The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-28

him in school ihconveniently late in the evening, from which it may be supposed that Russian children differ greatly from others.
 For three years he struggled with this school but the pupils gradually dW1ndled away and he rushed away to the Bashkirs, to live near to nature, but from which he soon returned. Al- most immediately he married the daughter of Dr. Behrs, of Moscow, and they Went to live at Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy devoting most of his Peace" and Anna Karenina," and the composition of some primers for use in the schools. To aid him in this undertaking Eugene Schuyler sent him several American school books which he considered very use> form the basis of the Russian prim- CTS,
 Tolstoy's Beliefs.
 In these primers, Tolstoy carried out his idea of education. He be- lieved that the children of the lower schools should receive an education fitting them for life without regard for the universities. He also thought that the subjects taught were far above the children and that they were forced to understand the subject in exactly the way the teacher under stood it. According to one of his critics The analysed the absurd method of object-teaching and the torture known as reading by sounds, and pointed out that frequently the old method of giving special names to letters without any obvious rela- tions to their sounds. has produced just as good results as any of the new-fangled methods of pedagogy"
 During all those years spent at 11x-rx D@1 IL vigorously for the truth by which to solve the problem of life. Many times he thought he had it-only to prove it false. Finally a remark of a peasant that ''he lived for his soul according to God, according to truth seemed to Tolstoy the solvent of his mystery. His whole life changed so much with himself but with studies representing moral forces. This change made him more access sible to the peasants who often came to consult with him. Everyone found comfort for his troubles as well as good, vigorous advice.
 Adopted Dress of Peasant.
 The count adopted the dress of the peasants and often went out bare footed to mow in the fields. He had given the estate over to his wife, who managed it, but who did not agree with Tolstoy on the question of the peasants. This was given as the req son for his leaving home last Novem- Der with his doctor on journey to the Caucasus. He contracted a fever On the train and was forced to stop a, Avastapo where his favorite daughter, Alexandria, found him and where he passed away a few days later.
 Thus ended the life of one of Rus sia's noblest men--a man, who suT-
 
 exempt from human weaknesses, en- deavored to set forth his own ideas and beliefs to in such way as should be most helpful to mankind. How his works will be regarded in the future we do not know, but certainly .le and undoubtedly has benefited the Russian peasantly to great extent.
 May Hannah Best, also speaking on Tolstoy, spoke as follows:
 In the nineteenth century there were three men-three great men who left the indelible impress of their thought and action upon the minds of men for all time to come-three men who in their gigantic strength stood out above and completely over shadOwed the thought of their time. They were Napoleon, the military giant; Lincoln, the emancipator, and lastly the supreme literary genius of
 
 Although in the truest sense, we should think of Tolstoy as a Russian, speaking primarily to Russians, he has, nevertheless, as Russian, speak ing to Americans, a message of pe- culiar force. For, in the first place, We are the ardent supporters of that type of complex, highly organized civilization which he so wholeheart- edly condemned; and, in the second place, we are as d nation the expo nents of indifference toward those two departments of life in which he was so prominent figure-religion and art This being so, We ought to feel a deep interest in his philosophy, his literary work and his life.
 Tolstoy's life divides itself into three easily defined periods. The first period, that is the first twenty eight years of his life. begins in 1928 with his birth at Yasnaya Polyana, and ends with his experiences in the Crimea. His education. like that of most cultured Russians consisted in study under tutors with a finishing course at the University of Kazan. At nineteen he left Kazan, after failing completely, and returned to Yasnaya Polyana, where for the next three years he lived wildly and recklessly. Then, his health having broken down, he went to the Caucasus to recuper- ate. Here he came into direct con- tact with and learned to appreciate the simple, wholesome peasant life, which he describes in the CossackS, a novel which, like the writings of Rousseau, advocates the retu n to Nature and shows the superiority of the peasant life over that of the high CT classes. At this time he joined the army and later, when the Crimean war broke out, he was transferred to the frontier. It was here that he saw war as it really is; he saw it from the inside; he saw it stripped of it's glory, standing forth as plain unadorned, wholesale murder.
 TOlstOy Becomes Teacher.
 After the close of the war he went to St. Petersburg, and this begins the second period of his life. Here he was enthusiastically received, not only as hero and lnobleman back from Sebastopol, but as one of Russia S foremost writers. For three years he lived here ecklessly-drinking, gam dissatisfied with his life, skeptical of the utility of his work, and convinced that before he could teach the world any thing through his writings he must first know what he had to teach, he returned to Yasnaya Polyana. At first he devoted his time to instructing the peasant children. He organized school on quite independent lines and he perfected in the Yasnaya Polyana papers a theory of education, from the study of which it is possible that in the future far reaching educational reforms may be developed. But one thing he himself learned and that was this: Before you can teach even a