Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/286

272 "No, indeed!"

And all slipped down-stairs, one promising to give it to the Frenchman, another upbraiding the German, and another repeating how Kutuzof had "straddled " him.

"You have given it to them wholly from the Russian standpoint," said my German friend, who had been almost mobbed by the boys that evening. "You ought to hear how that story is told among us Germans. You have told them nothing about the German battle for liberty."

I entirely agreed with him that my narrative was not history, but a tale kindling the national sentiment.

Of course, as instruction in history this experiment also was even more unsuccessful than the first.

the teaching of geography I did the same thing. First of all, I began with physical geography. I remember the first lesson. I began it, and immediately lost my way. The result obtained was what I did not at all anticipate; namely, that I did not know what I wanted ten-year-old peasant children to learn. I was able to explain "day" and "night," but in my explanation of "winter" and "summer" I went astray. Ashamed of my ignorance, I tried it again, and then I asked many of my acquaintances, cultivated men, and no one except those that had recently left school, or teachers, was able to give me a very good explanation without a globe. I beg all who read this to test this observation. I affirm that out of a hundred men not more than one knows this, though all children are taught it.

Having rehearsed pretty carefully, I once more took up the explanation, and with the aid of a candle and