Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 42

"Now it is necessary to pa.s.s over to the third stage of object instruction, the contents of which have been defined by me as follows: The study of the country, county, Government, the whole realm with its natural products and its inhabitants, in general outline, as a sketch of home science and the beginning of natural science, with the predominance of reading, which, resting on the immediate observations of the first two grades, broadens the mental horizon of the pupils,--the sphere of their concepts and ideas. We can see from the mere definition that here the objectivity appears as a complement to the explanatory reading and narrative of the teacher,--consequently, what is said in regard to the occupations of the third year has more reference to the discussion of the second occupation, which enters into the composition of the subject under instruction, which is called the native language,--the explanatory reading."

We turn to the third year,--the explanatory reading, but there we find absolutely nothing to indicate how the new information is to be imparted, except that it is good to read such and such books, and in reading to put such and such questions. The questions are extremely queer (to me, at least), as, for example, the comparison of the article on water by Us.h.i.+nski and of the article on water by Aksakov, and the request made of the pupils that they should explain that Aksakov considers water as a phenomenon of Nature, while Us.h.i.+nski considers it as a substance, and so forth. Consequently, we find here again the same foisting of views on the pupils, and of subdivisions (generally incorrect) of the teacher, and not one word, not one hint, as to how any new knowledge is to be imparted.

It is not known what shall be taught: natural history, or geography.

There is nothing there but reading with questions of the character I have just mentioned. On the other side of the instruction about the word,--grammar and orthography,--we should just as much be looking in vain for any new method of instruction which is based on the preceding development. Again the old Perevlevski's grammar, which begins with philosophical definitions and then with syntactical a.n.a.lysis, serves as the basis of all new grammatical exercises and of Mr. Bunakov's manual.

In mathematics, too, we should be looking in vain, at that stage where the real instruction in mathematics begins, for anything new and more easy, based on the whole previous instruction of the exercises of the second year up to 20. Where in arithmetic the real difficulties are met with, where it becomes necessary to explain the subject from all its sides to the pupil, as in numeration, in addition, subtraction, division, in the division and multiplication of fractions, you will not find even a shadow of anything easier, any new explanation, but only quotations from old arithmetics.

The character of this instruction is everywhere one and the same. The whole attention is directed toward teaching the pupil what he already knows. And since the pupil knows what he is being taught, and easily recites in any order desired what he is asked to recite by the teacher, the teacher thinks that he is really teaching something, and the pupil's progress is great, and the teacher, paying no attention to what forms the real difficulty of teaching, that is, to teaching something new, most comfortably stumps about in one spot.

This explains why our pedagogical literature is overwhelmed with manuals for object-lessons, with manuals about how to conduct kindergartens (one of the most monstrous excrescences of the new pedagogy), with pictures and books for reading, in which are eternally repeated the same articles about the fox and the blackc.o.c.k, the same poems which for some reason are written out in prose in all kinds of permutations and with all kinds of explanations; but we have not a single new article for children's reading, not one Russian, nor Church-Slavic grammar, nor a Church-Slavic dictionary, nor an arithmetic, nor a geography, nor a history for the popular schools. All the forces are absorbed in writing text-books for the instruction of children in subjects they need not and ought not to be taught in school, because they are taught them in life. Of course, there is no end to the writing of such books; for there can be only one grammar and arithmetic, but of exercises and reflections, like those I have quoted from Bunakov, and of the orders of the decomposition of numbers from Evtushevski, there may be an endless number.

Pedagogy is in the same condition in which a science would be that would teach how a man ought to walk; and people would try to discover rules about how to teach the children, how to enjoin them to contract this muscle, stretch that muscle, and so forth. This condition of the new pedagogy results directly from its two fundamental principles: (1) that the aim of the school is development and not science, and (2) that development and the means for attaining it may be theoretically defined.

From this has consistently resulted that miserable and frequently ridiculous condition in which the whole matter of the schools now is.

Forces are wasted in vain, and the ma.s.ses, who at the present moment are thirsting for education, as the dried-up gra.s.s thirsts for rain, and are ready to receive it, and beg for it,--instead of a loaf receive a stone, and are perplexed to understand whether they were mistaken in regarding education as something good, or whether something is wrong in what is being offered to them. That matters are really so there cannot be the least doubt for any man who becomes acquainted with the present theory of teaching and knows the actual condition of the school among the ma.s.ses. Involuntarily there arises the question: how could honest, cultured people, who sincerely love their work and wish to do good,--for such I regard the majority of my opponents to be,--have arrived at such a strange condition and be in such deep error?

This question has interested me, and I will try to communicate those answers which have occurred to me. Many causes have led to it. The most natural cause which has led pedagogy to the false path on which it now stands, is the criticism of the old order, the criticism for the sake of criticism, without positing new principles in the place of those criticized. Everybody knows that criticizing is an easy business, and that it is quite fruitless and frequently harmful, if by the side of what is condemned one does not point out the principles on the basis of which this condemnation is uttered. If I say that such and such a thing is bad because I do not like it, or because everybody says that it is bad, or even because it is really bad, but do not know how it ought to be right, the criticism will always be useless and injurious. The views of the pedagogues of the new school are, above all, based on the criticism of previous methods. Even now, when it seems there would be no sense in striking a prostrate person, we read and hear in every manual, in every discussion, "that it is injurious to read without comprehension; that it is impossible to learn by heart the definitions of numbers and operations with numbers; that senseless memorizing is injurious; that it is injurious to operate with thousands without being able to count 2-3," and so forth. The chief point of departure is the criticism of the old methods and the concoction of new ones to be as diametrically opposed to the old as possible, but by no means the positing of new foundations of pedagogy, from which new methods might result.

It is very easy to criticize the old-fas.h.i.+oned method of studying reading by means of learning by heart whole pages of the psalter, and of studying arithmetic by memorizing what a number is, and so forth. I will remark, in the first place, that nowadays there is no need of attacking these methods, because there will hardly be found any teachers who would defend them, and, in the second place, that if, criticizing such phenomena, they want to let it be known that I am a defender of the antiquated method of instruction, it is no doubt due to the fact that my opponents, in their youth, do not know that nearly twenty years ago I with all my might and main fought against those antiquated methods of pedagogy and cooperated in their abolition.

And thus it was found that the old methods of instruction were not good for anything, and, without building any new foundation, they began to look for new methods. I say "without building any new foundation,"

because there are only two permanent foundations of pedagogy:

(1) The determination of the criterion of what ought to be taught, and (2) the criterion of how it has to be taught, that is, the determination that the chosen subjects are most necessary, and that the chosen method is the best.

n.o.body has even paid any attention to these foundations, and each school has in its own justification invented quasi-philosophical justificatory reflections. But this "theoretical substratum," as Mr. Bunakov has accidentally expressed himself quite well, cannot be regarded as a foundation. For the old method of instruction possessed just such a theoretical substratum.

The real, peremptory question of pedagogy, which fifteen years ago I vainly tried to put in all its significance, "Why ought we to know this or that, and how shall we teach it?" has not even been touched. The result of this has been that as soon as it became apparent that the old method was not good, they did not try to find out what the best method would be, but immediately set out to discover a new method which would be the very opposite of the old one. They did as a man may do who finds his house to be cold in winter and does not trouble himself about learning why it is cold, or how to help matters, but at once tries to find another house which will as little as possible resemble the one he is living in. I was then abroad, and I remember how I everywhere came across messengers roving all over Europe in search of a new faith, that is, officials of the ministry, studying German pedagogy.

We have adopted the methods of instruction current with our nearest neighbours, the Germans, in the first place, because we are always p.r.o.ne to imitate the Germans; in the second, because it was the most complicated and cunning of methods, and if it comes to taking something from abroad, of course, it has to be the latest fas.h.i.+on and what is most cunning; in the third, because, in particular, these methods were more than any others opposed to the old way. And thus, the new methods were taken from the Germans, and not by themselves, but with a theoretical substratum, that is, with a quasi-philosophical justification of these methods.

This theoretical substratum has done great service. The moment parents or simply sensible people, who busy themselves with the question of education, express their doubt about the efficacy of these methods, they are told: "And what about Pestalozzi, and Diesterweg, and Denzel, and Wurst, and methodics, heuristics, didactics, concentrism?" and the bold people wave their hands, and say: "G.o.d be with them,--they know better."

In these German methods there also lay this other advantage (the cause why they stick so eagerly to this method), that with it the teacher does not need to try too much, does not need to go on studying, does not need to work over himself and the methods of instruction. For the greater part of the time the teacher teaches by this method what the children know, and, besides, teaches it from a text-book, and that is convenient.

And unconsciously, in accordance with an innate human weakness, the teacher is fond of this convenience. It is very pleasant for me, with my firm conviction that I am teaching and doing an important and very modern work, to tell the children from the book about the suslik, or about a horse's having four legs, or to transpose the cubes by twos and by threes, and ask the children how much two and two is; but if, instead of telling about the suslik, the teacher had to tell or read something interesting, to give the foundations of grammar, geography, sacred history, and of the four operations, he would at once be led to working over himself, to reading much, and to refres.h.i.+ng his knowledge.

Thus, the old method was criticized, and a new one was taken from the Germans. This method is so foreign to our Russian un-pedantic mental att.i.tude, its monstrosity is so glaring, that one would think that it could never have been grafted on Russia, and yet it is being applied, even though only in a small measure, and in some way gives at times better results than the old church method. This is due to the fact that, since it was taken in our country (just as it originated in Germany) from the criticism of the old method, the faults of the former method have really been rejected, though, in its extreme opposition to the old method, which, with the pedantry characteristic of the Germans, has been carried to the farthest extreme, there have appeared new faults, which are almost greater than the former ones.

Formerly reading was taught in Russia by attaching to the consonants useless endings (_buki_--_uki_, _vyedi_--_yedi_), and in Germany _es em de ce_, and so forth, by attaching a vowel to each consonant, now in front, and now behind, and that caused some difficulty. Now they have fallen into the other extreme, by trying to p.r.o.nounce the consonants without the vowels, which is an apparent impossibility. In Us.h.i.+nski's grammar (Us.h.i.+nski is with us the father of the sound method), and in all the manuals on sound, a consonant is defined thus: "That sound which cannot be p.r.o.nounced by itself." And it is this sound which the pupil is taught before any other. When I remarked that it is impossible to p.r.o.nounce _b_ alone, but that it always gives you _b[)u]_, I was told that was due to the inability of some persons, and that it took great skill to p.r.o.nounce a consonant. And I have myself seen a teacher correct a pupil more than ten times, though he seemed quite satisfactorily to p.r.o.nounce short _b_, until at last the pupil began to talk nonsense. And it is with these _b's_, that is, sounds that cannot be p.r.o.nounced, as Us.h.i.+nski defines them, or the p.r.o.nunciation of which demands special skill, that the instruction of reading begins according to the pedantic German manuals.

Formerly syllables were senselessly learned by heart (that was bad); diametrically opposed to this, the new fas.h.i.+on 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 p.r.o.nounce 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 Evtushevski, they reach numeration only in the third year, and it is a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed 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. Bunakov, which is an abbreviation of Perevlevski's grammar, even with the same choice of examples, the study of grammar begins with syntactical a.n.a.lysis, which is so difficult and, I will say, so uncertain for the Russian language, which does not fully comply with the cla.s.sic 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 _b[)u]_, _v[)u]_, 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 ma.s.ses. 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses which exists in this world of the pedagogues, and from which result their method and all the consequent manner of instruction.

Mr. Bunakov, in proof of how necessary the object instruction and development is for the children of a Russian school, with extraordinary navete 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. n.o.body, 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 pa.s.s before the country servants learn to express themselves to their masters." This relation of the common people in Switzerland to the cultured cla.s.s is a.s.sumed 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses, 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 ma.s.ses; (2) the involuntarily seductive ease of teaching the children what they already know; (3) our p.r.o.neness 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 ma.s.ses 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 Bunakov and Evtushevski, 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 ident.i.ty 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. Korolev 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 a.s.sume 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 ma.s.ses.

Having finished the a.n.a.lysis 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, _Yasnaya Polyana_, which I then published. This repet.i.tion 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 ma.s.s 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_, Bunakov's lessons, Zolotov's charts, Madame Daragan'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 cla.s.sification 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 impa.s.sioned 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 Yasnaya Polyana 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 _Yasnaya Polyana_. 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 a.n.a.lyze 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 circ.u.mvented. 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 cla.s.sicism 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 cla.s.sical 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.

In the popular school the right to determine what the children shall learn, no matter from what standpoint we may consider this question, belongs just as much to the ma.s.ses, that is, either to the pupils themselves, or to the parents who send the children to school, and so the answer to the question what the children are to be taught in a popular school can be got only from the ma.s.ses. But, perhaps, we shall say that we, as highly cultured people, must not submit to the demands of the rude ma.s.ses and that we must teach the ma.s.ses what to wish. Thus many think, but to that I can give this one answer: give us a firm, incontrovertible foundation why this or that is chosen by you, show me a society in which the two diametrically opposed views on education do not exist among the highly cultured people; where it is not eternally repeated that if education falls into the hands of the clergy, the ma.s.ses are educated in one sense, and if education falls into the hands of the progressists, the people are educated in another sense,--show me a state of society where that does not exist, and I will agree with you.

So long as that does not exist, there is no criterion except the freedom of the learner, where, in matters of the popular school, the place of the learning children is taken by their parents, that is, by the needs of the ma.s.ses.

These needs are not only definite, quite clear, and everywhere the same throughout Russia, but also so intelligent and broad that they include all the most diversified demands of the people who are debating what the ma.s.ses ought to be taught. These needs are: the knowledge of Russian and Church-Slavic reading, and calculation. The ma.s.ses everywhere and always regard the natural sciences as useless trifles. Their programme is remarkable not only by its unanimity and firm definiteness, but, in my opinion, also by the breadth of its demands and the correctness of its view. The ma.s.ses admit two spheres of knowledge, the most exact and the least subject to vacillation from a diversity of views,--the languages and mathematics; everything else they regard as trifles. I think that the ma.s.ses are quite correct,--in the first place, because in this knowledge there can be no half information, no falseness, which they cannot bear, and, in the second, because the sphere of those two kinds of knowledge is immense. Russian and Church-Slavic grammar and calculation, that is, the knowledge of one dead and one living language, with their etymological and syntactical forms and their literatures, and arithmetic, that is, the foundation of all mathematics, form their programme of knowledge, which, unfortunately, but the rarest of the cultured cla.s.s possess. In the third place, the ma.s.ses are right, because by this programme they will be taught in the primary school only what will open to them the more advanced paths of knowledge, for it is evident that the thorough knowledge of two languages and their forms, and, in addition to them, of arithmetic, completely opens the paths to an independent acquisition of all other knowledge. The ma.s.ses, as though feeling the false relation to them, when they are offered incoherent sc.r.a.ps of all kinds of information, repel that lie from themselves, and say: "I need know but this much,--the church language and my own and the laws of the numbers, but that other knowledge I will take myself if I want it."

Thus, if we admit freedom as the criterion of what is to be taught, the programme of the popular schools is clearly and firmly defined, until the time when the ma.s.ses shall express some new demands. Church-Slavic and Russian and arithmetic to their highest possible stages, and nothing else but that. That is the determination of the limits of the programme of the popular school, which, however, does not presume that all three subjects be introduced systematically. With such a programme the attainment of symmetrical results in all three subjects would naturally be desirable; but it cannot be said that the predominance of one subject over another would be injurious. The problem consists only in keeping within the limits of the programme. It may happen that from the demands of the parents, and especially from the knowledge of the teacher, this or that subject will be more prominent,--with a clerical person the Church-Slavic language, with a teacher from a county school--either Russian or arithmetic; in all these cases the demands of the ma.s.ses will be satisfied, and the instruction will not depart from its fundamental criterion.

The second part of the question, how to teach, that is, how to discover which method is the best, has remained just as unsolved.

Just as in the first part of the question of what to teach, the a.s.sumption that on the basis of reflections it is possible to build a programme of instruction leads to contradictory schools, so it is also with the question as to how to teach. Let us take the very first stage of the teaching of reading. One a.s.serts that it is easier to teach so from cards; another--according to the _b_, _v_ system; a third--according to Korf; a fourth--according to the _be_, _ve_, _ge_ system, and so forth. It is said that the nuns teach reading in six weeks by the _buki-az_--_ba_ system. And every teacher, convinced of the superiority of his method, proves this superiority either by the fact that he teaches with it faster than others, or by reflections of the character which Mr. Bunakov and the German pedagogues adduce. At the present time, when there are thousands of examples, we ought to know precisely by what to be guided in our choice. Neither theory, nor reflections, nor even the results of instruction can show this completely.

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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.ses 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.