Without going into exact statistics of the messages sent, one may be quite sure that they all belong to the kind of correspondence of which the above are samples. No peasant of Yásnaya Polyána in the Government of Toúla, or any other Russian peasant (and let it not be forgotten that the peasants form the mass of the people whose welfare 'progress' is supposed to secure) ever has sent or received, or for a long time to come will either send or receive, a single telegram. All the messages that fly above his head add no jot to his welfare, because all he needs he gets from his own fields and his own woods, and he is equally indifferent to the cheapness or dearness of sugar or cotton, to the dethronement of King Otho, the speeches of Palmerston and Napoleon III, or the feelings of the lady in Florence. All those thoughts that fly with the rapidity of lightning round the world, do not increase the fertility of his fields nor diminish the strictness of the keepers in the squire's or the Crown's forests, nor do they add to his or his family's working power, or supply him with an extra labourer. All these great thoughts may impair his welfare, but cannot secure or further it, and can have but a negative interest for him. To the True-Believers in progress, however, the telegraph wires have brought and are bringing immense advantages. I do not deny those advantages: I only wish to prove that one must not think, or persuade others, that what is advantageous for me, is a great blessing to all the world....
In the opinion of the Russian people what increases their welfare is an increase of the fertility of the soil, an increase in the herds of cattle, an increase of the quantity of grain and its consequently becoming cheaper, an increase of working power, an increase in woods and pastures, and the absence of town temptations. (I beg the reader to observe that no peasant ever complains of the cheapness of bread; it is only the political economists of Western Europe who soothe him with the prospect that bread will become dearer and render it more possible for him to purchase manufactured articles, in which he is not interested.)
Which of these benefits does the railway bring to the peasant? It increases the temptations; it destroys the woods; it draws away labourers; it raises the price of grain....
The real people, that is to say those who themselves work and live productively—nine-tenths of the whole nation—without whom no progress is conceivable, are always hostile to the railway. And so what it comes to is this: that the believers in 'progress,' a small part of society, say that railways increase the welfare of the people; while the larger part of the nation say that the railways decrease it.
Interesting, stimulating and suggestive as Tolstoy's articles were, and valuable as was the experience gained in his school, his magazine had very few subscribers and only existed for one year: the twelfth number was the last.
In an article written thirteen years later, he says of his attempts in 1861-2:
At that time I met with no sympathy in the educational journals, nor even with any contradiction, but only with the completest indifference to the question I was raising. There were, it is true, some attacks on a few insignificant details, but the question itself evidently interested no one. I was young at that time, and this indifference galled me. I did not understand that I with my question: How do you know what and how to teach? was like a man who, in an assembly of Turkish Pachas discussing how to collect more taxes from the people, should say to them: Gentlemen, before discussing how much to take from each man, we must first consider what right we have to collect taxes at all? Obviously, the Pachas would continue to discuss the methods of collecting, and would ignore the irrelevant question.
Before passing on to tell of the actual working of the Yásnaya Polyána school, there is one matter to be noted, small indeed in itself, but characteristic, and helpful for the understanding of Tolstoy's later development.
Tolstoy's personal honour has never been questioned, and the reader will remember that at Sevastopol he flatly refused to touch money which, according to the long-standing regimental custom, was at his disposal. Well, in his magazine he printed a story written by one of the boys in the school, and appraised it with enthusiasm. The hero of the story, who had been wretchedly poor, returns from the army with money to spare, and explains the matter to his wife by saying: 'I was a non-commissioned officer and had Crown money to pay out to the soldiers, and some remaining over, I kept it.'
Commenting on this, Tolstoy says: