The pupils wrote very badly, and a new master introduced writing from copies (another exercise very sedate and easy for the master). The pupils became dull, and we were obliged to abandon calligraphy, and did not know how to devise any way of improving their handwriting. The eldest class discovered the way for itself. Having finished writing the Bible stories, the elder pupils began to ask for their exercise-books to take home [probably to read to their parents]. These were dirty, crumpled, and badly written. The precise mathematician P. asked for some paper, and set to work to rewrite his stories. This idea pleased the others. 'Give me, too, some paper!'— 'Give me an exercise-book!' and a fashion for calligraphy set in, which still prevails in the upper class. They took an exercise-book, put before them a written alphabet copy from which they imitated each letter, boasting to one another of their performance, and in two weeks' time they had made great progress.
Grammar turned out to be an unsatisfactory subject, and to have hardly any connection with correct writing or speaking.
In our youngest—the third—class, they write what they like. Besides that, the youngest write out in the evening, one at a time, sentences they have composed all together. One writes, and the others whisper among themselves, noting his mistakes, and only waiting till he has finished, in order to denounce his misplaced e or his wrongly detached prefix, or sometimes to perpetrate a blunder of their own. To write correctly and to correct mistakes made by others, gives them great pleasure. The elder boys seize every letter they can get hold of, exercising themselves in the correction of mistakes, and trying with all their might to write correctly; but they cannot bear grammar or the analysis of sentences, and in spite of a bias we had for analysis, they only tolerate it to a very limited extent, falling asleep or evading the classes.
History on the whole went badly, except such bits of Russian history as, when told poetically, aroused patriotic feelings. On one memorable occasion the whole class went wild with excitement and eager interest. That was when Tolstoy, with a poet's licence, told of the defeat of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812.
Except in this legendary way, the teaching of history to children is, in Tolstoy's opinion, useless. The historic sense develops later than the artistic sense:
In my experience and practice the first germ of interest in history arises out of contemporary events, sometimes as a result of participation in them, through political interest, political opinions, debates, and the reading of newspapers. Consequently the idea of beginning the teaching of history from present times should suggest itself to every intelligent teacher.
Of geography as a subject for the education of children, Tolstoy has an even lower opinion:
In Von Vizin's comedy The Minor, when Mitrofánoushka was being persuaded to learn geography, his mother said: 'Why teach him all the countries? The coachman will drive him where he may have to go to.' Nothing more to the point has ever been said against geography, and all the learned men in the world put together cannot rebut such an irrefragable argument. I am speaking quite seriously. What need was there for me to know where the river and town of Barcelona are situated, when for thirty-three years I have not once had occasion to use the knowledge? Not even the most picturesque description of Barcelona and its inhabitants could, I imagine, conduce to the development of my mental faculties.
In fact, the sweeping conclusion at which Tolstoy arrives is that:
I not only see no use, but I see great harm, in teaching history or geography before the University is reached.