# Leo Tolstoy: His Life and Work/Chapter 14

Tolstoy had several times started on educational work.
As far back as 1849, when he returned to Yasnaya Polyana from St. Petersburg, along with other institutions and reforms by means of which he tried to approach the people, he established a school for peasant children. From his "A Russian Proprietor" we know how unsuccessful these first attempts were. With his departure for the Caucasus, the school was closed. He reopened it on his return to Yasnaya Polyana after his resignation and his first journey abroad, as was mentioned in the proper place.
On recommencing his school work, Tolstoy soon realized his lack of theoretical knowledge and hastened to fill the void in his education by reading, foreign travel, personal relations with prominent educationists, and practical work in different schools. Feeling himself thus restored, he for the third time and with better zeal turned to his school and carried it up to a remarkably high level.
In one of his educational articles, he thus relates his endeavors and preparations to found a school:
Tolstoy's letters from abroad show the interest which he took in the school while he was away. During the whole of the time the teaching in the school went on without ceasing. It continued with greater regularity after his return to Yasnaya Polyana in the spring of 1861, and in 1862, as Tolstoy says in his article on Education:
Finally, we may mention the names of the teachers of the schools under Tolstoy's jurisdiction where his views on the education of the people were supported. In the Golovenkovskiy school, the teacher was one Aleksandr Serdobolskiy, a pupil of the Kazan gymnasium; in the Trasnenskiy school, Ivan Aksentev, a pupil of the Penza gymnasium; in Lomintsevok, Aleksey Shumilin, a pupil of the Kaluga gymnasium; in the Bagucharov school, Boris Golovin, a pupil of the tula theological seminary; in the Baburino school, Alfonse Erlenwein, a pupil of the Kishinev gymnasium; and in Yassenki, Mitrofan Butovich, a pupil of the Kishinev gymnasium; in the Kolpeno school, Anatoliy Tomashevskiy, who finished his studies in the Saratov gymnasium; in the Gorodnya, Vladimir Tokaschevich, who finished his studies in the Penza gymnasium; in the Plekhanovo school, Nikolay Peterson, who finished his studies in the Penza gymnasium for the nobles; the Bogucharov village community chose Sergey Gudim, an ex-student of the Kazan University, in the place of its former teacher, Morozov.
Perhaps some of these men may come across this biography and its perusal may induce them to write down memories of their collaboration with the great teacher.
In one of his articles on education, Tolstoy himself sets forth in detail the organization of the school at Yasnaya Polyana:
As with every conflict, so also here, it was necessary to solve the question: Which is more lawful, the resistance or the action itself? Must the resistance be broken, or the action be changed?
The question has been somehow always settled in favor of violence. But some sound reasons ought to be produced for the use of such violence. What are they? To this question Tolstoy gives the following answer. The arguments may be religious, philosophical, experimental, and historical, and then he discusses each of these kinds of arguments separately:
The argument that as schools have existed and are existing, therefore they are good, Tolstoy meets by describing his personal experience of schools in Marseilles, Paris and other towns in Western Europe, which brought him to the conclusion that the greater part of the people's education is acquired not at school but in life, and that free, open instruction by means of public lectures, sights, meetings, books, exhibitions, and so on, quite surpasses all school tuition.
Finally, Tolstoy addresses himself especially to Russian educationists, saying that if we are, for example, to acknowledge the existence of German schools as desirable, in spite of their defects, on the ground of historic experiment, still the question remains: On what grounds are we Russians to defend the school for the people, when no such schools yet exist with us? What historic reasons have we to declare that our schools must be the same as those of the rest of Europe?
The article ends in the following avowal:
The magazine "Yasnaya Polyana", which was in fact itself an interesting educational experiment, lasted for one year. Twelve numbers were issued.
The first issue began with the following appeal to the public:
Each issue contained one or two theoretical articles, then reports of the progress of the schools under the management of Tolstoy, bibliography, description of school libraries, accounts of donations, and a supplement in the shape of a book for reading.
The motto of the magazine was the saying: Glaubst zu schieben und wirst geschoben, that is to say, "You mean to push, but in reality it is you who are pushed."
This magazine has become a bibliographical rarity. True, Tolstoy's own principal articles have been included in the fourth volume of the full edition of his works, but besides those articles, there appeared in the magazine many different short notices, descriptions and reports of great interest for teachers in a theoretical as well as in a practical sense.
In his article "On methods of teaching to read and write," Tolstoy tries in the first place to prove that reading is not the first step in instruction, but only an intervening one.
Among the reasons which cause a contradiction between the real needs of the people and the tuition imposed upon the people by the cultured classes, Tolstoy points out certain features in the historic development of educational institutions.
Having made clear the gist of this matter of writing and reading, and pointed out its place in the life of the people, Tolstoy goes on further to investigate different methods of teaching to read and write.
After having examined the defects and merits of the old fashioned methods of teaching to read letter by letter, and the method of learning by sound; after having further discussed the comical and pedantic German Lautieranschauungsunterrichtsmethode, he came to the conclusion that all methods are good and all are bad, that the talent and ability of the teacher are at the foundation of any method, and he finally addresses to the teacher the following advice:
With still greater detail and clearness does Tolstoy present his educational ideas in his article "Education and Instruction".
In the first place, he states the fact that the majority of educationists, Russian and European, confuse these two ideas. Then he tries to restate the distinction between these conceptions, giving his own definitions to the three principal educational terms -- Education, Training, and Instruction..
While not approving of the influence of the first three sources of compulsion, Tolstoy admitted that it was intelligible.
Tolstoy then began the examination of the methods of this educational compulsion, i.e., those practiced in the schools from the lowest to the highest, and he found nothing cheering in them. He criticized especially the organization of our universities.
Without rejecting university instruction on principle, Tolstoy declared:
Tolstoy foresaw the timid objections to his radical solution of the question on the part of those fearing a change, and he answered these at once, concluding his answer with the following reply:
Of course, such audacious ideas could not be accepted by educationists, who during the 1860s have been at the head of national instruction in russia. Offended science did not even deign to take such ideas seriously. In "The Collection of Criticisms Upon Tolstoy" by Zelinskiy, a book very carefully composed, there are only two serious articles devoted to the magazine "Yasnaya Polyana", and to the school of the same name. The are printed in "The Contemporary" of 1862.
To one of these, the article of E. Markov, Tolstoy replied in his magazine by an article, "the Progress and Definition of Instruction."
The gist of markov's argument, given in a resume at the end of his article, consists in an open acknowledgment of the right of compulsory education on the part of society, and its right of rejecting free instruction, after making which he proceeds to express his approval of contemporary systems of instruction. As to the school in Yasnaya Polyana, he speaks with enthusiasm of its practice but holds that it is inconsistent with the theories of its founder and guide, L.N. Tolstoy.
In his reply to Markov, Tolstoy repeats and explains what has been said by him in his preceding articles, and he comes to the conclusion that their principal difference is the fact that Markov believes in progress and he does not.
In explanation of his want of belief in progress, he says:
The propositions stated are developed in detail by Tolstoy in his article, but as this subject over steps the limits of our narrative, we will conclude by mentioning one more paper entitled "A Project For A General Plan of People's Schools Organization." This article contains some witty criticisms, and a readable review of the Government regulation concerning schools in 1862.
Tolstoy's general critical remarks on the regulation can be summed up thus: (1) The regulation is based upon the American system; the people are to pay school rates, and the schools are to be maintained by the Government with the sum collected. But what is good in a democratic republic may turn out very bad in a despotic state, where the law expressing the so-called "will of the people" becomes a gross invasion of the rights of the people. (2) The general inefficiency of the project follows from its inadaptability to the needs of the people, owing to entire ignorance of Russian life on the part of the author. (3) The control of popular education sanctioned by this regulation will prove an obstacle to the popular education already existing, which is freely spreading.
After having finished this brief summary of Tolstoy's opinions on education, we must give our own conclusion, which is in opposition to the conclusion of M. Markov and is this, that the practice of the school at Yasnaya Polyana does not in the least contradict Tolstoy's views, but, on the contrary, amounts to their direct application, which is accomplished with unique success.

## Footnotes

* ↑ D.T. Uspenskiy, "Archive Materials for Tolstoy's Biography." "Russian Thought", 1903, vol. ix.