Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/223

Rh in the greater clearness of pronunciation, in the greater chance for the one who does not read, but follows, to understand; but all the advantage produced by this method is rendered injurious as soon as this method or any other is applied to the whole school.

Finally, the fifth method, which is still in favor with us, is a graded reading—that is, the reading of books with interest and comprehension growing ever more and more complicated.

All of these methods, as has been said above, have been employed experimentally in the school, and the advancement made in one month has been considerable.

The teacher's business is merely to propose a choice of all known and unknown methods of possibly helping the pupil in the business of learning. To be sure, in a certain way, that of reading by single book, instruction is made easy and convenient for the teacher, it has an appearance of regularity and progressiveness; but in our system it not only proves to be difficult, but to some it seems impossible.

People will ask: "How can one foretell what is necessary to every pupil, and decide whether the demand of each one is legitimate or not?" People will ask: "How can you help getting confused in this varied throng, if it is not subjected to some general principle?"

To these questions I will reply: The difficulty presents itself merely because we cannot divest ourselves of the ancient view of a school as of a disciplined corps of soldiers which one lieutenant commands one day, another the next. For the teacher accustomed to the freedom of the school, every pupil represents an individuality with his own needs, to satisfy which freedom of choice is the only possible condition.

Had it not been for this freedom and external disorder which to some people seems so strange and impossible, we should not only never have hit upon these five methods of learning to read, but moreover we should never have dared to employ and proportion them to the demands of the pupils, and consequently we should never have attained those brilliant results