Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/217

Rh stories, could not coordinate the labor of reading and that of comprehending what they read, though they understood perfectly well when we read it to them.

We thought at first that the difficulty consisted only in the faulty mechanism of the pupils' reading, and we invented mechanical reading—reading for the process of reading—where the teacher read in alternation with the pupils—but this did not help matters; even in the reading of "Robinson" the same unreadiness manifested itself.

In summer, when the school is in a state of transition, we thought we had overcome this difficulty by the simplest and most practical method. Why not confess it, we submitted to the false shame of having visitors observe us. Our pupils read much worse than the pupils that had been taught the same length of time by the sacristan! A new teacher proposed to introduce reading aloud from the same books, and we consented. Having once adopted the false notion that pupils ought to learn to read fluently in the course of a year, we added mechanical and graded reading to the curriculum, and obliged them to read two hours a day, all using the same books, and this proved very convenient to us.

But one infraction of the law of freedom for the students brought falsehood, and a whole series of mistakes in its train.

The books were purchased—the short stories of Pushkin and Yershof; the children were seated on benches, and one was called on to read aloud while the others followed his reading; in order to be sure that all were paying attention, the teacher would call on first one, then another.

At first this seemed to us a very good plan. Any one visiting the school would find the scholars sitting in good order on their benches; one would be reading, the rest following.

The reader would pronounce, "Smilúïsa, Gosuddruinya Ruibka, Have pity, Mistress Fish;" the others or the teacher would correct the accent, smíluïsa, and all would follow suit.