Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/266

252 going farther and farther, and the horizon of thought, knowledge, and poesy kept opening up before them farther and farther.

Maybe this was an accident. Maybe, having begun with another method in another school, the same results would have been reached. Maybe; but this accident happens too universally in all schools, and in all families, and the explanation of this phenomenon is too clear for me to allow me to call it chance.

In order to open before the pupil the new world, and without knowledge to start him in the love of knowledge, no book is needed but the Bible. I say this even for those that do not look on the Bible as a revelation. No, at least I know of no production which unites in itself in such a concise poetic form all the sides of human thought as the Bible does. All questions arising from the phenomena of nature are explained in this book; all the primitive relations of men, of the family, of government, of religion, are recognized in this book. The generalization of thought, wisdom in its simple, childlike form, for the first time subjects the pupil's mind to its enchantment. The lyrical quality of the Psalms of David has its effect, not only on the mind of the adult pupils, but, moreover, every one from this book recognizes for the first time the full charm of epic poetry in its inimitable simplicity and force.

Who has not wept over the story of Joseph and his meeting with his brethren? Who has not felt an oppression of the heart in telling about Samson, bound and shorn, when, in order to avenge himself on his enemies, he perishes, overwhelming his enemies under the ruins of the fallen palace? And a hundred other impressions on which we are fed as on mother's milk. …

Let those that deny the educational significance of the Bible, that declare it has outlived its usefulness, invent such a book, such stories, such explanations of the phenomena of nature, either from general history or from imagination, which should have such a reception as the Bible ones have, and then we will agree that the Bible is superannuated.