demands of the people who are debating what the
masses ought to be taught. These needs are: the knowledge of Russian and
Church-Slavic reading, and calculation. The masses everywhere and always
regard the natural sciences as useless trifles. Their programme is
remarkable not only by its unanimity and firm definiteness, but, in my
opinion, also by the breadth of its demands and the correctness of its
view. The masses admit two spheres of knowledge, the most exact and the
least subject to vacillation from a diversity of views,--the languages
and mathematics; everything else they regard as trifles. I think that
the masses are quite correct,--in the first place, because in this
knowledge there can be no half information, no falseness, which they
cannot bear, and, in the second, because the sphere of those two kinds
of knowledge is immense. Russian and Church-Slavic grammar and
calculation, that is, the knowledge of one dead and one living language,
with their etymological and syntactical forms and their literatures, and
arithmetic, that is, the foundation of all mathematics, form their
programme of knowledge, which, unfortunately, but the rarest of the
cultured class possess. In the third place, the masses are right,
because by this programme they will be taught in the primary school only
what will open to them the more advanced paths of knowledge, for it is
evident that the thorough knowledge of two languages and their forms,
and, in addition to them, of arithmetic, completely opens the paths to
an independent acquisition of all other knowledge. The masses, as though
feeling the false relation to them, when they are offered incoherent
scraps of all kinds of information, repel that lie from themselves, and
say: "I need know but this much,--the church language and my own and the
laws of the numbers, but that other knowledge I will take myself if I
want it."
Thus, if we admit freedom as the criterion of what is to be taught, the
programme of the popular schools is clearly and firmly defined, until
the time when the masses shall express some new demands. Church-Slavic
and Russian and arithmetic to their highest possible stages, and nothing
else but that. That is the determination of the limits of the programme
of the popular school, which, however, does not presume that all three
subjects be introduced systematically. With such a programme the
attainment of symmetrical results in all three subjects would naturally
be desirable; but it cannot be said that the predominance of one subject
over another would be injurious. The problem consists only in keeping
within the limits of the programme. It may happen that from the demands
of the parents, and especially from the knowledge of the teacher, this
or that subject will be more prominent,--with a clerical person the
Church-Slavic language, with a teacher from a county school--either
Russian or arithmetic; in all these cases the demands of the masses will
be satisfied, and the instruction will not depart from its fundamental
criterion.
The second part of the question, how to teach, that is, how to discover
which method is the best, has remained just as unsolved.
Just as in the first part of the question of what to teach, the
assumption that on the basis of reflections it is possible to build a
programme of instruction leads to contradictory schools, so it is also
with the question as to how to teach. Let us take the very first
stage of the teaching of reading. One asserts that it is easier to
teach so from cards; another--according to the _b_, _v_ system; a
third--according to Korf; a fourth--according to the _be_, _ve_, _ge_
system, and so forth. It is said that the nuns teach reading in six
weeks by the _buki-az_--_ba_ system. And every teacher, convinced of the
superiority of his method, proves this superiority either by the fact
that he teaches with it faster than others, or by reflections of the
character which Mr. Bunákov and the German pedagogues adduce. At the
present time, when there are thousands of examples, we ought to know
precisely by what to be guided in our choice. Neither theory, nor
reflections, nor even the results of instruction can show this
completely.
Education and instruction are generally considered in the abstract, that
is, the question is discussed how in the best and easiest manner to
produce a certain act of instruction on a certain subject (whether it be
one child or a mass of children). This view is quite faulty. All
education and instruction can be viewed only as a certain relation of
two persons or of two groups of persons having for their aim education
or instruction. This definition, more general than all the other
definitions, has special reference to popular education, where the
question is the education of an immense number of persons, and where
there can be no question about an ideal education. In general, with the
popular education we cannot put the question, "How is the best education
to be given?" just as with the question of the nutrition of the masses
we cannot ask how the most nutritious and best loaf is to be baked. The
question has to be put like this: "How is the best relation to be
established between given people who want to learn and others who want
to teach?" or, "How is the best bread to be made from given bolted
flour?" Consequently the question of how to teach and what is the best
method is a question of what will be the best relation between teacher
and pupil.
Nobody, I suppose, will deny that the best relation between teacher and
pupil is that of naturalness, and that the contrary relation is that of
compulsion. If so, the measure of all methods is to be found in the
greater or lesser naturalness of relations and, therefore, in the lesser
or greater compulsion in instruction. The less the children are
compelled to learn, the better is the method; the more--the worse. I am
glad that I do not have to prove this evident truth. Everybody is agreed
that just as in hygiene the use of any food, medicine, exercise, that
provokes loathing or pain, cannot be useful, so also in instruction can
there be no necessity of compelling children to learn anything that is
tiresome and repulsive to them, and that, if necessity demands that
children be compelled, it only proves the imperfection of the method.
Any one who has taught children has no doubt observed that the less the
teacher himself knows the subject which he teaches and the less he likes
it, the more will he have to have recourse to severity and compulsion;
on the contrary, the more the teacher knows and loves his subject, the
more natural and easy will his instruction be. With the idea that for
successful instruction not compulsion is wanted, but the rousing of the
pupil's interest, all the pedagogues of the school which is opposed to
me agree. The only difference between us is that the conception that the
teaching must rouse the child's interest is with them lost in a mass of
other conflicting notions about "development," of the value of which
they are convinced and in which they exercise compulsion; whereas I
consider the rousing of the pupil's interest, the greatest possible
ease, and, therefore, the non-compulsion and naturalness of instruction
as the fundamental and only measure of good and bad instruction.
Every progress of pedagogy, if we attentively consider the history of
this matter, consists in an ever increasing approximation toward
naturalness of relations between teacher and pupil, in a lessened
compulsion, and in a greater ease of instruction.
The objection was formerly made and, I know, is made even now that it is
hard to find the limit of freedom which shall be permitted in school. To
this I will reply that this limit is naturally determined by the
teacher, his knowledge, his ability to manage the school; that this
freedom cannot be prescribed; the measure of this freedom is only the
result of the greater or lesser knowledge and talent of the teacher.
This freedom is not a rule, but serves as a check in comparing schools
between themselves, and as a check in comparing new methods which are
introduced into the school curriculum. The school in which there is less
compulsion is better than the one in which there is more. The method
which at its introduction into the school does not demand an increase of
discipline is good; but the one which demands greater severity is
certainly bad. Take, for example, a more or less free school, such as
mine was, and try to start a conversation in it about the table and the
ceiling, or to transpose cubes,--you will see what it hubbub will arise
in the school and how you will feel the necessity of restoring order by
means of severity; try to tell them an interesting story, or to give
them problems, or make one write on the board and let the others correct
his mistakes, and allow them to leave the benches, and you will find
them all occupied and there will be no naughtiness, and you will not
have to increase your severity,--and you may safely say that the method
is good.
In my pedagogical articles I have given theoretical reasons why I find
that only the freedom of choice on the side of the learners as to what
they are to be taught and how can form a foundation of any instruction;
in practice I have always applied these rules in the schools under my
guidance, at first on a large scale, and later in narrower limits, and
the results have always been very good, both for the teachers and the
pupils, as also for the evolution of new methods,--and this I assert
boldly, for hundreds of visitors have come to the Yásnaya Polyána school
and know all about it.
The consequences of such a relation to the pupils has been for the
teachers that they did not consider that method best which they knew,
but tried to discover other methods, became acquainted with other
teachers for the purpose of learning their methods, tested new methods,
and, above all, were learning something all the time. A teacher never
permitted himself to think that in cases of failure it was the pupils'
fault,--their laziness, playfulness, dulness, deafness, stammering,--but
was firmly convinced that he alone was to blame for it, and for every
failure of a pupil or of all the pupils he tried to find a remedy. For
the pupils the result was that they learned readily, always begged the
teachers to give them evening classes in the winter, and were absolutely
free in the school,--which, in my conviction and experience, is the
chief condition for successful progress in instruction. Between teachers
and pupils there were always established friendly, natural relations,
with which alone it is possible for the teacher to know his pupils well.
If, from a first, external impression of the school, we were to
determine the difference between the church, the German, and my own
school, it would be this: in a church school you hear a peculiar,
unnatural, monotonous shouting of all the pupils and now and then the
stern cries of the teacher; in the German school you hear only the
teacher's voice and now and then the timid voices of the pupils; in mine
you hear the loud voices of the teachers and the pupils, almost
simultaneously.
As for the methods of instruction the consequences were that not one
method of instruction was adopted or rejected because it was liked or
not, but only because it was accepted or not by the pupils without
compulsion. But in addition to the good results which were always
obtained without fail from the application of my method by myself and by
everybody else (more than twenty teachers), who taught according to my
method ("without fail" I say for the reason that not once did we have a
pupil who did not learn the rudiments), besides these results, the
application of the principles of which I have spoken had the effect that
during these fifteen years all the various modifications, to which my
method was subjected, not only did not remove it from the needs of the
masses, but, on the contrary, brought it nearer and nearer to them. The
masses, at least in our parts, know the method itself and discuss it,
and prefer it to the church method, which I cannot say of the sound
method. In the schools which are conducted according to my method the
teacher cannot remain motionless in his knowledge, such as he is and
must be with the method of sounds. If a teacher according to the new
German fashion wants to go ahead and perfect himself, he has to follow
the pedagogical literature, that is, to read all those new inventions
about the conversations about the suslik and about the transposition of
the squares. I do not think that that can promote his personal
education. On the contrary, in my school, where the subjects of
instruction, language and mathematics, demand positive knowledge, every
teacher, in advancing his pupils, feels the need of learning himself,
which was constantly the case with all the teachers I had.
Besides, the methods of instruction themselves, which are not settled
once for all, but always strive to be as easy and as simple as possible,
are modified and improved from the indications which the teacher
discovers in the relations of the learners to his instruction.
The very opposite to this I see in what, unfortunately, takes place in
the schools of the German pattern, which of late have been introduced in
our country in an artificial manner. The failure to recognize that
before deciding what to teach and how to teach we must solve the
question how we can find that out has led the pedagogues to a complete
disagreement with reality, and the abyss which fifteen years ago was
felt to exist between theory and practice has now reached the farthest
limits. Now that the masses are on all sides begging for education,
while pedagogy has more than ever passed to personal fancies, this
discord has reached incredible proportions.
This discord between the demands of pedagogy and reality has of late
found its peculiarly striking expression not only in the matter of
instruction itself, but also in another very important side of the
school, namely in its administration. In order to show in what condition
this matter has been and might be, I shall speak of Krapívensk County of
the Government of Túla, in which I live, which I know, and which, from
its position, forms the type of the majority of counties of central
Russia.
In 1862 fourteen schools were opened in a district of ten thousand
souls, when I was rural judge; besides, there existed about ten schools
in the district among the clericals and in the manors among the
servants. In the three remaining districts of the county there were
fifteen large and thirty small schools among the clericals and manorial
servants. Without saying anything about the number of the learners, of
which, I assume, there were in general not less than now, nor about the
instruction itself, which was partly bad and partly good, but on the
whole not worse than at present, I will tell how and on what that
business was based.
All schools were then, with few exceptions, based on a free agreement of
the teacher with the parents of the pupils, or with the whole
partnership of the peasants paying a lump sum for everybody. Such a
relation between the parents or Communes and the teachers is even now
met with in some exceedingly rare places of our county and of the
Government in general. Everybody will agree that, leaving aside the
question of the quality of instruction, such a relation of the teacher
to the parents and peasants is most just, natural, and desirable. But,
with the introduction of the law of 1864, this relation was abolished
and is being abolished more and more. Everybody who knows the matter as
it is will observe that with the abolition of this relation the people
take less and less part in the matter of their education, which is only
natural. In some County Councils the school tax of the peasants is even
turned into the County Council, and the salary, appointment of teachers,
location of schools,--all that is done quite independently of those for
whom it is intended (in theory the peasants, no doubt, are members of
the County Council, but in practice they have through this mediation no
influence on their own schools). Nobody will, I suppose, assert that
that is just, but some will say: "The illiterate peasants cannot judge
what is good and what bad, and we must build for them as well as we
can." But how do we know? Do we know firmly, are we all of one opinion,
how to build schools? And does it not frequently turn out bad, for we
have built much worse than they have?
Thus, in relation to the administrative side of the schools I have again
to put a third question, on the same basis of freedom: Why do we know
how best to arrange a school? To this question German pedagogy gives an
answer which is quite consistent with its whole system. It knows what
the best school is, it has formed a clear, definite ideal, down to the
minutest details, the benches, the hours of instruction, and so forth,
and gives an answer: the school has to be such and such, according to
this pattern,--this alone is good and every other school is injurious. I
know that, although the desire of Henry IV. to give each Frenchman soup
and a chicken was unrealizable, it was impossible to say that the desire
was false. But the matter assumes an entirely different aspect when the
soup is of a very questionable quality and is not a chicken soup, but a
worthless broth. And yet the so-called science of pedagogy is in this
matter indissolubly connected with power; both in Germany and with us
there are prescribed certain ideal one-class, two-class schools, and so
forth; and the pedagogical and the administrative powers do not wish to
know the fact that the masses would like to attend to their own
education. Let us see how such a view of popular education has been
reflected in practice on the question of education.
Beginning with the year 1862 the idea that education was necessary has
more and more spread among the masses: on all sides schools were
established by church servants, hired teachers, and the Communes.
Whether good or bad, these schools were spontaneous and grew out
directly from the needs of the masses; with the introduction of the law
of 1864 this tendency was increased, and in 1870 there were, according
to the reports, about sixty schools in Krapívensk County. Since then
officials of the ministry and members of the County Council have begun
to meddle more and more with school matters, and in Krapívensk County
forty schools have been closed and schools of a lower order have been
prohibited from being opened. I know that those who closed those schools
affirm that these schools existed only nominally and were very bad; but
I cannot believe it, because I know well-instructed pupils from three
villages, Trósna, Lamíntsovo, and Yásnaya Polyána, where schools were
closed. I also know—-and this will seem incredible to many—-what is
meant by prohibiting the opening of schools. It means that, on the basis
of a circular of the ministry of public instruction, which spoke of the
prohibition of unreliable teachers (this, no doubt, had reference to the
Nihilists), the school council transferred this prohibition to the minor
schools, taught by sextons, soldiers, and so forth, which the peasants
themselves had opened, and which, no doubt, are not at all comprised in
the circular. But, instead, there exist twenty schools with teachers,
who are supposed to be good because they receive a salary of two hundred
roubles in silver, and the County Council has distributed Ushínski's
text-books, and these schools are called one-class schools, because they
teach in them according to a programme, and the whole year around, that
is, also in summer, with the exception of July and August.
Leaving aside the question of the quality of the former schools, we
shall now take a glance at their administrative side, and we will
compare, from this side, what was before, with what is now. In the
administrative, external side of the school there are five main
subjects, which are so closely connected with the school business itself
that on their good or bad structure depend to a great extent the success
and dissemination of popular education. These five subjects are: (1) the
school building, (2) the schedule of instruction, (3) the distribution
of the schools according to localities, (4) the choice of the teacher,
and--what is most important--(5) the material means, the remuneration of
the teachers.
In regard to the school building the masses rarely have any difficulty,
when they start a school for themselves, and if the Commune is rich and
there are any communal buildings, such as a storehouse or a deserted
inn, the Commune fixes it up; if there is none, it buys a building, at
times even from a landed proprietor, or it builds one of its own. If the
Commune is not well-to-do and is small, it hires quarters from a
peasant, or establishes a rotation, and the teacher passes from hut to
hut. If the Commune, as it most generally does, selects a teacher from
its own midst, a manorial servant, a soldier, or a church servant, the
school is located at the house of that person, and the Commune looks
only after the heating. In any case, I have never heard that the
question of the location of the school ever troubled a Commune, or that
half the sum set aside for instruction should be lost, as is done by
school councils, on the buildings, nay, not even one-sixth or one-tenth
of the whole sum. The peasant Communes have arranged it one way or
another, but the question of the school building has never been regarded
as troublesome. Only under the influence of the higher authorities do
there occur cases where the Communes build brick buildings with iron
roofs. The peasants assume that the school is not in the structure, but
in the teacher, and that the school is not a permanent institution, but
that as soon as the parents have acquired knowledge, the next generation
will get the rudiments without a teacher. But the County Council
department of the ministry always assumes--since for it the whole
problem consists in inspecting and classifying--that the chief
foundation of the school is the structure and that the school is a
permanent establishment, and so, as far as I know, now spends about
one-half of its money on buildings, and inscribes empty school buildings
in the list of the schools of the third order. In the Krapívensk County
Council seven hundred roubles out of two thousand roubles are spent on
buildings. The ministerial department cannot admit that the teacher
(that educated pedagogue who is assumed for the masses) would lower
himself to such an extent as to be willing to go, like a tailor, from
hut to hut, or to teach in a smoky house. But the masses assume nothing
and only know that for their money they can hire whom they please, and
that, if they, the hiring peasants, live in smoky huts, the hired
teacher has no reason to turn up his nose at them.
In regard to the second question, about the division of the school time,
the masses have always and everywhere invariably expressed one demand,
and that is that the instruction shall be carried on in the winter only.
Everywhere the parents quit sending their children in the spring, and
those children who are left in the school, from one-fourth to one-fifth
of the whole number, are the little tots or the children of rich
parents, and they attend school unwillingly. When the masses hire a
teacher themselves, they always hire him by the month and only for the
winter. The ministerial department assumes that, just as in the
institutions of learning there are two months of vacation, so it ought
also to be in a one-class country school. From the standpoint of the
ministerial department that is quite reasonable: the children will not
forget their instruction, the teacher is provided for during the whole
year, and the inspectors find it more comfortable to travel in the
summer; but the masses know nothing about all that, and their common
sense tells them that in winter the children sleep for ten hours,
consequently their minds are fresh; that in winter there are no plays
and no work for the children, and that if they study in winter as long
as possible, taking in even the evenings, for which a lamp costing one
rouble fifty kopeks is needed and kerosene costing as much, there will
be enough instruction. Besides, in the summer every boy is of use to
the peasant, and in summer proceeds the life instruction, which is more
important than school learning. The masses say that there is no reason
why they should pay the teacher during the summer. "Rather will we
increase his pay for the winter months, and that will please him better.
We prefer to hire a teacher at twenty-five roubles a month for seven
months, than at twelve roubles a month for the whole year. For the
summer the teacher will hire himself out elsewhere."
As to the third question, the distribution of the schools according to
localities, the arrangements of the masses most markedly differ from
those of the school council. In the first place, the distribution of the
schools, that is, whether there shall be more or less of them for a
certain locality, always depends on the character of the whole
population (when the masses themselves attend to it). Wherever the
masses are more industrial and work out, where they are nearer to the
cities, where they need the rudiments,--there there are more schools;
where the locality is more removed and agricultural, there there are
fewer of them. In the second place, when the masses themselves attend to
the matter, they distribute the schools in such a way as to give all the
parents a chance to make use of the schools in return for their money,
that is, to send their children to school. The peasants of small, remote
villages of from thirty to forty souls, where half the population will
be found, prefer to have a cheap teacher in their own village, than an
expensive one in the centre of the township, whither their children
cannot walk or be driven. By this distribution of the schools, the
schools themselves, as arranged by the peasants, depart, it is true,
from the required pattern of the school, but, instead, acquire the most
diversified forms, everywhere adapting themselves to local conditions.
Here a clerical person from a neighbouring village teaches eight boys at
his house, receiving fifty kopeks a month from each. Here a small
village hires a soldier for eight roubles for the winter, and he goes
from house to house. Here a rich innkeeper hires a teacher for his
children for five roubles and board, and the neighbouring peasants join
him, by adding two roubles for each of their boys. There a large village
or a compact township levies fifteen kopeks from each of the twelve
hundred souls and hires a teacher for 180 roubles for the winter. There
the priest teaches, receiving as a remuneration either money, or labour,
or both. The chief difference in this respect between the view of the
peasants and that of the County Council is this: the peasants, according
to the more or less favourable local conditions, introduce schools of a
better or worse quality, but always in such a way that there is not a
single locality where some kind of instruction is not offered; while
with the arrangement of the County Council a large half of the
population is left outside every possibility of partaking of that
education even in the distant future.
In matters of the petty villages, forming one-half of the population,
the ministerial department acts most decisively. It says: "We provide
schools where there is a building and where the peasants of the township
have collected enough money to support a teacher at two hundred roubles.
We will contribute from the County Council what is wanting, and the
school is entered on the lists." The villages that are removed from the
school may send their children there, if they so wish. Of course, the
peasants do not take their children there, because it is too far, and
yet they pay. Thus, in the Yásenets township all pay for three schools,
but only 450 souls in three villages make use of the school, though
there are in all three thousand souls; thus, only one-seventh of the
population makes use of the school, though all pay for it. In the
Chermóshen township there are nine hundred souls and there is a school
there, but only thirty pupils attend it, because all the villages of
that township are scattered. To nine hundred souls there ought to be
four hundred pupils. And yet, both in the Yásenets and the Chermóshen
townships the question of the distribution of schools is regarded as
satisfactorily solved.
In matters of the choice of a teacher, the masses are again guided by
quite different views from the County Council. In choosing a teacher,
the masses look upon him in their own way, and judge him accordingly. If
the teacher has been in the neighbourhood, and the masses know what the
results of his teaching are, they value him according to these results
as a good or as a bad teacher; but, in addition to the scholastic
qualities, the masses demand that the teacher shall be a man who stands
in close relations to the peasant, able to understand his life and to
speak Russian, and so they will always prefer a country to a city
teacher. In doing so, the masses have no bias and no antipathy toward
any class in particular: he may be a gentleman, official, burgher,
soldier, sexton, priest,--that makes no difference so long as he is a
simple man and a Russian. For this reason the peasants have no cause for
excluding clerical persons, as the County Councils do. The County
Councils select their teachers from among strangers, getting them from
the cities, while the masses look for them among themselves. But the
chief difference in this respect between the view of the Communes and
that of the County Council consists in this: the County Council has only
one type,--the teacher who has attended pedagogical courses, who has
finished a course in a seminary or school, at two hundred roubles; but
with the masses, who do not exclude this teacher and appreciate him, if
he is good, there are gradations of all kinds of teachers. Besides, with
the majority of school councils there are definite favourite types of
teachers, for the most part such as are foreign to the masses and
antagonistic to them, and other types which the school councils
dislike. Thus, evidently, the favourite type of many counties of the
Government of Túla are lady teachers; the disliked type are the clerical
persons, and in the whole of the Túla and Krapívensk counties there is
not one school with a teacher from the clergy, which is quite remarkable
from an administrative point of view. In Krapívensk County there are
fifty parishes. The clerical persons are the cheapest of teachers,
because they are permanently settled and for the most part can teach in
their own houses with the aid of their wives and daughters,--and these
are, it seems, purposely avoided, as though they were very harmful
people.
In matters of the remuneration of the teachers, the difference between
the view of the masses and that of the County Council has almost all
been expressed in the preceding pages. It consists in this: (1) the
masses choose a teacher according to their means, and they admit and
know from experience that there are teachers at all prices, from two
puds of flour a month to thirty roubles a month; (2) teachers are to be
remunerated for the winter months, for those during which there can be
some instruction; (3) the masses, in the housing of the school as also
in matters of the remuneration of the teachers, always know how to find
a cheap way: they give flour, hay, the use of carts, eggs, and all kinds
of trifles, which are imperceptible to the world at large, but which
improve the teacher's condition; (4) above all, a teacher is paid, or is
remunerated in addition to the payment, by the parents of the pupils,
who pay by the month, or by the whole Commune which enjoys the
advantages of the school, and not by the administration that has no
direct interest in the matter.
The ministerial department cannot act differently in this respect. The
norm of the salary for a model teacher is given, consequently these
means have to be got together in some way. For example: a Commune
intends to open a school,--the township gives it a certain number of
kopeks per soul. The County Council calculates how much to add. If there
are no demands made by other schools, it gives more, sometimes twice as
much as the Commune has given; at times, when all the money has been
distributed, it gives less, or entirely refuses to give any. Thus, there
is in Krapívensk County a Commune which gives ninety roubles, and the
County Council adds to that three hundred roubles for a school with an
assistant; and there is another Commune which gives 250 roubles, and the
County Council adds another fifty roubles; and a third Commune which
offers fifty-six roubles, and the County Council refuses to add anything
or to open the school, because that money is insufficient for a normal
school, and all the money has been distributed.
Thus, the chief distinctions between the administrative view of the
masses and that of the County Council are the following: (1) the County
Council pays great attention to the housing and spends large sums upon
it, while the masses obviate this difficulty by domestic, economic
means, and look upon the primary schools as temporary, passing
institutions; (2) the ministerial department demands that instruction be
carried on during the whole year, with the exception of July and August,
and nowhere introduces evening classes, while the masses demand that
instruction be carried on only in the winter and are fond of evening
classes; (3) the ministerial department has a definite type of teachers,
without which it does not recognize the school, and has a loathing for
clerical persons and, in general, for local instructors; the masses
recognize no norm and choose their teachers preferably from local
inhabitants; (4) the ministerial department distributes the schools by
accident, that is, it is guided only by the desire of forming a normal
school, and has no care for that greater half of the population which
under such a distribution is left outside the school education; the
masses not only recognize no definite external form of the school, but
in the greatest variety of ways get teachers with all kinds of means,
arranging worse and cheaper schools with small means and good and
expensive schools with greater means, and turn their attention to
furnishing all localities with instruction in return for their money;
(5) the ministerial department determines one measure of remuneration,
which is sufficiently high, and arbitrarily increases the amount from
the County Council; the masses demand the greatest possible economy and
distribute the remuneration in such a way that those whose children are
taught pay directly.
It seems as though it would be superfluous to expatiate on how clearly
the common sense of the masses is expressed in these demands, in
contradistinction to that artificial structure, in which, at its very
birth, they are trying to imprison the business of popular education.
Even besides this, the feeling of justice is involuntarily provoked
against such an order of things. See what is taking place. The masses
have felt the necessity of education, and have begun to work in the
direction of attaining their end. In addition to all the taxes which
they pay, they have voluntarily imposed upon themselves the tax for
education, that is, they have begun to hire teachers. What have we done?
"Oh, you are able to pay," we said, "wait, then, for you are stupid and
rude. Let us have the money, and we will arrange it for you in the best
manner possible."
The masses have given up their money (as I have said, in many County
Councils the levy for the schools has been turned directly into a tax).
The money was taken, and the education was arranged for them.
I am not going to repeat about the artificiality of the education, but
how the whole matter has been arranged. In Krapívensk County there are
forty thousand souls, including girls, according to the last census.
According to Bunyakóvski's table of the distribution of ten thousand of
the Orthodox population for the year 1862, there ought to be, of the
male sex between six and fourteen years, 1,834, and of the female sex,
1,989,--in all 3,823 to each ten thousand. According to my own
observations, there ought to be more, no doubt on account of the
increase of the population, so that the average school population may
boldly be put at four thousand. In a school there are, on an average, in
the large centres, about sixty pupils, and in the smaller, from ten to
twenty-five. In order that all may receive instruction, the smaller
centres, forming the greater half of the population, need schools for
ten, fifteen, and twenty pupils, so that the average of a school, in my
opinion, would be not more than thirty pupils. How many schools are,
then, needed for sixteen thousand pupils? Divide sixteen thousand by
thirty, and we get 530 schools. Let us assume that, although at the
opening of the schools all pupils from seven to fifteen years of age
will enter, not all will attend regularly for the period of eight years;
let us reject one-fourth, that is 130 schools and, consequently, 4,200
pupils. Let us say that there are four hundred schools. Only twenty have
been opened. The County Council gives two thousand roubles and has added
one thousand roubles, making in all three thousand roubles. From some of
the peasants, not from all, fifteen kopeks are levied from each soul, in
all about four thousand roubles. On the building of schools seven
hundred roubles are spent, and on the pedagogical courses twelve hundred
roubles have been used in one year. But let us suppose that the County
Council will act quite simply and sensibly, and will not waste money on
pedagogical courses and other trifles; let us suppose that all peasants
will pay the new school tax of fifteen kopeks, what will the future of
this matter be? From the peasants six thousand, from the County Council
three thousand, in all nine thousand. Let us assume that ten more
schools will be added. Nine thousand roubles will barely suffice for the
support of these schools, and that only in case the school council will
act most prudently and economically. Consequently, with the County
Council administration, thirty schools to forty thousand of the
population are the highest limit of what the dissemination of the
schools in the county may reach. And this limit of the school business
can be attained only if the peasants will levy fifteen kopeks on each
soul, which is extremely doubtful, and if the disbursement of this money
will be in the hands of the peasants, and not of the County Council. I
do not speak of the possible increase of three thousand roubles, because
this increase of three thousand roubles partly falls back on those same
peasants, and on the other hand is not secured by anything, forming only
an accidental means. Thus, in order to bring the business of popular
education to the state in which it ought to be, that is, in order that
there shall be four hundred schools to the forty thousand of the
population, and in order that the schools shall not be a toy, but may
answer a real want of the masses, there is no other issue than that the
peasants be taxed, not fifteen kopeks, but three roubles a soul, in
order that the necessary three hundred roubles to each school be
obtained. Even then I do not see any reason for thinking that as many
schools as are needed would be built.
Do we not see that now, when the simplest arithmetical calculation shows
that the only means for the success of the schools is the simplification
of methods, the simplicity and cheapness of the arrangement of the
school,--the pedagogues are busy, as though having made a wager to
concoct a most difficult, most complicated, and expensive (and, I must
add, most bad) instruction? In the manuals of Messrs. Bunákov and
Evtushévski I have figured up three hundred roubles' worth of aids to
instruction which, in their opinion, are absolutely necessary for the
establishment of a primary school. All they talk about in pedagogical
circles is how to prepare improved teachers in the seminaries, so that a
village might not be able to get them even for four hundred roubles. On
that road of perfection, on which pedagogy stands, it is quite apparent
to me that if 120,000 roubles were collected in a county, the pedagogues
would find use for them all in twenty schools, with adjustable tables,
seminaries for teachers, and so forth. Have we not seen that forty
schools were closed in Krapívensk County, and that those who closed them
were fully convinced that they thus advanced the cause of education, for
now they have twenty "good" schools? But what is most remarkable is that
those who express these demands are not in the least interested in
knowing whether the masses for whom they are preparing all these things
want them, and still less, who is going to pay for it all. But the
County Councils are so befogged by these demands that they do not see
the simple calculation and the simple justice. It is as though a man
asked me to buy him two puds of flour for a month, and I bought him for
that rouble a box of perfumed confectionery and reproached him for his
ignorance, because he was dissatisfied.
As I wish to remain true to my rule that criticism should point out how
that which is not good ought to be, I shall try to show how the whole
school business ought to be arranged, if it is not to be a plaything,
and is to have a future. The answer is the same as to the first two
questions,--freedom. The masses must be given the freedom to arrange
their schools as they wish, and as little as possible should any one
interfere in their arrangement. Only with such a view of the matter will
all the obstacles to the dissemination of the schools be obviated,
though they have seemed insuperable. The chief obstacles are the
insufficiency of the means and the impossibility of increasing them. To
the first the masses reply that they are using all the measures at
their command to make the schools cost little; to the second they reply
that the means will always be found so long as they themselves are the
masters, and that they are not willing to increase the means for the
support of that which they do not need.
The essential difference between the view of the people and of the
ministerial department consists in the following: (1) In the opinion of
the masses there is no one definite norm and form of the school, outside
and below which the school is not recognized, as is assumed by the
ministerial department; a school may be of any kind, either a very good
and expensive one, or a very poor and cheap one, but even in a very poor
one reading and writing may be learned, and, as in a richer parish a
better pope is appointed and a better church built, so also may a better
school be built in a wealthy village, and a poorer school in a less
well-to-do village; but just as one can pray equally well in a poor or
in a rich parish, even so it is with learning. (2) The masses regard as
the first condition of their education an even, equal distribution of
this education, though it be in its lowest stage, and then only they
propose a further, again an even, raising of the level of education,
while the ministerial department considers it necessary to give to a
certain chosen few, to one-twentieth of the whole number, a specimen of
education, to show them how nice it is. (3) The ministerial department,
either unable or purposely unwilling to calculate, has raised the
educational business to such a high, expensive level, and one which is
so foreign to the masses, that considering the high price at which the
education is acquired, no issue from that situation can be foreseen, and
the number of learners can never be increased; but the masses, who know
how to calculate, and who are interested in that calculation, have no
doubt long ago figured out what I have pointed out above, and see as
clear as daylight that those expensive schools, which cost as much as
four hundred roubles each, may be good indeed, but are not what they
need, and try in every way possible to diminish the expenses for their
schools.
What, then, is to be done? How are the County Councils to act in order
that this business may not be a plaything and a pastime, but shall have
a future? Let them conform with the needs of the masses, and, so far as
possible, cheapen and free the forms of the school, and afford the
Communes the greatest possible power in the establishment of the
schools.
For this it is necessary that the County Councils shall entirely abandon
the distribution of the taxes to the schools and the distribution of the
schools according to localities, but shall leave this distribution to
the peasants themselves. The determination of the pay to the teacher,
the hiring, purchase, or building of the house, the choice of place and
of the teacher himself,--all that ought to be left to the peasants. The
County Council, that is, the school council, should only demand that the
Communes inform it where and on what foundations schools have been
established, not in order that, upon learning the facts, it shall
prohibit them, as is done now, but in order that, learning about the
conditions under which the school exists, it may add (if the conditions
are in conformity with the demands of the council) from its County
Council's sums, for the support of the school newly founded, a certain,
definite part of what the school costs the Commune: a half, a third, a
fourth, according to the quality of the school and the means and wishes
of the County Council. Thus, for example, a village of twenty souls
hires a transient man at two roubles a month to teach the children. The
school council, that is, a person authorized by it, of whom I shall
speak later, upon receiving that information, invites the transient to
come to him, asks him what he knows and how he teaches, and, if the
transient is the least bit educated and does not represent anything
harmful, apportions to him the amount determined upon by the County
Council, one-half, one-third, or one-fourth, in precisely the same way
the school council proceeds in reference to a clerical person hired by
the Commune at five roubles per month, or in reference to a teacher
hired at fifteen roubles per month. Of course, that is the way the
school council acts in reference to the teachers hired by the Communes
themselves; but if the Communes turn to the school council, the latter
recommends to them teachers under the same conditions. But in doing so
the County Council must not forget that there should not be merely
teachers at two hundred roubles; the school council should be an
employment agency for teachers of every description and of every price,
from one rouble to thirty roubles a month. On buildings the school
council ought not to spend or add anything, because they are one of the
most unproductive items of expense. But the County Council ought not to
disdain, as it now does, teachers at two, three, four, five roubles per
month and locations in smoky huts or by rotation from farm to farm.
The County Council ought to remember that the prototype of the school,
that ideal toward which it ought to tend, is not a stone building with
an iron roof, with blackboards and desks, such as we see in model
schools, but the very hut in which the peasant lives, with those benches
and tables on which he eats, and not a teacher in a Prince Albert or a
lady teacher in a chignon, but a male teacher in a caftan and shirt, or
a female teacher in a peasant skirt and with a kerchief on her head, and
not with one hundred pupils, but with five, six, or ten.
The County Council must have no bias or antipathy for certain types of
teachers, as is the case at present. Thus, for example, the Túla County
Council just now has a special bias for the type of school-teachers from
the gymnasia and clerical schools, and the greater part of the schools
in Túla County are in their charge. In Krapívensk County there exists a
strange antipathy for teachers from the clerical profession, so that in
this county, where there are as many as fifty parishes, there is not one
clerical person employed as a teacher. The County Council, in proposing
a teacher, ought to be guided by two chief considerations: in the first
place, that the teacher should be as cheap as possible; in the second,
that by his education he should stand as near to the masses as possible.
Only thanks to the opposite view on the matter can be explained such an
inexplicable phenomenon as that in Krapívensk County (almost the same is
true of the whole Government and of the majority of Governments) there
are fifty parishes and twenty schools, and that for these twenty schools
there is not a single clerical teacher, although there is not a parish
where a priest, or a deacon, or a sexton, or their daughters and wives
could not be found, who would not be glad to do the teaching for
one-fourth the pay that the teachers coming from the city would be
willing to take.
But I shall be told: What kind of schools will those be with bigots,
drunken soldiers, expelled scribes, and sextons? And what control can
there be over those formless schools? To this I will reply that, in the
first place, these teachers, bigots, soldiers, and sextons are not so
bad as they are imagined to be. In my school practice I often had to do
with pupils from these schools, and some of them could read fluently and
write beautifully, and soon abandoned the bad habits which they brought
with them from those schools. All of us know peasants who have learned
the rudiments in such schools, and it cannot be said that this learning
was useless or injurious. In the second place, I will say that teachers
of that calibre are especially bad because they are quite abandoned in
the backwoods and teach without any aid or instruction, and that now
there is not to be found a single one of the old teachers who would not
tell you with regret that he does not know the new methods and has
himself learned for copper pence, and that many of them, especially the
younger church servants, are quite willing to learn the new methods.
These teachers ought not to be rejected without further ado as
absolutely worthless. There are among them better and worse teachers
(and I have seen some very capable ones). They ought to be compared; the
better of them ought to be selected, encouraged, brought together with
other better teachers, and instructed,--which is quite feasible and
precisely the thing in which the duty of the school council is to
consist.
But how are they to be controlled, watched, and taught, if they breed by
the hundred in each county? In my opinion the work of the County Council
and school council ought to consist in nothing but watching the
pedagogical side of the business, and that is feasible, if these means
will be taken: in every County Council, which has taken upon itself the
duty of the dissemination of popular education, or the coöperation with
it, there ought to be one person--whether it be an unpaid member of the
school council, or a man at a salary of not less than one thousand
roubles, hired by the County Council--who is to attend to the
pedagogical side of the business in the county. That person ought to
have a general, fresh education within the limits of a gymnasium course,
that is, he must know Russian thoroughly and Church-Slavic partly,
arithmetic and algebra thoroughly, and be a teacher, that is, know the
practice of pedagogy. This person must be freshly educated, because I
have observed that frequently the information of a man who has long ago
finished his course even in a university, and who has not refreshed his
education, is insufficient, not only for the guidance of teachers, but
even for the examination of a village school. This person must by all
means be a teacher himself in the same locality, in order that in his
demands and instructions he may always have in view that pedagogical
material with which the other teachers have to deal, and that he may
sustain in himself that live relation to reality which is the chief
preservative against error and delusion. If a County Council does not
possess such a man and does not wish to employ one, it has, in my
opinion, absolutely nothing to do with the popular education, except to
give money, because every interference with the administrative side of
the matter, in the way it is done now, can only be injurious.
This member of the County Council, or the educated person hired by it,
must have the best model school, with an assistant, in the county. In
addition to conducting this school and applying to it all the newest
methods of instruction, this head teacher ought to keep an eye on all
the other schools. This school is not to be a model in the sense of
introducing into it all kinds of cubes and pictures and all kinds of
nonsense invented by the Germans, but the teacher in this school should
experiment on just such peasant children as the other schools consist
of, in order to determine the simplest methods which may be adopted by
the majority of the teachers, sextons, and soldiers, who form the bulk
of all the schools. Since with the arrangement which I propose there
will certainly be formed large complete schools in the larger centres
(as I think, in the proportion of one to twenty of all the other
schools), and in these large schools the teachers will be of a grade of
education equal to that of the seminarists who have finished a course in
a theological school, the head teacher will visit all these larger
schools, bring together these teachers on Sundays, point out to them the
defects, propose new methods, give counsel and books for their own
education, and invite them to his school on Sundays. The library of the
head teacher ought to consist of several copies of the Bible, of
Church-Slavic and Russian grammars, arithmetic, and algebra. The head
teacher, whenever he has time, will visit also the small schools and
invite their teachers to come to see him; but the duty of watching the
minor teachers is imposed on the older teachers, who just in the same
way visit their district and invite those teachers to come to see them
on Sundays and on week-days. The County Council either pays the teachers
for travelling, or, in adding its portion to what the Communes levy,
makes it a condition that the Communes furnish transportation. The
meetings of the teachers and the visits in similar or better schools are
one of the chief conditions for the successful conduct of the business
of education, and so the County Council ought to direct its main
attention to the organization of these meetings, and not spare any money
for them.
Besides, in the large schools, where there will be more than fifty
pupils, there ought to be chosen, instead of the assistants which they
now have, such of the pupils, of either sex, as show marked ability for
a teacher's calling, and they should be made assistants, two or three in
each school. These assistants should receive a salary of fifty kopeks to
one rouble per month, and the teacher should work with them separately
in the evenings, so that they may not fall behind the others. These
assistants, chosen from among the best, are to form the future teachers,
to take the place of the lowest in the minor schools.
Naturally the organization of these teachers' meetings, both for the
smaller and the larger schools, and the head teacher's visits of
inspection, and the formation of teachers from pupils acting as
assistants may take place in a large variety of ways; the main point is
that the surveillance of any number of schools (even though it may reach
the norm of one school to every one hundred souls) is possible in this
manner. With such an arrangement the teachers of both the large and the
small schools will feel that their labours are appreciated, that they
have not buried themselves in the backwoods without hope of salvation,
that they have companions and guides, and that in the matter of
instruction, both for their own further education and for the
improvement of their situation, they have means for advancement. With
such an arrangement, the devotee and the sexton who are able to learn
will learn; while those who are unable or unwilling to do so will be
replaced by some one else.
The time of instruction ought to be, as is the wish of all peasants,
during the seven winter months, and so the salary is to be determined by
the month. With such an arrangement, leaving out the rapidity and the
equal distribution of education, the advantage will be this, that the
schools will be established in those centres where the necessity for
them is felt by the masses, where they are established spontaneously
and, therefore, firmly. Where the character of the population demands
education it will be permanent. Just look: in the towns, the children of
the innkeepers and well-to-do peasants learn to read in one way or
another and never forget what they have learned; but in the backwoods,
where a landed proprietor founds a school, the children learn well, but
in ten years all is forgotten, and the population is as illiterate as
ever. For this reason the centres, large or small, where the schools are
established spontaneously, are particularly precious. Where such a
school has germinated, no matter how poor it be, it will throw out
roots, and sooner or later the population will be able to read and
write. Consequently, these sprouts ought to be deemed precious, and not
be treated, as they are everywhere,--they ought not to be forbidden,
because the schools are not according to our taste, that is, the sprouts
ought not to be killed, and branches stuck in the ground where they will
not take root.
With merely such an arrangement, without the establishment of costly and
artificial seminaries, the chosen ones--those selected from the best of
the pupils themselves, and those who are educated in the schools--will
form that contingent of cheap popular teachers who will take the place
of the soldiers and sextons and will fully satisfy all the demands of
the masses and of the educated classes. The chief advantage of such an
arrangement is that it alone gives the development of popular education
a future, that is, takes us out from that blind alley into which the
County Councils have gone, thanks to the expensive schools and to the
absence of new sources for the increase of their numbers. Only when the
masses themselves choose the centres for the schools, themselves choose
teachers, determine the amount of the remuneration, and directly enjoy
the advantages of the schools, will they be ready to add means for the
schools if such should become necessary. I know Communes that paid fifty
kopeks a soul for a school in each of their villages; but it is
difficult to compel the peasants to pay fifteen kopeks for a school in
the township, if not all of them can make use of it. For the whole
county, for the County Council, the peasants will not add a single
kopek, because they feel that they will not enjoy the advantages of
their money. Only with such an arrangement will be found soon the means
for the proper maintenance of all schools, of one to each one hundred
souls, which seems so impossible in the present state of affairs.
In addition to this, with the arrangement which I propose, the interests
of the peasant Communes and of the County Council, as the representative
of the intelligence of the locality, will indissolubly be connected. Let
us say that the County Council gives one-third of what the peasants
give. In furnishing this amount, it will evidently, in one way or
another, see to it that the money is not wasted, and, consequently, will
also keep an eye on the two-thirds given by the peasant Communes. The
peasant Commune sees that the County Council gives its part, and so
admits the right of the Council to follow the progress of the
instruction. At the same time, it has an object-lesson in the difference
which exists between a school maintained at a smaller and that
maintained at a greater expense, and chooses the one which it needs or
which is more accessible to it in accordance with its means.
I will again take Krapívensk County, with which I am familiar, to show
what difference the proposed arrangement would make. I cannot have the
slightest doubt that the moment permission is granted to open schools,
wherever wanted and of any description desired, there will at once
appear very many schools. I am convinced that in Krapívensk County, in
which there are fifty parishes, there will always be a school in each
parish, because the parishes are always centres of population, and
because among the church servants there will always be found one who is
capable of teaching, likes to teach, and will find his advantage in it.
In addition to the schools maintained by the church servants there will
be opened those forty schools that have been closed (more correctly
thirty, because ten of them were church schools), and there will be
opened very many new schools, so that in a very short time there will be
not far from four hundred instead of the twenty at present.
I may be believed or not, but I will assume that in Krapívensk County
380 additional schools will be opened, the moment they are given over to
the masses, so that there will be four hundred in all, and I will try to
determine whether the existence of these four hundred schools, that is,
of twenty times as many as at present, is possible under the conditions
which I have assumed in discussing the existing order.
Assuming that all peasants pay fifteen kopeks per soul, and the County
Council gives three thousand roubles, there will be nine thousand
roubles, which will suffice only for thirty schools with the former
arrangement. But with the new arrangement:
I assume that ten of the old schools are left intact; in these schools
the teachers get twenty roubles per month, which, for the seven winter
months, amounts to fourteen hundred roubles.
I assume that in every parish there will be established a school with
the teacher's salary at five roubles per month, which, for fifty
schools, amounts to 1,750 roubles.
I assume the remaining 340 schools are of the cheap character, at two
roubles per month; fifteen roubles for each of the 340 schools makes
5,100 roubles.
Thus the four hundred schools will demand an expenditure in salaries
amounting to 8,250 roubles. There are still left 750 roubles for school
appliances and transportation.
The figures for the teachers' wages are not chosen arbitrarily by me: on
the other hand, the expensive teachers are given a larger salary than
they now get by the month for the whole year. Even so, the amount
apportioned to the church servants is what they now receive in the
majority of cases. But the cheap schools at two roubles per month are
assumed by me at a higher rate than what the peasants in reality pay, so
that the calculation may boldly be accepted. In this calculation is
included the kernel of ten chief teachers and ten or more church servant
teachers. It is evident that only with such a calculation will the
school business be placed on a serious and possible basis and have a
clear and definite future.
If what I have pointed out does not convince anybody that will mean that
I did not express clearly what I wanted to say, and do not wish to enter
into any disputes with anybody. I know that no deaf people are so
hopeless as those who do not want to hear. I know how it is with
farmers. A new threshing-machine has been bought at a great expense, and
it is put up and started threshing. It threshes miserably, no matter how
you set the screw; it threshes badly, and the grain falls into the
straw. There is a loss, and it is as clear as can be that the machine
ought to be abandoned and another means be employed for threshing, but
the money has been spent and the threshing-machine is put up. "Let her
thresh," says the master. Precisely the same thing will happen with this
matter. I know that for a long time to come there will flourish the
object instruction, and cubes, and buttons instead of arithmetic, and
hissing and sputtering, in teaching the letters, and twenty expensive
schools of the German pattern, instead of the needed four hundred
popular, cheap schools. But I know just as surely that the common sense
of the Russian nation will not permit this false, artificial system of
instruction to be foisted upon it.
The masses are the chief interested person and the judge, and now do not
pay a particle of attention to our more or less ingenious discussions
about the manner in which the spiritual food of education is best to be
prepared for them. They do not care, because they are firmly convinced
that in the great business of their mental development they will not
make a false step and will not accept what is bad,--and it would be like
making pease stick to the wall to attempt to educate, direct, and teach
them in the German fashion.