The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-04-03
MARIA TOLSTOI'S WORK.
LATORT TO APPLY HER TiTHER'S
TEA CHINGS TO HEAL LIFE.

Her Reasons for Working Ina the Fields
Among the Peasants-M edical Instruc-
ton Also Given Them-Ataitudc of the
Government Toward Her and Her
Father.
st. Petersburg, Feb. 11.-Of the sixty
million female inhabitants Of the Rus
sian empire, about three-ffths have to
do work of one kind or another in order
to live. The great majority are the
wives widows and daughters of peas
ants, and their main occupation is help
ing the men on their peasant holdings,
The women who do not belong to the
peasant class and yet desire employ
ment, by way of recreation, or to gain
livelihood, teach, do needle work, go out
as governesses, write and occasionally
go into business. Their field of activity
however, is exceedingly restricted, and
there is not yet a stir among them at all
comparable with the so-called Womens
movement In Germany, England and
America Because a number of them go
to the universities, both at home and
abroad, and two or three, like Sonya
Kovaleffska, have made themselves ia
mous on account of their university
work, it is rather customary to think of
Russian women as being "emancipated"
and strong competition in Intellectual
fields as well as in commercial under
fakings with Russian men, but it is
false notion of their actual position. A
great many of them smoke, and all have
a certain quality which seems to make
them companions of men on purely
friendly grounds in a way that more
western women are not, but they are in
mo sense of the word emancipated, and
frequently have to leave the country
when they take part in agitations and
movements such as in England and
America have long been recognized as
suitable and congenial undertakings for
women.
The girl to whom attention is direct
ed in this paper has not yet been asked
to leave Russia, and is so well known
and protected at court that the proba-
bility is she will not be exiled. but her
cereer up to date has not been easy, and
if she continues in the future as she has
done in the past there await her, so far
as she will be able in her own lifetime
ito see good results but little more than
few benefits secured for the people
actually about her and a peace of mind
which, to her, of course, will mean a
graf deal. 1 refer to Maria Tolstoi, the
second daughter of the novelist and re-
ligious enthusiast, Count Leo Tolstoi
She is her fathers most devoted follow
err and to foreigner seems to have
known how to put his ideas to a more
nfi toct 10 himself C0l1nt
Tolstoi's influence in Russia has been
and still remains very great; he is one
of the spiritual forces of the empire, and
the government at st. Petersburg is
continually having to reckon with him.
AS a practical reformer, however, who |
can point to things actually done, he
does not seem a success even to his |
nearest neighbors. His village, or rath- |
er his wife's, Yasnaya Poyana is as |
miserable a collection of huts and hui |
man beings as is to be found in the dis
triot in which it is situated. Things are |
run almost exactly as they are in all !
Russian settlements of similar charac-
ter, and the villagers have to work hard |
and to pay for everything they get.
Their economic situation cannot be said |
to have changed one whit on account of !
they are just as ragged and forlorn
according to competent testi-
mony, as they We're when the count was
exclusively a literary man. They have
great respect for him as an arbitrator
In village quarrels, and look up to him
as the most honest man in the neighbor-
hood, but he has not taught them how
to better their material well being, and
1oop
how to keep clean, it is a hopeless task
to try to persuade them to live accord
ing to the teaching in the Sermon on the
Mount
This teaching is as dear to Maria Tolls 5
tot as it is to her father, although she
mas come to an appreciation of it by
ess circuitous route than did the count
md has, perhaps, less philosophic un-
of its import, but she has a
instinct for practically and {
lirectness, and in place of writing and
suggesting, has deemed it her mission to '
1elp the villagers to learn how to make J
heir homes brighter and better, as well '
Is how to take care of their health.
She has also been more successful than 1
Ter father in freeing her mind of the a
painful thoughts which possessed him S
)oIOTe ne got Ilu VI HIS property, WHICH,, |
le said, really belonged to the peasants. t
When the family property was divided h
ome years ago among all the children, '
Maria simply refused to accept her IL
hare, and has consequently escaped the t
ceilings which so long troubled her faith a
r. The same charge that has been t
,rought against him might be brought t
gainst her, for as far as one can see, Fl
here was nothing to hinder her taking p
Ter portion and handing it over direct b
o the peasants, but she had doubtless n
Understood his difficulty in trying to do c
his and resolved not to be disappointed, ll
8 he had been. 81
She is to-day young woman of about | q
Wenty-sx, and, unless her recent mar &
iage with a count has changed her d
lans, is still doing practical missionary e1
York, either in her mothers or her hus- Il
and's farm. She is neither very bril- II
ant as student nor uncommonly a.
retty as woman but her birth and lc
ocial position might easily have gained
Dr. her in ST Petersburg an envable h,
lace in society. She might also have lii
one abroad to Paris, Heidelberg or Ber- w
n and on account of her fathers fame liz
nd her own native endowment, been a d,
uccess in university circles. Once ii