Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 44

a.s.suming that all peasants pay fifteen kopeks per soul, and the County Council gives three thousand roubles, there will be nine thousand roubles, which will suffice only for thirty schools with the former arrangement. But with the new arrangement:

I a.s.sume that ten of the old schools are left intact; in these schools the teachers get twenty roubles per month, which, for the seven winter months, amounts to fourteen hundred roubles.

I a.s.sume that in every parish there will be established a school with the teacher's salary at five roubles per month, which, for fifty schools, amounts to 1,750 roubles.

I a.s.sume the remaining 340 schools are of the cheap character, at two roubles per month; fifteen roubles for each of the 340 schools makes 5,100 roubles.

Thus the four hundred schools will demand an expenditure in salaries amounting to 8,250 roubles. There are still left 750 roubles for school appliances and transportation.

The figures for the teachers' wages are not chosen arbitrarily by me: on the other hand, the expensive teachers are given a larger salary than they now get by the month for the whole year. Even so, the amount apportioned to the church servants is what they now receive in the majority of cases. But the cheap schools at two roubles per month are a.s.sumed by me at a higher rate than what the peasants in reality pay, so that the calculation may boldly be accepted. In this calculation is included the kernel of ten chief teachers and ten or more church servant teachers. It is evident that only with such a calculation will the school business be placed on a serious and possible basis and have a clear and definite future.

If what I have pointed out does not convince anybody that will mean that I did not express clearly what I wanted to say, and do not wish to enter into any disputes with anybody. I know that no deaf people are so hopeless as those who do not want to hear. I know how it is with farmers. A new thres.h.i.+ng-machine has been bought at a great expense, and it is put up and started thres.h.i.+ng. It threshes miserably, no matter how you set the screw; it threshes badly, and the grain falls into the straw. There is a loss, and it is as clear as can be that the machine ought to be abandoned and another means be employed for thres.h.i.+ng, but the money has been spent and the thres.h.i.+ng-machine is put up. "Let her thresh," says the master. Precisely the same thing will happen with this matter. I know that for a long time to come there will flourish the object instruction, and cubes, and b.u.t.tons instead of arithmetic, and hissing and sputtering, in teaching the letters, and twenty expensive schools of the German pattern, instead of the needed four hundred popular, cheap schools. But I know just as surely that the common sense of the Russian nation will not permit this false, artificial system of instruction to be foisted upon it.

The ma.s.ses are the chief interested person and the judge, and now do not pay a particle of attention to our more or less ingenious discussions about the manner in which the spiritual food of education is best to be prepared for them. They do not care, because they are firmly convinced that in the great business of their mental development they will not make a false step and will not accept what is bad,--and it would be like making pease stick to the wall to attempt to educate, direct, and teach them in the German fas.h.i.+on.

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

1881

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

We know that we have pa.s.sed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

(First Ep. of John, iii. 14.)

But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth, up his heart from him, how dwelleth the love of G.o.d in him? (_Ib._ iii. 17.)

My children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. (_Ib._ iii. 18.)

Love is of G.o.d; and every one that loveth is born of G.o.d, and knoweth G.o.d. (_Ib._ iv. 7.)

He that loveth not knoweth not G.o.d; for G.o.d is love. (_Ib._ iv. 8.)

No man hath seen G.o.d at any time. If we love one another, G.o.d dwelleth in us. (_Ib._ iv. 12.)

G.o.d is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in G.o.d, and G.o.d in him. (_Ib._ iv. 16.)

If a man say, I love G.o.d, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love G.o.d whom he hath not seen. (_Ib._ iv. 20.)

I.

A shoemaker was lodging with his wife and children at the house of a peasant. He had no house, no land of his own, and supported his family by his shoemaker's trade. Bread was dear, but work was cheap, and he spent everything he made. The shoemaker and his wife had one fur coat between them, and even that was all worn to tatters; this was the second year that the shoemaker had been meaning to buy a sheepskin for a new fur coat.

Toward fall the shoemaker had saved some money: three roubles in paper lay in his wife's coffer, and five roubles and twenty kopeks were outstanding in the village.

In the morning the shoemaker went to the village to get him that fur coat. He put on his wife's wadded nankeen jacket over his s.h.i.+rt, and over it his cloth caftan; he put the three-rouble bill into his pocket, broke off a stick, and started after breakfast. He thought:

"I shall get the five roubles from the peasant, will add my own three, and with that will buy me a sheepskin for the fur coat."

The shoemaker came to the village, and called on the peasant: he was not at home, and his wife promised to send her husband with the money, but gave him none herself. He went to another peasant, but the peasant swore that he had no money, and gave him only twenty kopeks for mending a pair of boots. The shoemaker made up his mind to take the sheepskin on credit, but the furrier would not give it to him.

"Bring me the money," he said, "and then you can choose any you please; we know what it means to collect debts."

Thus the shoemaker accomplished nothing. All he got was the twenty kopeks for the boots he had mended, and a peasant gave him a pair of felt boots to patch with leather.

The shoemaker was grieved, spent all the twenty kopeks on vodka, and started home without the fur coat. In the morning it had seemed frosty to him, but now that he had drunk a little he felt warm even without the fur coat. The shoemaker walked along, with one hand striking the stick against the frozen mud clumps, and swinging the felt boots in the other, and talking to himself.

"I am warm even without a fur coat," he said. "I have drunk a cup, and the vodka is coursing through all my veins. I do not need a sheepskin.

I have forgotten my woe. That's the kind of a man I am! What do I care!

I can get along without a fur coat: I do not need it all the time. The only trouble is the old woman will be sorry. It is a shame indeed: I work for him, and he leads me by the nose. Just wait! If you do not bring the money, I'll take away your cap, upon my word, I will! How is this? He pays me back two dimes at a time! What can you do with two dimes? Take a drink, that is all. He says he suffers want. You suffer want, and am I not suffering? You have a house, and cattle, and everything, and here is all I possess; you have your own grain, and I have to buy it. I may do as I please, but I have to spend three roubles a week on bread. I come home, and the bread is gone: again lay out a rouble and a half! So give me what is mine!"

Thus the shoemaker came up to a chapel at the turn of the road, and there he saw something that looked white, right near the chapel. It was growing dusk, and the shoemaker strained his eyes, but could not make out what it was.

"There was no stone here," he thought. "A cow? It does not look like a cow. It looks like the head of a man, and there is something white besides. And what should a man be doing there?"

He came nearer, and he could see plainly. What marvel was that? It was really a man, either alive or dead, sitting there all naked, leaning against the chapel, and not stirring in the least. The shoemaker was frightened, and thought to himself:

"Somebody must have killed a man, and stripped him of his clothes, and thrown him away there. If I go up to him, I shall never clear myself."

And the shoemaker went past. He walked around the chapel, and the man was no longer to be seen. He went past the chapel, and looked back, and saw the man leaning away from the building and moving, as though watching him. The shoemaker was frightened even more than before, and he thought to himself:

"Shall I go up to him, or not? If I go up, something bad may happen. Who knows what kind of a man he is? He did not get there for anything good.

If I go up, he will spring at me and choke me, and I shall not get away from him; and if he does not choke me, I may have trouble with him all the same. What can I do with him, since he is naked? Certainly I cannot take off the last from me and give it to him! May G.o.d save me!"

And the shoemaker increased his steps. He was already a distance away from the chapel, when his conscience began to smite him.

And the shoemaker stopped on the road.

"What are you doing, s.e.m.e.n?" he said to himself. "A man is dying in misery, and you go past him and lose your courage. Have you suddenly grown so rich? Are you afraid that they will rob you of your wealth? Oh, s.e.m.e.n, it is not right!"

s.e.m.e.n turned back, and went up to the man.

II.

s.e.m.e.n walked over to the man, and looked at him; and saw that it was a young man, in the prime of his strength, with no bruises on his body, but evidently frozen and frightened: he was leaning back and did not look at s.e.m.e.n, as though he were weakened and could not raise his eyes.

s.e.m.e.n went up close to him, and the man suddenly seemed to wake up. He turned his head, opened his eyes, and looked at s.e.m.e.n. And this one glance made s.e.m.e.n think well of the man. He threw down the felt boots, ungirt himself, put his belt on the boots, and took off his caftan.

"What is the use of talking?" he said. "Put it on! Come now!"

s.e.m.e.n took the man by his elbows and began to raise him. The man got up.

And s.e.m.e.n saw that his body was soft and clean, his hands and feet not calloused, and his face gentle. s.e.m.e.n threw his caftan over the man's shoulders. He could not find his way into the sleeves. So s.e.m.e.n put them in, pulled the caftan on him, wrapped him in it, and girded it with the belt.