Education and instruction are generally considered in the abstract, that is, the question is discussed how in the best and easiest manner to produce a certain act of instruction on a certain subject (whether it be one child or a mass of children). This view is quite faulty. All education and instruction can be viewed only as a certain relation of two persons or of two groups of persons having for their aim education or instruction. This definition, more general than all the other definitions, has special reference to popular education, where the question is the education of an immense number of persons, and where there can be no question about an ideal education. In general, with the popular education we cannot put the question, "How is the best education to be given?" just as with the question of the nutrition of the masses we cannot ask how the most nutritious and best loaf is to be baked. The question has to be put like this: "How is the best relation to be established between given people who want to learn and others who want to teach?" or, "How is the best bread to be made from given bolted flour?" Consequently the question of how to teach and what is the best method is a question of what will be the best relation between teacher and pupil.

Nobody, I suppose, will deny that the best relation between teacher and pupil is that of naturalness, and that the contrary relation is that of compulsion. If so, the measure of all methods is to be found in the greater or lesser naturalness of relations and, therefore, in the lesser or greater compulsion in instruction. The less the children are compelled to learn, the better is the method; the more – the worse. I am glad that I do not have to prove this evident truth. Everybody is agreed that just as in hygiene the use of any food, medicine, exercise, that provokes loathing or pain, cannot be useful, so also in instruction can there be no necessity of compelling children to learn anything that is tiresome and repulsive to them, and that, if necessity demands that children be compelled, it only proves the imperfection of the method. Any one who has taught children has no doubt observed that the less the teacher himself knows the subject which he teaches and the less he likes it, the more will he have to have recourse to severity and compulsion; on the contrary, the more the teacher knows and loves his subject, the more natural and easy will his instruction be. With the idea that for successful instruction not compulsion is wanted, but the rousing of the pupil's interest, all the pedagogues of the school which is opposed to me agree. The only difference between us is that the conception that the teaching must rouse the child's interest is with them lost in a mass of other conflicting notions about "development," of the value of which they are convinced and in which they exercise compulsion; whereas I consider the rousing of the pupil's interest, the greatest possible ease, and, therefore, the non-compulsion and naturalness of instruction as the fundamental and only measure of good and bad instruction.

Every progress of pedagogy, if we attentively consider the history of this matter, consists in an ever increasing approximation toward naturalness of relations between teacher and pupil, in a lessened compulsion, and in a greater ease of instruction.

The objection was formerly made and, I know, is made even now that it is hard to find the limit of freedom which shall be permitted in school. To this I will reply that this limit is naturally determined by the teacher, his knowledge, his ability to manage the school; that this freedom cannot be prescribed; the measure of this freedom is only the result of the greater or lesser knowledge and talent of the teacher. This freedom is not a rule, but serves as a check in comparing schools between themselves, and as a check in comparing new methods which are introduced into the school curriculum. The school in which there is less compulsion is better than the one in which there is more. The method which at its introduction into the school does not demand an increase of discipline is good; but the one which demands greater severity is certainly bad. Take, for example, a more or less free school, such as mine was, and try to start a conversation in it about the table and the ceiling, or to transpose cubes, – you will see what it hubbub will arise in the school and how you will feel the necessity of restoring order by means of severity; try to tell them an interesting story, or to give them problems, or make one write on the board and let the others correct his mistakes, and allow them to leave the benches, and you will find them all occupied and there will be no naughtiness, and you will not have to increase your severity, – and you may safely say that the method is good.

In my pedagogical articles I have given theoretical reasons why I find that only the freedom of choice on the side of the learners as to what they are to be taught and how can form a foundation of any instruction; in practice I have always applied these rules in the schools under my guidance, at first on a large scale, and later in narrower limits, and the results have always been very good, both for the teachers and the pupils, as also for the evolution of new methods, – and this I assert boldly, for hundreds of visitors have come to the Yásnaya Polyána school and know all about it.

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.

In regard to the school building the masses rarely have any difficulty, when they start a school for themselves, and if the Commune is rich and there are any communal buildings, such as a storehouse or a deserted inn, the Commune fixes it up; if there is none, it buys a building, at times even from a landed proprietor, or it builds one of its own. If the Commune is not well-to-do and is small, it hires quarters from a peasant, or establishes a rotation, and the teacher passes from hut to hut. If the Commune, as it most generally does, selects a teacher from its own midst, a manorial servant, a soldier, or a church servant, the school is located at the house of that person, and the Commune looks only after the heating. In any case, I have never heard that the question of the location of the school ever troubled a Commune, or that half the sum set aside for instruction should be lost, as is done by school councils, on the buildings, nay, not even one-sixth or one-tenth of the whole sum. The peasant Communes have arranged it one way or another, but the question of the school building has never been regarded as troublesome. Only under the influence of the higher authorities do there occur cases where the Communes build brick buildings with iron roofs. The peasants assume that the school is not in the structure, but in the teacher, and that the school is not a permanent institution, but that as soon as the parents have acquired knowledge, the next generation will get the rudiments without a teacher. But the County Council department of the ministry always assumes – since for it the whole problem consists in inspecting and classifying – that the chief foundation of the school is the structure and that the school is a permanent establishment, and so, as far as I know, now spends about one-half of its money on buildings, and inscribes empty school buildings in the list of the schools of the third order. In the Krapívensk County Council seven hundred roubles out of two thousand roubles are spent on buildings. The ministerial department cannot admit that the teacher (that educated pedagogue who is assumed for the masses) would lower himself to such an extent as to be willing to go, like a tailor, from hut to hut, or to teach in a smoky house. But the masses assume nothing and only know that for their money they can hire whom they please, and that, if they, the hiring peasants, live in smoky huts, the hired teacher has no reason to turn up his nose at them.

In regard to the second question, about the division of the school time, the masses have always and everywhere invariably expressed one demand, and that is that the instruction shall be carried on in the winter only.

Everywhere the parents quit sending their children in the spring, and those children who are left in the school, from one-fourth to one-fifth of the whole number, are the little tots or the children of rich parents, and they attend school unwillingly. When the masses hire a teacher themselves, they always hire him by the month and only for the winter. The ministerial department assumes that, just as in the institutions of learning there are two months of vacation, so it ought also to be in a one-class country school. From the standpoint of the ministerial department that is quite reasonable: the children will not forget their instruction, the teacher is provided for during the whole year, and the inspectors find it more comfortable to travel in the summer; but the masses know nothing about all that, and their common sense tells them that in winter the children sleep for ten hours, consequently their minds are fresh; that in winter there are no plays and no work for the children, and that if they study in winter as long as possible, taking in even the evenings, for which a lamp costing one rouble fifty kopeks is needed and kerosene costing as much, there will be enough instruction. Besides, in the summer every boy is of use to the peasant, and in summer proceeds the life instruction, which is more important than school learning. The masses say that there is no reason why they should pay the teacher during the summer. "Rather will we increase his pay for the winter months, and that will please him better. We prefer to hire a teacher at twenty-five roubles a month for seven months, than at twelve roubles a month for the whole year. For the summer the teacher will hire himself out elsewhere."

As to the third question, the distribution of the schools according to localities, the arrangements of the masses most markedly differ from those of the school council. In the first place, the distribution of the schools, that is, whether there shall be more or less of them for a certain locality, always depends on the character of the whole population (when the masses themselves attend to it). Wherever the masses are more industrial and work out, where they are nearer to the cities, where they need the rudiments, – there there are more schools; where the locality is more removed and agricultural, there there are fewer of them. In the second place, when the masses themselves attend to the matter, they distribute the schools in such a way as to give all the parents a chance to make use of the schools in return for their money, that is, to send their children to school. The peasants of small, remote villages of from thirty to forty souls, where half the population will be found, prefer to have a cheap teacher in their own village, than an expensive one in the centre of the township, whither their children cannot walk or be driven. By this distribution of the schools, the schools themselves, as arranged by the peasants, depart, it is true, from the required pattern of the school, but, instead, acquire the most diversified forms, everywhere adapting themselves to local conditions. Here a clerical person from a neighbouring village teaches eight boys at his house, receiving fifty kopeks a month from each. Here a small village hires a soldier for eight roubles for the winter, and he goes from house to house. Here a rich innkeeper hires a teacher for his children for five roubles and board, and the neighbouring peasants join him, by adding two roubles for each of their boys. There a large village or a compact township levies fifteen kopeks from each of the twelve hundred souls and hires a teacher for 180 roubles for the winter. There the priest teaches, receiving as a remuneration either money, or labour, or both. The chief difference in this respect between the view of the peasants and that of the County Council is this: the peasants, according to the more or less favourable local conditions, introduce schools of a better or worse quality, but always in such a way that there is not a single locality where some kind of instruction is not offered; while with the arrangement of the County Council a large half of the population is left outside every possibility of partaking of that education even in the distant future.

In matters of the petty villages, forming one-half of the population, the ministerial department acts most decisively. It says: "We provide schools where there is a building and where the peasants of the township have collected enough money to support a teacher at two hundred roubles. We will contribute from the County Council what is wanting, and the school is entered on the lists." The villages that are removed from the school may send their children there, if they so wish. Of course, the peasants do not take their children there, because it is too far, and yet they pay. Thus, in the Yásenets township all pay for three schools, but only 450 souls in three villages make use of the school, though there are in all three thousand souls; thus, only one-seventh of the population makes use of the school, though all pay for it. In the Chermóshen township there are nine hundred souls and there is a school there, but only thirty pupils attend it, because all the villages of that township are scattered. To nine hundred souls there ought to be four hundred pupils. And yet, both in the Yásenets and the Chermóshen townships the question of the distribution of schools is regarded as satisfactorily solved.

In matters of the choice of a teacher, the masses are again guided by quite different views from the County Council. In choosing a teacher, the masses look upon him in their own way, and judge him accordingly. If the teacher has been in the neighbourhood, and the masses know what the results of his teaching are, they value him according to these results as a good or as a bad teacher; but, in addition to the scholastic qualities, the masses demand that the teacher shall be a man who stands in close relations to the peasant, able to understand his life and to speak Russian, and so they will always prefer a country to a city teacher. In doing so, the masses have no bias and no antipathy toward any class in particular: he may be a gentleman, official, burgher, soldier, sexton, priest, – that makes no difference so long as he is a simple man and a Russian. For this reason the peasants have no cause for excluding clerical persons, as the County Councils do. The County Councils select their teachers from among strangers, getting them from the cities, while the masses look for them among themselves. But the chief difference in this respect between the view of the Communes and that of the County Council consists in this: the County Council has only one type, – the teacher who has attended pedagogical courses, who has finished a course in a seminary or school, at two hundred roubles; but with the masses, who do not exclude this teacher and appreciate him, if he is good, there are gradations of all kinds of teachers. Besides, with the majority of school councils there are definite favourite types of teachers, for the most part such as are foreign to the masses and antagonistic to them, and other types which the school councils dislike. Thus, evidently, the favourite type of many counties of the Government of Túla are lady teachers; the disliked type are the clerical persons, and in the whole of the Túla and Krapívensk counties there is not one school with a teacher from the clergy, which is quite remarkable from an administrative point of view. In Krapívensk County there are fifty parishes. The clerical persons are the cheapest of teachers, because they are permanently settled and for the most part can teach in their own houses with the aid of their wives and daughters, – and these are, it seems, purposely avoided, as though they were very harmful people.

In matters of the remuneration of the teachers, the difference between the view of the masses and that of the County Council has almost all been expressed in the preceding pages. It consists in this: (1) the masses choose a teacher according to their means, and they admit and know from experience that there are teachers at all prices, from two puds of flour a month to thirty roubles a month; (2) teachers are to be remunerated for the winter months, for those during which there can be some instruction; (3) the masses, in the housing of the school as also in matters of the remuneration of the teachers, always know how to find a cheap way: they give flour, hay, the use of carts, eggs, and all kinds of trifles, which are imperceptible to the world at large, but which improve the teacher's condition; (4) above all, a teacher is paid, or is remunerated in addition to the payment, by the parents of the pupils, who pay by the month, or by the whole Commune which enjoys the advantages of the school, and not by the administration that has no direct interest in the matter.

The ministerial department cannot act differently in this respect. The norm of the salary for a model teacher is given, consequently these means have to be got together in some way. For example: a Commune intends to open a school, – the township gives it a certain number of kopeks per soul. The County Council calculates how much to add. If there are no demands made by other schools, it gives more, sometimes twice as much as the Commune has given; at times, when all the money has been distributed, it gives less, or entirely refuses to give any. Thus, there is in Krapívensk County a Commune which gives ninety roubles, and the County Council adds to that three hundred roubles for a school with an assistant; and there is another Commune which gives 250 roubles, and the County Council adds another fifty roubles; and a third Commune which offers fifty-six roubles, and the County Council refuses to add anything or to open the school, because that money is insufficient for a normal school, and all the money has been distributed.

Thus, the chief distinctions between the administrative view of the masses and that of the County Council are the following: (1) the County Council pays great attention to the housing and spends large sums upon it, while the masses obviate this difficulty by domestic, economic means, and look upon the primary schools as temporary, passing institutions; (2) the ministerial department demands that instruction be carried on during the whole year, with the exception of July and August, and nowhere introduces evening classes, while the masses demand that instruction be carried on only in the winter and are fond of evening classes; (3) the ministerial department has a definite type of teachers, without which it does not recognize the school, and has a loathing for clerical persons and, in general, for local instructors; the masses recognize no norm and choose their teachers preferably from local inhabitants; (4) the ministerial department distributes the schools by accident, that is, it is guided only by the desire of forming a normal school, and has no care for that greater half of the population which under such a distribution is left outside the school education; the masses not only recognize no definite external form of the school, but in the greatest variety of ways get teachers with all kinds of means, arranging worse and cheaper schools with small means and good and expensive schools with greater means, and turn their attention to furnishing all localities with instruction in return for their money; (5) the ministerial department determines one measure of remuneration, which is sufficiently high, and arbitrarily increases the amount from the County Council; the masses demand the greatest possible economy and distribute the remuneration in such a way that those whose children are taught pay directly.