On Popular Education Page #9

"On Popular Education" is a thought-provoking essay by Leo Tolstoy in which the renowned Russian author explores the role of education in shaping individuals and society. Written in 1862, Tolstoy critiques the existing educational systems of his time, advocating for a more accessible, practical, and moral approach to learning. He emphasizes the importance of fostering critical thinking and moral values over rote memorization, urging educators to nurture the innate curiosity of learners. Tolstoy's reflections serve as a powerful call for a more humane and equitable educational framework that empowers individuals to contribute meaningfully to society.

• Essay

								

According to the grammar of Mr. Bunákov, which is an abbreviation of
Perevlévski's grammar, even with the same choice of examples, the study
of grammar begins with syntactical analysis, which is so difficult and,
I will say, so uncertain for the Russian language, which does not fully
comply with the classic 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 masses. 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 masses 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 masses which
exists in this world of the pedagogues, and from which result their
method and all the consequent manner of instruction.

Mr. Bunákov, in proof of how necessary the object instruction and
development is for the children of a Russian school, with extraordinary
naïveté 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. Nobody, 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 pass before the country
servants learn to express themselves to their masters." This relation of
the common people in Switzerland to the cultured class is assumed 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 masses 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 masses 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 masses, 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 masses; (2) the involuntarily seductive ease of
teaching the children what they already know; (3) our proneness 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 masses 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 Bunákov and Evtushévski, begin with the words
"whisker" and "wasp," ask what is up and what down, and tell about the

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