Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/294

280 in the way of travels. Both means have become perfectly accessible to every one in our day, and, therefore, the less ought we to fear cutting loose from the ancient superstition regarding the teaching of history and geography. Life itself is now so instructive in this connection that if geographical and historical knowledge were so necessary for general development as we think, then it would always supply the lack.

And really, if we renounce the old superstition, it is not at all terrible to think of people growing up without once having learnt in their childhood who Yaroslof was, who Otho was, or what Estramadura is, and the like. You see, people have ceased studying astrology, they have ceased studying rhetoric and poetics, they have ceased studying how to talk Latin, and the human race has not grown stupid. New sciences spring into birth; in our day the natural sciences have begun to grow popular; we must abjure and outgrow the old sciences,—not the sciences but the phases of them,—which with the birth of new sciences have become insufficient. To arouse an interest, to know how humanity lives and has lived and has acted and developed in various realms, an interest in learning those laws whereby humanity eternally moves; to arouse, on the other hand, an interest in understanding the laws of the phenomena of Nature over all this green globe, and of the distribution of the human race over it—that is another thing. Maybe the awakening of such an interest is useful, but to the attainment of this end the Ségurs, the Thiers, the Obodovskys, the Grubes, are of no use. I know only two elements that are—the artistic feeling of poetry and patriotism. To develop either there are as yet no manuals, and as long as there are none we must keep searching, or waste our time and energies, and cripple a young generation by forcing it to learn history and geography merely because we were taught history and geography.

Up to the time of the university, I see not only no necessity, but even great injury, in the teaching of history and geography. Beyond that, I don't know.