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Rh impressed by the novel institution of the kindergarten, to which Frdbel, the great educationist, was devoting all his energies. Determined to follow these lines, he sought and obtained permission to open a school. In his zeal he also started an educational journal called Yasnaya Polyana. This journal now only exists as a literary curiosity, but the essays published in it have all been reprinted in his collected works. The time for opening the school was well chosen. The liberal spirits of Russia had gained the day and won a great victory. Just two months previously the decree of emancipation (February 1861) had been sent forth. The air was rife with schemes for the betterment of the peasantry. A new era seemed to have begun. Tolstoy's school was essentially " free." " Everything that savours of compulsion is harmful," he said, " and proves either that the method is indifferent or the teaching bad." So that not only were no fees paid, but the children came and went as they pleased, learned what they pleased, and were subjected to no sort of punishment. It was the duty of the teacher to fix the pupils' attention, and his the blame if they failed to learn. " The student," said Tolstoy " must have the right to refuse those forms of education which do not satisfy his instincts. Freedom is the only criterion. We of the older generation do not and cannot know what is necessary for the younger." On these principles the Yasnaya Polyana school was started in a house near that of Tolstoy. He himself taught drawing, singing and Bible history. The Old Testament was his handbook; he held it as indispensable in any course of instruction, a model for all books. Doubts and fears sometimes assailed him, still for a year all went well. Other schools were opened on the same lines in the district, and success seemed assured. But the eyes of the government inspectors had long been suspiciously fixed on them, and a correspondence on the subject presently ensued between the ministry of education and the home department. The verdict passed by the former was free from overt animus. " The activity of Count Tolstoy deserves respect and should win co-operation from the educational department, although it cannot agree with all his ideas; ideas which he will in all probability abandon on due consideration " (October 1862). Yet there was a subtle threat conveyed in these last words which was probably not without effect. Signs of discouragement grew visible. We find the enthusiast complaining that his masters desert him, his pupils fall away. The plague of inquisitive visitors annoys him. At the end of the second year the schools were closed, the journal discontinued, and Tolstoy, disheartened and sick, " more," as he writes, " in mind than body," betook himself to the healthful quiet of the steppes, to breathe fresh air, to drink koumiss and to vegetate. This was the end of his educational experiment, the aim of which was rather to develop the character than to educate in the ordinary sense of the term. When later he asked leave from the authorities to reopen the schools, it was peremptorily refused.

His socialistic theories were now fully unfolded. In his view the people were everything, the higher classes nothing. The latter had misinterpreted the meaning of " progress," imagining it to be synonymous with education; and hence compulsory teaching had been resorted to, with harmful results. Reading and writing played but a small part in forming a man's mind and fitting him for life. They merely rendered him more articulate. These questions should be left to the people themselves. Their demands were very clearly expressed. They knew what they wanted, and were thoroughly convinced that " in the great question of their spiritual development they would neither take a wrong step nor accept that which was false." Such was in substance Tolstoy's doctrine. " The people," he affirms, " are stronger, more independent, more just, more human, and, above all, more necessary than the upper class. It is not they who should come to our schools; we should learn of them." This desire to subvert society is akin to the philosophy of Rousseau, as expressed in Emile (livre iv.): " C'est le peuple qui compose le genre humain; ce qui n'est pas peuple est si peu de chose, que ce n'est pas la peine de le compter. L'homme est le meme dans tous les etats; si cela est, les etats les plus nombreux meritent le plus de respect. Devant celui qui pense, toutes les distinctions civiles disparaissent: it voit les memes passions, les memes sentiments dans le goujat et dans l'homme illustre; it n'y, discerne que leur langage, qu'un coloris plus ou moms apprete.... Etudiez les gens de cet ordre, vous verrez que, sous un autre langage, ils ont autant d'esprit et plus de bon sens que vous. Respectez donc votre espece; songez qu'elle est composee essentiellement de la collection des peuples; que quand tous les rois et tous les philosopher en seraient otes, it n'y paraitrait gunre, et que les choses n'en iraient pas plus mal." While Tolstoy's theories were thus in course of practical solution, his literary powers suffered eclipse. Turgeniev, who lived near him in the country, writes in disgust that he " has grown a long beard, leaves his hair to fall in curls over his ears, holds newspapers in detestation, and has no soul for anything but his property." Indeed, his time was fully taken up, for while still occupied in supporting the school, he had allowed himself to be nominated to the position of " Arbitrator.," which he held for a year and some months (1861-1862). Relations This was an arduous post. The arbitrators were with the appointed under the Law of Emancipation to supervise the distribution of land, to adjust the taxes, define the conditions of purchase, and decide all matters in this connexion. These duties were after his own heart, and he went to work with a will. Every day he had difficult points to deal with, deputations of peasants coming to see him, the new law and the rights it bestowed on them having to be explained. The hardest of all Tolstoy's tasks was to remove the suspicion and mistrust felt by the serf towards the landlord. On the other hand, he had to contend with the nobility of the district, who were well aware of the side on which his sympathies placed him. For a year and a half he tried energetically to do his duty, but this experience led him eventually to regard the Emancipation Law as a not unmixed blessing. It had come too soon, and been granted unasked. The condition of the peasantry was worse than before. A noble impulse, inspired by love of the people, impelled Tolstoy to become their champion and interpreter.

A tragic incident occurring about this period (1866) forcibly illustrates Tolstoy's character as a defender of the helpless. A regiment had recently been stationed near Yasnaya Polyana, in consequence of some five hundred convicts being at work upon the railway. In this regiment was a certain Captain N., a strict disciplinarian, who led a solitary life and was much disliked by his brother officers and his men. For trifling faults he would condemn his soldiers to unheard-of punishments. One of his orderlies in particular, a young man of some education - who had voluntarily taken the place of a comrade to free him from military service - was constantly getting into trouble, until, for some slight clerical error in a report, Captain N. ordered him to be degraded and flogged. This was too much for the poor volunteer. He followed the officer as he was leaving the orderlyroom, and struck him a blow on the face. He was immediately placed under arrest, and the details of the occurrence quickly spread through the neighbouring villages. Two officers of the regiment brought the story to Tolstoy and begged him to undertake the soldier's defence. He consented readily, and no opposition being made by the military authorities, at once prepared for the court-martial. A few days afterwards the court assembled. Warned by the president of the severity of military law, Tolstoy made answer that he was come to defend not a criminal but a man compelled to crime by force of circumstances outside his will. The plea he set up was that the prisoner was not in full possession of his senses; but this defence was not allowed to stand. The soldier was condemned to be shot, in spite of the utmost intercession Tolstoy could make. The emotion of the crowded assembly stirred by his appeal, the mute quiescence of the soldier (persuaded that death was better than the living agony of exile), the closing tragedy - all this, added to the many scenes of war and bloodshed which he had previously witnessed, made a lasting impression and caused him to raise his voice yet louder in the cause of universal love and peace. During the preceding period of ethical experiment he published only two books, but these stand high among his works. They were Three Deaths (1859) and The Cossacks (1863) - the latter written ten years before, its leading idea being that culture is the enemy