The Work of the Yasnaya Polyana School
In his educational articles of practical interest, Tolstoy
gives an artistic description of several incidents in school life, a subject n which he took a warm and sincere interest, not like a stern pedant demanding obedience, but like a boy joining in the joys and sorrows of his school companions, giving them his whole soul, and sharing his great spiritual riches with them.
By putting together the incidents thus described, one sees the
gigantic figure of the great educationist in all its grandeur.
I. The Working of the School
It was not cold outside -- a moonless winter night with clouds
in the sky. We stopped at the cross-roads; the older, third-year
pupils stopped near me, asking me to accompany them farther; the
younger ones looked awhile at me and then ran off down hill. The
young ones had begun to study with a new teacher, and they no
longer had that confidence in me that the older boys had.
"Come, let us go to the preserve," (a small forest within two
hundred steps of the house), said one of them. Fedka, a small boy
of ten, of a tender, impressionable, poetical, and impetuous
nature, was the most persistent in his demands. Danger seemed to
form his chief condition for enjoyment...
He knew that there were wolves in the forest then, and so he
wanted to go to the preserve. The rest joined in, so we went, all
four of us, into the wood. another boy, I shall call him Semka, a
physically and morally sound lad of about twelve, nicknamed Vavilo, walked ahead and kept exchanging calls with somebody in his ringing voice. Pronka, a sickly, meek, but uncommonly talented boy, the son of a poor family -- sickly, I think, mainly on account of insufficient food -- was walking by my side.
Fedka was walking between me and Semka, talking all the time
in his extremely soft voice, telling us how he had herded horses
here in the summer, or saying that he was not afraid of anything, or asking, "Suppose some one were to jump out at us!" and insisting on my answering him. We did not go into the forest itself -- that would have been too terrible -- but even near the forest it was getting darker; we could hardly see the path, and the fires of the village were hidden from view.
Semka stopped and began to listen.
"Stop, boys! What is that?" he suddenly said.
We held our tongues, but we could hear nothing; still it added
terror to our fear.
"Well, what should we do if one should jump out and make
straight for us?" Fedka asked.
We began to talk about robbers in the Caucasus. They recalled
a story of the Caucasus I had told them long ago, and I told them
more stories about abreks, Cossacks, and Khadzhi Murat. Semka was
strutting ahead of us, stepping broadly in his big boots, and
evenly swaying his strong back. Pronka tried to walk by my side, but Fedka pushed him off the path, and Pronka, who apparently always submitted to such treatment on account of his poverty, still rushed up to my side during the most interesting passages, though sinking knee-deep in the snow.
Everybody who knows anything about peasant children has
noticed that they are not accustomed to any kind of caresses --
tender words, kisses, being fondly touched with the hand, and so
forth....It was for this reason that I was startled when Fedka, who
was walking by my side, in the most terrible part of the story
suddenly touched me lightly with his sleeve, and then grasped two
of my fingers with his whole hand, and did not let them go.
The moment I was silent, Fedka begged me to proceed, and that
in such an imploring tone and with so much agitation that I could
not refuse.
"Don't get in my way!" he once angrily called out to Pronka, who had run on in front; he was really quite savage with him -- he had such a mingled feeling of terror and joy, as he was holding on to my finger, that he could not bear any one daring to interrupt his pleasure.
"More, more! That's fine!"
We passed the forest and were approaching the village from the
other end.
"Let us go back again," all cried when the lights became
visible. "Let us take another walk!"