They sit where they like: on the benches, tables, window-sills, floor, or in the arm-chair. The girls always sit together. Friends from the same village, especially the little ones (among whom there is most comradeship) always sit together. As soon as one of them decides that he will sit in a certain corner, all his chums, pushing and diving under the forms, get there too, and sit together looking about them with faces that express as much happiness and satisfaction as though, having settled in that place, they would certainly be happy for the rest of their lives. The large arm-chair (which somehow found its way into the room) is an object coveted by the more independent personalities.... As soon as one of them decides to sit in it, another discerns his intention from his looks, and they collide and squeeze in. One dislodges the other, and curling up, sprawls with his head far below the back, but reads like the rest, quite absorbed in his work. During lessons I have never seen them whispering, pinching, giggling, laughing behind their hands, or complaining of one another to the teacher.
The two lower classes sort themselves in one room, the upper class in another. The teacher appears, and in the first class all surround him at the blackboard, or lie on the forms, or sit on the table, near him or near one of the boys who reads. If it is a writing lesson, they place themselves in a more orderly way, but keep getting up to look at one another's exercise books, and to show their own to the teacher. According to the time-table there should be four lessons before dinner; but sometimes in practice these become three or two, and may be on quite other subjects. The teacher may begin with arithmetic and pass on to geometry; or may begin with Sacred History and end up with grammar. Sometimes teacher and pupils are so carried away, that a lesson lasts three hours instead of one. Sometimes the pupils themselves cry: 'Go on, go on!' and shout contemptuously to any who are tired: 'If you're tired, go to the little ones!'
In my opinion this external disorder is useful and necessary, however strange and inconvenient it may seem to the teacher. Of its advantages I shall have frequent occasion to speak; but of its apparent disadvantages I will say:
First, this disorder, or free order, only frightens us because we ourselves were educated in, and are accustomed to, something quite different. Secondly, in this as in many similar cases, coercion is used only from hastiness or from lack of respect for human nature. We think the disorder is growing greater and greater, and that it has no limit. We think there is no way of stopping it except by force; but one need only wait a little, and the disorder (or animation) calms down of itself, and calms down into a far better and more durable order than any we could devise.
In another place he says:
Our school evolved freely from the principles brought into it by the teachers and pupils. In spite of the predominant influence of the teacher, the pupil always had the right not to go to school; and even when in school, not to listen to the teacher. The teacher had the right not to admit a pupil....
Submitting naturally only to laws derived from their own nature, children revolt and rebel when subjected to your premature interference. They do not believe in the validity of your bells and time-tables and rules. How often have I seen children fighting. The teacher rushes to separate them, and the separated enemies look at one another askance, and even in the stern teacher's presence cannot refrain from giving one another a parting blow, yet more painful than its predecessors. How often, any day, do I see some Kirúshka, clenching his teeth, fly at Taráska, seize his hair, and throw him to the ground, apparently—though it costs him his life—determined to maim his foe; yet not a minute passes before Taráska is already laughing under Kirúshka. One, and then the other, moderates his blows, and before five minutes have passed they have made friends, and off they go to sit together.
The other day, between lessons, two boys were struggling in a corner. The one, a remarkable mathematician about ten years old, is in the second class; the other, a close-cropped lad, the son of a servant, is a clever but vindictive, tiny, black-eyed lad, nicknamed Pussy. Pussy seized the mathematician's long hair and jammed his head against the wall; the mathematician vainly clutched at Pussy's close-cropped bristles. Pussy's black eyes gleamed triumphantly. The mathematician, hardly refraining from tears, kept saying: 'Well, well, what of it?' But though he tried to keep up appearances, it was plain he was faring badly. This went on for some time, and I was in doubt what to do. 'A fight, a fight!' shouted the boys, and crowded towards the corner. The little ones laughed; but the bigger ones, though they did not interfere, exchanged serious glances, and their silence and these glances did not escape Pussy's observation. He understood that he was doing something wrong, and began to smile shamefacedly, and by degrees let go of the mathematician's hair. The mathematician shook himself free, and giving Pussy a push that banged the back of the latter's head against the wall, went off satisfied. Pussy began to cry, and rushed after his enemy, hitting him as hard as he could on his sheepskin coat, but without hurting him. The mathematician wished to pay him back, but at that moment several disapproving voices were raised. 'There now; he's fighting a little fellow!' cried the onlookers, 'get away, Pussy!'—and therewith the affair ended as though it had never occurred, except, I think, that both combatants retained a dim consciousness that fighting is unpleasant, because both get hurt.
In this case I seemed to detect a feeling of fairness influencing the crowd; but how often such affairs are settled so that one does not know what law has decided them, and yet both sides are satisfied! How arbitrary and unjust by comparison are all School methods of dealing with such cases. 'You are both to blame: kneel down!' says the teacher; and the teacher is wrong, because one boy is in the wrong, and that one triumphs while on his knees, and chews the cud of his unexpended anger, while the innocent one is doubly punished....
I am convinced that the School should not interfere with that part of education which belongs to the family. The School should not, and has no right to, reward or punish; and the best police and administration of a School consist in giving full freedom to the pupils to learn and get on among themselves as they like. I am convinced of this; and yet the customary School habits are still so strong in us that in the Yásno-Polyána school we frequently break this rule....