Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/233

Rh word in one sentence which he understands, another time finds the same in another sentence, he begins to get a vague notion of it, and finally the time comes when he feels the necessity of using this word; when once he has used it both the word and the concept become his property. And there are a thousand other ways. But consciously to give a pupil new ideas and new forms, I am convinced, is just as impossible, just as idle, as to teach a child to walk by the laws of equilibrium.

Every such attempt, instead of aiding, drives away the pupil from the proposed end, just as a man's rough hand, which, wishing to help a flower to unfold, should break it all around and then try to roll back its petals.

was conducted in the following method:—

The pupils were taught simultaneously to recognize and form the letters, to spell and write words, to understand what was written, and to write. They would take their places round the wall, marking off divisions with chalk, and one of them would dictate whatever came into his head, and the others would copy it. If there were many of them, then they divided into several groups. Then they took turns in dictating, and all read it over to one another. They printed out the letters, and at first corrected the errors of spelling and syllabification, then those of misused letters.

This class formed itself. Every pupil who learns to write the letters is seized with a passion for writing, and at first the doors, the outside walls of the school and of the cottages where the pupils live, would be covered with letters and words. But they took even greater pleasure in writing a whole phrase, such, for