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Biography and professed they could not understand how order could be evolved from the midst of anarchy; and when the school payed their superior insight the bad compliment of actually succeeding, they could only explain the marvel by emphasizing the difference of temperament between lively French children and the more phlegmatic Slavs. In Russia itself some of the higher officials were uncomfortably agitated by Tolstoi's revolutionary pedagogic methods. The Minister of Interior, an inveterate adherent of the old non-progressive school, complained to his colleague, the Minister of Education (October 14th, 1862), that, in his opinion, the school of Yasnaya Polyana, and the journal of the same name, threatened to undermine the very foundations of religion and morality, especially as the director and editor was "endowed with a remarkable, I may even say, attractive literary style." Moreover, laments the much perturbed official, Count Tolstoi's convictions are so evidently sincere as to place his motives above suspicion, so that there is absolutely no getting at him. And yet opinions so eccentric were bound to mislead the unwary. What then was to be done? Fortunately, the Minister of Education, an enlightened liberal, could assure his colleague that he had carefully examined Count Tolstoi's methods, and convinced himself that they were worthy rather of praise than of censure, and although he, the Minister, could not say that he agreed with all the Count's views, he felt bound to thank and was determined to support him. Nevertheless the school soon died a natural death. Pupils were at first xxv.