Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 43

n.o.body, 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sert boldly, for hundreds of visitors have come to the Yasnaya Polyana 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 cla.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses, but, on the contrary, brought it nearer and nearer to them. The ma.s.ses, 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 ma.s.ses are on all sides begging for education, while pedagogy has more than ever pa.s.sed 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 Krapivensk County of the Government of Tula, 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 a.s.sume, 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 partners.h.i.+p 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). n.o.body will, I suppose, a.s.sert 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 a.s.sumes 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-cla.s.s, two-cla.s.s schools, and so forth; and the pedagogical and the administrative powers do not wish to know the fact that the ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses: 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 ma.s.ses; 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 Krapivensk 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 Krapivensk 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, Trosna, Lamintsovo, and Yasnaya Polyana, 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 s.e.xtons, 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 Us.h.i.+nski's text-books, and these schools are called one-cla.s.s 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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.ses 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 a.s.sume that the school is not in the structure, but in the teacher, and that the school is not a permanent inst.i.tution, 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 a.s.sumes--since for it the whole problem consists in inspecting and cla.s.sifying--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 Krapivensk 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 a.s.sumed for the ma.s.ses) 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 ma.s.ses a.s.sume 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses hire a teacher themselves, they always hire him by the month and only for the winter. The ministerial department a.s.sumes that, just as in the inst.i.tutions of learning there are two months of vacation, so it ought also to be in a one-cla.s.s 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses themselves attend to it). Wherever the ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 towns.h.i.+p, 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 towns.h.i.+p 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 towns.h.i.+p 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 Yasenets towns.h.i.+p 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 Chermoshen towns.h.i.+p there are nine hundred souls and there is a school there, but only thirty pupils attend it, because all the villages of that towns.h.i.+p are scattered. To nine hundred souls there ought to be four hundred pupils. And yet, both in the Yasenets and the Chermoshen towns.h.i.+ps the question of the distribution of schools is regarded as satisfactorily solved.

In matters of the choice of a teacher, the ma.s.ses are again guided by quite different views from the County Council. In choosing a teacher, the ma.s.ses look upon him in their own way, and judge him accordingly. If the teacher has been in the neighbourhood, and the ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses have no bias and no antipathy toward any cla.s.s in particular: he may be a gentleman, official, burgher, soldier, s.e.xton, 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses, 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 ma.s.ses and antagonistic to them, and other types which the school councils dislike. Thus, evidently, the favourite type of many counties of the Government of Tula are lady teachers; the disliked type are the clerical persons, and in the whole of the Tula and Krapivensk counties there is not one school with a teacher from the clergy, which is quite remarkable from an administrative point of view. In Krapivensk 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 ma.s.ses and that of the County Council has almost all been expressed in the preceding pages. It consists in this: (1) the ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses, 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 towns.h.i.+p 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 Krapivensk County a Commune which gives ninety roubles, and the County Council adds to that three hundred roubles for a school with an a.s.sistant; 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses obviate this difficulty by domestic, economic means, and look upon the primary schools as temporary, pa.s.sing inst.i.tutions; (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 cla.s.ses, while the ma.s.ses demand that instruction be carried on only in the winter and are fond of evening cla.s.ses; (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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 Krapivensk County there are forty thousand souls, including girls, according to the last census.

According to Bunyakovski's table of the distribution of ten thousand of the Orthodox population for the year 1862, there ought to be, of the male s.e.x between six and fourteen years, 1,834, and of the female s.e.x, 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sume 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 disburs.e.m.e.nt 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 ma.s.ses, 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. Bunakov and Evtushevski 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 Krapivensk 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses there is no one definite norm and form of the school, outside and below which the school is not recognized, as is a.s.sumed 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses, 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 ma.s.ses, 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 ma.s.ses, 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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 Tula 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 Tula County are in their charge. In Krapivensk 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 ma.s.ses as possible.

Only thanks to the opposite view on the matter can be explained such an inexplicable phenomenon as that in Krapivensk 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 s.e.xton, 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 s.e.xtons? 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 s.e.xtons 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 cooperation 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 a.s.sistant, 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, s.e.xtons, 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 a.s.sistants which they now have, such of the pupils, of either s.e.x, as show marked ability for a teacher's calling, and they should be made a.s.sistants, two or three in each school. These a.s.sistants 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 a.s.sistants, 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 a.s.sistants 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 s.e.xton 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 ma.s.ses, 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 s.e.xtons and will fully satisfy all the demands of the ma.s.ses and of the educated cla.s.ses. 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 ma.s.ses 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 towns.h.i.+p, 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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 Krapivensk 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 Krapivensk 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 a.s.sume that in Krapivensk County 380 additional schools will be opened, the moment they are given over to the ma.s.ses, 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 a.s.sumed in discussing the existing order.