§12
But did we learn anything, meanwhile, and was study possible under such circumstances? I think we did. The instruction was more limited in quantity and scope than in the forties. But a university is not bound to complete scientific education: its business is rather to put a man in a position to walk by himself; it should raise problems and teach a man to ask questions. And this is exactly what was done by such professors as Pávlov and Kachenovsky, each in his own way. But the collision of young minds, the exchange of ideas, and the discussion of books—all this did more than professors or lectures to develop and ripen the student. Moscow University was a successful institution; and the professors who contributed by their lectures to the development of Lérmontov, Byelínski, Turgénev, Kavélin, and Pirógov, may play cards with an easy conscience, or, with a still easier conscience, rest in their graves.
And what astonishing people some of them were! There was Chumakov, who treated the formulae of Poinsot’s Algebra like so many serfs—adding letters and subtracting them, mixing up square numbers and their roots, and treating x as the known quantity. There was Myágkov, who, in spite of his name,[[47]] lectured on the harshest of sciences, the science of tactics. The constant study of this noble subject had actually given a martial air to the professor; and as he stood there buttoned up to the throat and erect behind his stock, his lectures sounded more like words of command than mere conversation. “Gentlemen, artillery!” he would cry out. It sounded like the field of battle, but it only meant that this was the heading of his next discourse. And there was Reiss, who lectured on chemistry but never ventured further than hydrogen—Reiss, who was elected to the Chair for no knowledge of his own but because his uncle had once studied the science. The latter was invited to come to Russia towards the end of Catherine’s reign; but the old man did not want to move, and sent his nephew instead.
[47]. Myágki is the Russian for “mild.”
My University course lasted four years, the additional year being due to the fact that a whole session was lost owing to the cholera. The most remarkable events of that time were the cholera itself, and the visits of Humboldt and Uvárov.