And he leaves it an open question whether even the University should concern itself with such subjects.
Drawing was a favourite lesson with the boys; but I must confine myself to a single extract on that subject:
We drew figures from the blackboard in the following way: I first drew a horizontal or a vertical line, dividing it into parts by dots, and the pupils copied this line. Then I drew another or several perpendicular or sloping lines, standing in a certain relation to the first, and similarly divided up. Then we joined the dots of these different lines by others (straight or curved), and formed some symmetrical figure which, as it was gradually evolved, was copied by the boys. It seemed to me that this was a good plan: first, because the boy clearly saw the whole process of the formation of the figure, and secondly, because his perception of the co-relation of lines was developed by this drawing from the board, much better than by copying drawings or designs....
It is nearly always useless to hang up a large complete picture or figure, because a beginner is quite at a loss before it, as he would be before an object from nature. But the growth of the figure before his eyes has an important meaning. In this case the pupil sees the backbone and skeleton of the drawing on which the body is subsequently formed. The pupils were always called on to criticise the lines and their relation, as I drew them. I often purposely drew them wrong, to find out in how far their judgment of the co-relation and incorrectness of the lines had been developed. Then again, when I was drawing my figure I asked the boys where they thought the next line should be added; and I even made one or other of them invent the shape of the figure himself.
In this way I not only aroused a more lively interest, but got the boys to participate freely in the formation and development of the figures; and this prevented the question. Why? which boys so naturally put when they are set to draw from copies.
The ease or difficulty with which it was understood, and the more or less interest evoked, chiefly influenced the choice of the method of instruction; and I often quite abandoned what I had prepared for the lesson, merely because it was dull or foreign to the boys.
In the singing class, Tolstoy very soon found that notes written on the staff were not easily grasped by the pupils, and after using the staff for some ten lessons, he once showed the boys the use of numbers instead, and from that day forward they always asked him to use numbers, and they themselves always used numbers in writing music. This method is much more convenient, Tolstoy considers, for explaining both the intervals and the changes of key. The pupils who were not musical soon dropped out of the class, and the lessons with those who were, sometimes went on for three or four hours at a stretch. He tried to teach them musical time in the usual manner, but succeeded so badly that he had to take that and melody separately. First he took the sounds without reference to time, and then beat the time without considering the sounds, and finally joined the two processes together. After several lessons he found that the method he had drifted into, combined the chief features (though not some of the minor peculiarities) of Chevet's method, which, as already mentioned, he had seen in successful operation in Paris. After a very few lessons, two of the boys used to write down the melodies of the songs they knew, and were almost able to read music at sight.
From the limited experience he had in teaching music, Tolstoy—to quote his own words almost textually—became convinced that: (1) To write sounds by means of figures is the most profitable method; (2) To teach time separately from sound is the most profitable method; (3) For the teaching of music to be willingly and fruitfully received, one must from the start teach the art and not aim merely at dexterity in singing or playing. Spoilt young ladies may be taught to play Burgmüller's exercises; but it is better not to teach the children of the people at all, than to teach them mechanically; (4) Nothing so harms musical instruction as what looks like a knowledge of music: namely the performance of choirs, and performances at examinations, speech-days, or in church; and (5) In teaching music to the people, the thing to be aimed at is to impart our knowledge of the general laws of music, but not the false taste we have developed among us.
In one of the most remarkable of his articles, Tolstoy tells how he discovered that Fédka and Syómka possessed literary ability of the highest order. Composition lessons had not gone well, until one day Tolstoy proposed that the children should write a story of peasant life to illustrate a popular proverb. Most of them felt this to be beyond their powers, and went on with their other occupations. One of them, however, bade Tolstoy write it himself in competition with them, and he set to work to do so, till Fédka, climbing on the back of his chair, interrupted him by reading over his shoulder. Tolstoy then began reading out what he had composed, and explaining how he thought of continuing the story. Several of the boys became interested, not approving of Tolstoy's work, but criticising and amending it, offering suggestions and supplying details. Syómka and Fédka particularly distinguished themselves, and showed extraordinary imagination, and such judgment, sense of proportion, restraint, and power of clothing their thoughts in words, that Tolstoy was carried away by the interest of the work and wrote as hard as he could to their dictation, having constantly to ask them to wait and not forget the details they had suggested. Fédka—of whom Tolstoy says that 'The chief quality in every art, the sense of proportion, was in him extraordinarily developed: he writhed at every superfluous detail suggested by any of the other boys,'—gradually took control of the work, and ruled so despotically and with such evident right, that the others dropped off and went home, except Syómka, who along his own more matter-of-fact line continued to co-operate.