Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/302

288 November and December. The method of this instruction, it seems to me, may be regarded as convenient by the way whereby, imperceptibly and pleasantly, the pupils were guarded past the technical difficulties. The question of art itself is not touched upon, because the teacher who began the course took it for granted that it was inexpedient for peasant children to be artists.

nine months ago, I entered upon the teaching of drawing, I had as yet no definite plan, either for laying out the course of instruction or for guiding the pupils. I had neither designs nor models, save for a few albums of illustrations, which, however, I did not make use of at the time of my most advanced lessons, confining myself to simple auxiliary means, such as can always be found in every country school. A painted wooden board, chalk, slates, and rectangular boards of various sizes, and sticks, which we had used in the visual teaching of mathematics these were all the material we had for our instruction, and yet we were not hindered from copying everything that came under our hands.

Not one of the pupils had ever before had any lessons in drawing; they brought to me only their faculty of judgment, which they were given perfect liberty to express when and as they pleased, and which I wanted as a guide to teach me their requirements so that I might afterward lay down a definite scheme of work.

The first thing I did was to make a square out of four sticks and experimented to discover if the boys, without any preliminary teaching, would be able to copy that square. A few of the boys only drew some very irregular squares, indicating by straight lines the square sticks which made the square. I was perfectly satisfied with this. For the less able ones I drew a square with chalk