Having finished the analysis and criticism of the German school, I consider it necessary,—in view of what I have said, namely, that criticism is fruitful only when, condemning, it points out how that which is bad ought to be,—I consider it necessary to speak of those foundations of instruction which I regard as legitimate, and on which I rear my method of instruction.
In order to elucidate in what I find these unquestionable foundations of every pedagogical activity, I shall be compelled to repeat myself, that is, to repeat what I said fifteen years ago in the pedagogical periodical, Yásnaya Polyána, which I then published. This repetition will not be tedious for the pedagogues of the new school, because what I then wrote is not exactly forgotten, but has never been considered by the pedagogues,—and yet I still think that just what was expressed by me at that time might have placed pedagogy, as a theory, on a firm foundation. Fifteen years ago, when I took up the matter of popular education without any preconceived theories or views on the subject, with the one desire to advance the matter in a direct and straightforward manner, I, as a teacher in my school, was at once confronted with two questions: (1) What must I teach? and (2) How must I teach it?
At that time, even as at the present, there existed the greatest diversity of opinion in the answers to these questions.
I know that some pedagogues, who are locked up in their narrow theoretical world, think that there is no other light than what peeps through the windows, and that there is no longer any diversity of opinions.
I ask those who think so to observe that it only seems so to them, just as it seems so to the circles that are opposed to them. In the whole mass of people who are interested in education, there exists, as it has existed before, the greatest diversity of opinions. Formerly, just as now, some, in reply to the question of what ought to be taught, said that outside of the rudiments the most useful information for a primary school is obtained from the natural sciences; others, even as now, that that was not necessary, and was even injurious; even as now, some proposed history, or geography, while others denied their necessity; some proposed the Church-Slavic language and grammar, and religion, while others found that, too, superfluous, and ascribed a prime importance to "development." On the question of how to teach there has always been a still greater diversity of answers. The most diversified methods of instructing in reading and arithmetic have been proposed.
In the bookstalls there were sold, side by side, the self-teachers according to the buki-az—ba, Bunákov's lessons, Zolotóv's charts, Madame Daragán's alphabets, and all had their advocates. When I encountered these questions and found no answer for them in Russian literature, I turned to the literature of Europe. After having read what had been written on the subject and having made the personal acquaintance of the so-called best representatives of the pedagogical science in Europe, I not only failed to find anywhere an answer to the question I was interested in, but I convinced myself that this question does not even exist for pedagogy, as a science; that every pedagogue of any given school firmly believed that the methods which he used were the best, because they were based on absolute truth, and that it would be useless for him to look at them with a critical eye.
However, because, as I said, I took up the matter of popular education without any preconceived notions, or because I took up the matter without prescribing laws from a distance about how I ought to teach, but became a schoolmaster in a village popular school in the backwoods,—I could not reject the idea that there must of necessity exist a criterion by means of which the question could be solved: What to teach and how to teach it. Should I teach the psalter by heart, or the classification of the organisms? Should I teach according to the sound alphabet, translated from the German, or from the prayer-book? In the solution of this question I was aided by a certain pedagogical tact, with which I am gifted, and especially by that close and impassioned relation in which I stood to the matter.
When I entered at once into the closest direct relations with those forty tiny peasants that formed my school (I call them tiny peasants because I found in them the same characteristics of perspicacity, the same immense store of information from practical life, of jocularity, simplicity, and loathing for everything false, which distinguish the Russian peasant), when I saw that susceptibility, that readiness to acquire the information which they needed, I felt at once that the antiquated church method of instruction had outlived its usefulness and was not good for them. I began to experiment on other proposed methods of instruction; but, because compulsion in education, both by my conviction and by my character, are repulsive to me, I did not exercise any pressure, and, the moment I noticed that something was not readily received, I did not compel them, and looked for something else. From these experiments it appeared to me and to those teachers who instructed with me at Yásnaya Polyána and in other schools on the same principle of freedom, that nearly everything which in the pedagogical world was written about schools was separated by an immeasurable abyss from reality, and that many of the proposed methods, such as object-lessons, the natural sciences, the sound method, and others, called forth contempt and ridicule, and were not accepted by the pupils. We began to look for those contents and those methods which were readily taken up by the pupils, and struck that which forms my method of instruction.
But this method stood in a line with all other methods, and the question of why it was better than the rest remained as unsolved as before. Consequently, the question of what the criterion was as to what to teach and how to teach received an even greater meaning for me; only by solving it could I be convinced that what I taught was neither injurious nor useless. This question both then and now has appeared to me as a corner-stone of the whole pedagogy, and to the solution of this question I devoted the publication of the pedagogical periodical Yásnaya Polyána. In several articles (I do not renounce anything I then said) I tried to put the question in all its significance and to solve it as much as I could. At that time I found no sympathy in all the pedagogical literature, not even any contradiction, but the most complete indifference to the question which I put. There were some attacks on certain details and trifles, but the question itself evidently did not interest any one. I was young then, and that indifference grieved me. I did not understand that with my question, "How do you know what to teach and how to teach?" I was like a man who, let us say, in a gathering of Turkish pashas discussing the question in what manner they may collect the greatest revenue from the people, should propose to them the following: "Gentlemen, in order to know how much revenue to collect from each, we must first analyze the question on what your right to exact that revenue is based." Obviously all the pashas would continue their discussion of the measures of extortion, and would reply only with silence to his irrelevant question. But the question cannot be circumvented. Fifteen years ago no attention was paid to it, and the pedagogues of every school, convinced that everybody else was talking to the wind and that they were right, most calmly prescribed their laws, basing their principles on philosophies of a very doubtful character, which they used as a substratum for their wee little theories.
And yet, this question is not quite so difficult if we only renounce completely all preconceived notions. I have tried to elucidate and solve this question, and, without repeating those proofs, which he who wishes may read in the article, I will enunciate the results to which I was led. "The only criterion of pedagogy is freedom, the only method—experience." After fifteen years I have not changed my opinion one hair's breadth; but I consider it necessary to define with greater precision what I understand by these words, not only in respect to education in general, but also in respect to the particular question of popular education in a primary school. One hundred years ago the question what to teach and how to teach could have had no place either in Europe or with us. Education was inseparably connected with religion. To learn reading meant to learn Holy Writ. In the Mohammedan countries this relation of the rudiments and religion still persists in its full force. To learn means to learn the Koran, and, therefore, Arabic. But the moment religion ceased to be the criterion of what ought to be taught, and the school became independent of it, this question had to arise. But it did not arise because the school was not suddenly freed from its dependence on religion, but by imperceptible steps. Now it is accepted by everybody that religion cannot serve as the contents, nor as an indication of the method of education, and that education has different demands for its basis. In what do these demands consist? On what are they based? In order that these principles should be incontrovertible, it is necessary either that they be proved philosophically, incontrovertibly, or that, at least, all educated people should be agreed on them. But is it so? There can be no doubt whatsoever about this, that in philosophy have not been found those principles on which could be built up the decision of what ought to be taught, the more so since the matter itself is not an abstract, but a practical affair, which depends on an endless number of vital conditions. Still less can these principles be discovered in the common consent of all men who busy themselves with this matter, in the consent which we may take as a practical foundation, as an expression of the universal common sense. Not only in matters of popular, but even of higher education do we see a complete diversity of opinions among the best representatives of education, as, for example, in the question of classicism and realism. And yet, in spite of the absence of any foundations, we see education proceeding on its own path and on the whole being guided by only one principle, namely by freedom. There exist side by side the classical and the real school, each of which is prepared to regard itself as the only natural school, and both satisfy some want, for parents send their children to either.