The consequences of such a relation to the pupils has been for the teachers that they did not consider that method best which they knew, but tried to discover other methods, became acquainted with other teachers for the purpose of learning their methods, tested new methods, and, above all, were learning something all the time. A teacher never permitted himself to think that in cases of failure it was the pupils' fault,—their laziness, playfulness, dulness, deafness, stammering,—but was firmly convinced that he alone was to blame for it, and for every failure of a pupil or of all the pupils he tried to find a remedy. For the pupils the result was that they learned readily, always begged the teachers to give them evening classes in the winter, and were absolutely free in the school,—which, in my conviction and experience, is the chief condition for successful progress in instruction. Between teachers and pupils there were always established friendly, natural relations, with which alone it is possible for the teacher to know his pupils well. If, from a first, external impression of the school, we were to determine the difference between the church, the German, and my own school, it would be this: in a church school you hear a peculiar, unnatural, monotonous shouting of all the pupils and now and then the stern cries of the teacher; in the German school you hear only the teacher's voice and now and then the timid voices of the pupils; in mine you hear the loud voices of the teachers and the pupils, almost simultaneously.
As for the methods of instruction the consequences were that not one method of instruction was adopted or rejected because it was liked or not, but only because it was accepted or not by the pupils without compulsion. But in addition to the good results which were always obtained without fail from the application of my method by myself and by everybody else (more than twenty teachers), who taught according to my method ("without fail" I say for the reason that not once did we have a pupil who did not learn the rudiments), besides these results, the application of the principles of which I have spoken had the effect that during these fifteen years all the various modifications, to which my method was subjected, not only did not remove it from the needs of the masses, but, on the contrary, brought it nearer and nearer to them. The masses, at least in our parts, know the method itself and discuss it, and prefer it to the church method, which I cannot say of the sound method. In the schools which are conducted according to my method the teacher cannot remain motionless in his knowledge, such as he is and must be with the method of sounds. If a teacher according to the new German fashion wants to go ahead and perfect himself, he has to follow the pedagogical literature, that is, to read all those new inventions about the conversations about the suslik and about the transposition of the squares. I do not think that that can promote his personal education. On the contrary, in my school, where the subjects of instruction, language and mathematics, demand positive knowledge, every teacher, in advancing his pupils, feels the need of learning himself, which was constantly the case with all the teachers I had.
Besides, the methods of instruction themselves, which are not settled once for all, but always strive to be as easy and as simple as possible, are modified and improved from the indications which the teacher discovers in the relations of the learners to his instruction.
The very opposite to this I see in what, unfortunately, takes place in the schools of the German pattern, which of late have been introduced in our country in an artificial manner. The failure to recognize that before deciding what to teach and how to teach we must solve the question how we can find that out has led the pedagogues to a complete disagreement with reality, and the abyss which fifteen years ago was felt to exist between theory and practice has now reached the farthest limits. Now that the masses are on all sides begging for education, while pedagogy has more than ever passed to personal fancies, this discord has reached incredible proportions.
This discord between the demands of pedagogy and reality has of late found its peculiarly striking expression not only in the matter of instruction itself, but also in another very important side of the school, namely in its administration. In order to show in what condition this matter has been and might be, I shall speak of Krapívensk County of the Government of Túla, in which I live, which I know, and which, from its position, forms the type of the majority of counties of central Russia.
In 1862 fourteen schools were opened in a district of ten thousand souls, when I was rural judge; besides, there existed about ten schools in the district among the clericals and in the manors among the servants. In the three remaining districts of the county there were fifteen large and thirty small schools among the clericals and manorial servants. Without saying anything about the number of the learners, of which, I assume, there were in general not less than now, nor about the instruction itself, which was partly bad and partly good, but on the whole not worse than at present, I will tell how and on what that business was based.
All schools were then, with few exceptions, based on a free agreement of the teacher with the parents of the pupils, or with the whole partnership of the peasants paying a lump sum for everybody. Such a relation between the parents or Communes and the teachers is even now met with in some exceedingly rare places of our county and of the Government in general. Everybody will agree that, leaving aside the question of the quality of instruction, such a relation of the teacher to the parents and peasants is most just, natural, and desirable. But, with the introduction of the law of 1864, this relation was abolished and is being abolished more and more. Everybody who knows the matter as it is will observe that with the abolition of this relation the people take less and less part in the matter of their education, which is only natural. In some County Councils the school tax of the peasants is even turned into the County Council, and the salary, appointment of teachers, location of schools,—all that is done quite independently of those for whom it is intended (in theory the peasants, no doubt, are members of the County Council, but in practice they have through this mediation no influence on their own schools). Nobody will, I suppose, assert that that is just, but some will say: "The illiterate peasants cannot judge what is good and what bad, and we must build for them as well as we can." But how do we know? Do we know firmly, are we all of one opinion, how to build schools? And does it not frequently turn out bad, for we have built much worse than they have?
Thus, in relation to the administrative side of the schools I have again to put a third question, on the same basis of freedom: Why do we know how best to arrange a school? To this question German pedagogy gives an answer which is quite consistent with its whole system. It knows what the best school is, it has formed a clear, definite ideal, down to the minutest details, the benches, the hours of instruction, and so forth, and gives an answer: the school has to be such and such, according to this pattern,—this alone is good and every other school is injurious. I know that, although the desire of Henry IV. to give each Frenchman soup and a chicken was unrealizable, it was impossible to say that the desire was false. But the matter assumes an entirely different aspect when the soup is of a very questionable quality and is not a chicken soup, but a worthless broth. And yet the so-called science of pedagogy is in this matter indissolubly connected with power; both in Germany and with us there are prescribed certain ideal one-class, two-class schools, and so forth; and the pedagogical and the administrative powers do not wish to know the fact that the masses would like to attend to their own education. Let us see how such a view of popular education has been reflected in practice on the question of education.
Beginning with the year 1862 the idea that education was necessary has more and more spread among the masses: on all sides schools were established by church servants, hired teachers, and the Communes. Whether good or bad, these schools were spontaneous and grew out directly from the needs of the masses; with the introduction of the law of 1864 this tendency was increased, and in 1870 there were, according to the reports, about sixty schools in Krapívensk County. Since then officials of the ministry and members of the County Council have begun to meddle more and more with school matters, and in Krapívensk County forty schools have been closed and schools of a lower order have been prohibited from being opened. I know that those who closed those schools affirm that these schools existed only nominally and were very bad; but I cannot believe it, because I know well-instructed pupils from three villages, Trósna, Lamíntsovo, and Yásnaya Polyána, where schools were closed. I also know—-and this will seem incredible to many—-what is meant by prohibiting the opening of schools. It means that, on the basis of a circular of the ministry of public instruction, which spoke of the prohibition of unreliable teachers (this, no doubt, had reference to the Nihilists), the school council transferred this prohibition to the minor schools, taught by sextons, soldiers, and so forth, which the peasants themselves had opened, and which, no doubt, are not at all comprised in the circular. But, instead, there exist twenty schools with teachers, who are supposed to be good because they receive a salary of two hundred roubles in silver, and the County Council has distributed Ushínski's text-books, and these schools are called one-class schools, because they teach in them according to a programme, and the whole year around, that is, also in summer, with the exception of July and August.
Leaving aside the question of the quality of the former schools, we shall now take a glance at their administrative side, and we will compare, from this side, what was before, with what is now. In the administrative, external side of the school there are five main subjects, which are so closely connected with the school business itself that on their good or bad structure depend to a great extent the success and dissemination of popular education. These five subjects are: (1) the school building, (2) the schedule of instruction, (3) the distribution of the schools according to localities, (4) the choice of the teacher, and—what is most important—(5) the material means, the remuneration of the teachers.