Formerly syllables were senselessly learned by heart (that was bad); diametrically opposed to this, the new fashion enjoins us not to divide up into syllables at all, which is absolutely impossible in a long word, and which in reality is never done. Every teacher, according to the sound method, feels the necessity of letting a pupil rest after a part of a word, having him pronounce it separately. Formerly they used to read the psalter, which, on account of its high and deep style, is incomprehensible to the children (which was bad); in contrast to this the children are made to read sentences without any contents whatever, to explain intelligible words, or to learn by heart what they cannot understand. In the old school the teacher did not speak to the pupil at all; now the teacher is ordered to talk to them on anything and everything, on what they know already, or what they do not need to know. In mathematics they formerly learned by heart the definition of operations, but now they no longer have anything to do with operations, for, according to Evtushévski, they reach numeration only in the third year, and it is assumed that for a whole year they are to be taught nothing but numbers up to ten. Formerly the pupils were made to work with large abstract numbers, without paying any attention to the other side of mathematics, to the disentanglement of the problem (the formation of an equation). Now they are taught solving puzzles, forming equations with small numbers before they know numeration and how to operate with numbers, though experience teaches any teacher that the difficulty of forming equations or the solution of puzzles are overcome by a general development in life, and not in school.
It has been observed—quite correctly—that there is no greater aid for a pupil, when he is puzzled by a problem with large numbers, than to give him the same problem with smaller numbers. The pupil, who in life learns to grope through problems with small numbers, is conscious of the process of solving, and transfers this process to the problem with large numbers. Having observed this, the new pedagogues try to teach only the solving of puzzles with small numbers, that is, what cannot form the subject of instruction and is only the work of life.
In the instruction of grammar the new school has again remained consistent with its point of departure,—with the criticism of the old and the adoption of the diametrically opposite method. Formerly they used to learn by heart the definition of the parts of speech, and from etymology passed over to syntax; now they not only begin with syntax, but even with logic, which the children are supposed to acquire. According to the grammar of Mr. Bunákov, which is an abbreviation of Perevlévski's grammar, even with the same choice of examples, the study of grammar begins with syntactical analysis, which is so difficult and, I will say, so uncertain for the Russian language, which does not fully comply with the classic forms of syntax. To sum up, the new school has removed certain disadvantages, of which the chief are the superfluous addition to the consonants and the memorizing of definitions, and in this it is superior to the old method, and in reading and writing sometimes gives better results; but, on the other hand, it has introduced new defects, which are that the contents of the reading are most senseless and that arithmetic is no longer taught as a study.
In practice (I can refer in this to all the inspectors of schools, to all the members of school councils, who have visited the schools, and to all the teachers), in practice, in the majority of schools, where the German method is prescribed, this is what takes place, with rare exceptions. The children learn not by the sound system, but by the method of letter composition; instead of saying b, v, they say bŭ, vŭ, and break up the words into syllables. The object instruction is entirely lost sight of, arithmetic does not proceed at all, and the children have absolutely nothing to read. The teachers quite unconsciously depart from the theoretical demands and fall in with the needs of the masses. These practical results, which are repeated everywhere, should, it seems, prove the incorrectness of the method itself; but among the pedagogues, those that write manuals and prescribe rules, there exists such a complete ignorance of and aversion to the knowledge of the masses and their demands that the relation of reality to these methods does not in the least impair the progress of their business. It is hard to imagine the conception about the masses which exists in this world of the pedagogues, and from which result their method and all the consequent manner of instruction.
Mr. Bunákov, in proof of how necessary the object instruction and development is for the children of a Russian school, with extraordinary naïveté adduces Pestalozzi's words: "Let any one who has lived among the common people," he says, "contradict my words that there is nothing more difficult than to impart any idea to these creatures. Nobody, indeed, gainsays that. The Swiss pastors affirm that when the people come to them to receive instruction they do not understand what they are told, and the pastors do not understand what the people say to them. City dwellers who settle in the country are amazed at the inability of the country population to express themselves; years pass before the country servants learn to express themselves to their masters." This relation of the common people in Switzerland to the cultured class is assumed as the foundation for just such a relation in Russia.
I regard it as superfluous to expatiate on what is known to everybody, that in Germany the people speak a special language, called Plattdeutsch, and that in the German part of Switzerland this Plattdeutsch is especially far removed from the German language, whereas in Russia we frequently speak a bad language, while the masses always speak a good Russian, and that in Russia it will be more correct to put these words of Pestalozzi in the mouth of peasants speaking of the teachers. A peasant and his boy will say quite correctly that it is very hard to understand what those creatures, meaning the teachers, say. The ignorance about the masses is so complete in this world of the pedagogues that they boldly say that to the peasant school come little savages, and therefore boldly teach them what is down and what up, that a blackboard is placed on a stand, and that underneath it there is a groove. They do not know that if the pupils asked the teacher, there would turn up very many things which the teacher would not know; that, for example, if you rub off the paint from the board, nearly any boy will tell you of what kind of wood the board is made, whether of pine, linden, or aspen, which the teacher cannot tell; that a boy will always tell better than the teacher about a cat or a chicken, because he has observed them better than the teacher; that instead of the problem about the wagons the boy knows the problems about the crows, about the cattle, and about the geese. (About the crows: There flies a flock of crows, and there stand some oak-trees: if two crows alight on each, a crow will be lacking; if one on each, an oak-tree will be lacking. How many crows and how many oak-trees are there? About the cattle: For one hundred roubles buy one hundred animals,—calves at half a rouble, cows at three roubles, and oxen at ten roubles. How many oxen, cows, and calves are there?) The pedagogues of the German school do not even suspect that quickness of perception, that real vital development, that contempt for everything false, that ready ridicule of everything false, which are inherent in every Russian peasant boy,—and only on that account so boldly (as I myself have seen), under the fire of forty pairs of intelligent youthful eyes, perform their tricks at the risk of ridicule. For this reason, a real teacher, who knows the masses, no matter how sternly he is enjoined to teach the peasant children what is up and what down, and that two and three is five, not one real teacher, who knows the pupils with whom he has to deal, will be able to do that.
Thus, the chief causes which have led us into such error are: (1) the ignorance about the masses; (2) the involuntarily seductive ease of teaching the children what they already know; (3) our proneness to imitate the Germans, and (4) the criticism of the old, without putting down a new, foundation. This last cause has led the pedagogues of the new school to this, that, in spite of the extreme external difference of the new method from the old, it is identical with it in its foundation, and, consequently, in the methods of instruction and in the results. In either method the essential principle consists in the teacher's firm and absolute knowledge of what to teach and how to teach, and this knowledge of his he does not draw from the demands of the masses and from experience, but simply decides theoretically once for all that he must teach this or that and in such a way, and so he teaches. The pedagogue of the ancient school, which for briefness' sake I shall call the church school, knows firmly and absolutely that he must teach from the prayer-book and the psalter by making the children learn by rote, and he admits no alterations in his methods; in the same manner the teacher of the new, the German, school knows firmly and absolutely that he must teach according to Bunákov and Evtushévski, begin with the words "whisker" and "wasp," ask what is up and what down, and tell about the favourite suslik, and he admits no alterations in his method. Both of them base their opinion on the firm conviction that they know the best methods. From the identity of the foundations arises also a further similarity. If you tell a teacher of the church reading that it takes the children a long time and causes them difficulty to acquire reading and writing, he will reply that the main interest is not in the reading and writing, but in the "divine instruction," by which he means the study of the church books. The same you will be told by a teacher of Russian reading according to the German method. He will tell you (all say and write it) that the main question is not the rapidity of the acquisition of the art of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but in the "development." Both place the aim of instruction in something independent of reading, writing, and arithmetic, that is, of science, in something else, which is absolutely necessary.
This similarity continues down to the minutest details. In either method all instruction previous to the school, all knowledge acquired outside the school, is not taken into account,—all entering pupils are regarded as equally ignorant, and all are made to learn from the beginning. If a boy who knows the letters and the syllables a, be, enters a church school, he is made to change them to buki-az—ba. The same is true of the German school.
Just so, in either school it happens that some children cannot learn the rudiments.
Just so, with either method, the mechanical side of instruction predominates over the mental. In either school the pupils excel in a good handwriting and good enunciation with absolutely exact reading, that is, not as it is spoken, but as it is written. Just so, with either method, there always reigns an external order in the school, and the children are in constant fear and can be guided only with the greatest severity. Mr. Korolév has incidentally remarked that in instruction according to the sound method blows are not neglected. I have seen the same in the schools of the German method, and I assume that without blows it is impossible to get along even in the new German school, because, like the church school, it teaches without asking what the pupil finds interesting to know, but what, in the teacher's opinion, seems necessary, and so the school can be based only on compulsion. Compulsion is attained with children generally by means of blows. The church and the new German school, starting from the same principles and arriving at the same results, are absolutely identical. But, if it came to choosing one of the two, I should still prefer the church school. The defects are the same, but on the side of the church school is the custom of a thousand years and the authority of the church, which is so powerful with the masses.