PROGRESS AND THE DEFINITION OF EDUCATION

A Reply to Mr. Markov, Russian Messenger, 1862, No. 5

by Leo Tolstoy

Translated from the Original Russian and edited by Leo Wiener

Assittant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

The chief points of Mr. Markov’s disagreement with my view of education are formulated in the following manner:

” (1) We recognize the right of one generation to interfere in the education of another. (2) We recognize the right of the higher classes to interfere in the popular education. (3) We do not agree with the Ydsnaya Polyana definition of education. (4) We think that the schools cannot be exempted from the historical conditions, and that they ought not to be. (5) We think that the modern schools more nearly correspond to the modern needs than those of the Middle Ages. (6) We consider our education not injurious, but useful. (7) We think that the full liberty of education, as Count Tolstdy understands it, is injurious and impossible. (8) Finally, we think that the methods of the school at Ydsnaya Polydna contradict the convictions of the editor of Ydsnaya Polyana.” {Russian Messenger, 1862, No. 5, p. 186.)

Before answering each of these points, we shall endeavour to find the fundamental cause of disagreement in our view and that held by Mr. Markov, which latter has called forth an expression of universal sympathy from the pedagogical and from the lay public.

This cause lies in the incompleteness of our view as expressed (and so we shall try and make it more complete now), and, on the side of Mr. Markov and the public in general, in the incorrect and limited comprehension of our propositions, which we shall try to make clearer. It is evident that our disagreement is due to a different comprehension and, consequently, definition of education itself. Mr. Markov says: “We do not agree with the Ydsnaya Polyana definition of education.” But Mr. Markov does not overthrow our definition, he merely makes a definition of his own.

The main question is whose definition of education is correct, ours, or Mr. Markov’s. We said: ” Education in its widest sense, including the bringing up, is, in our opinion, that activity of man which has for its base the need of equality and the invariable law of educational progress,” and we confess that the words to which Mr. Markov asks the reader to pay special attention need an explanation for the majority of people and for Mr. Markov. But, before giving this explanation, we deem it necessary to digress a little in order to show why it is that Mr. Markov and the public in general did not wish to understand this definition and paid no attention whatever to it.

Since the day of Hegel and the famous aphorism, ” What is historical is reasonable,” there has reigned in the literary and oral debates, especially in our country, a very singular mental hocus-pocus called the historical view. You say, for example, that man has a right to be free and to be judged only on the basis of the laws which he himself regards as just, but the historical view replies that history evolves a certain historical moment, which conditions a certain historical legislation and the people’s historical relation to it. You say that you believe in God, and the historical view replies that history has evolved certain religious conceptions and the relations of humanity to it. You say that the Iliad is the greatest epical production, and the historical view replies that the Iliad is only the expression of a nation’s historical consciousness at a certain historical moment.

On this foundation the historical view does not contend with you whether liberty is necessary for man, whether there is a God or not, whether the Iliad is good or bad; it does nothing to obtain that liberty for you, after winch you have been striving, to persuade or dissuade you of the existence of God, or of the beauties of the Iliad, — it only points out to you that place which your inner need, the love of truth or beauty, occupies in history; it only recognizes, not through direct consciousness, but through historical ratiocinations.

Say that you love something and believe in something, and the historical view tells you, ” Love and believe, and your love and faith will find a place for themselves in our historical view.” Ages will pass, and we shall find the place which we shall occupy in history; but you must know in advance that that which you love is not unconditionally beautiful, and that that which you believe in is not unconditionally true; but amuse yourselves, children, — for your love and faith will find a place and a proper application for themselves.

Add the word historical to any conception you please, and that conception at once loses its vital, actual meaning and receives an artificial and barren meaning in some kind of an artificially formed historical world conception.

Mr. Markov says: ” The general aim is the result of the whole of life, — the final deduction from the activity of varied forces. It can be seen only at the end, and for the present there is no need of it. Consequently pedagogy is right in that it has no final endit is right in that it strives after its temporal and local ends, which are most significant in life.” (R. M., No. 5, p. 153.)

In his opinion it is useless to look for a criterion of pedagogy. It is enough to know that we are living under historical conditions, and all is well.

Mr. Markov has perfectly assimilated the historical view to himself; he, like the majority of thinking Russians at the present time, possesses the art of applying the concept of the historical to every phenomenon of life; he knows how to say many learned and ingenious things in the historical sense, and for all occasions is full master of the historical pun.

In our first article we said that education has for its base the need of equality and the invariable law of educational progress. Although expressed without any further proofs, this proposition explained the cause of the phenomenon. It was possible for one not to agree with it and ask for proofs ; but it is only the historical view which feels no need of discovering the causes of such a phenomenon as is education.

Mr. Markov says: ” It is desirable that the reader dwell with especial attention upon these words. To me they seem nothing but a fruitless piece of casuistry which only bedims the meaning of things well known to all. What do we want with the need of equality, instinct? What do we want more especially with that fatiim, that unknown law of motion, which prohibits you from one thing, and orders you to do something else ? Who has recognized it or proved it ? If we were to deny, as Count Tolstoy does, the educational influence of the grown-up generation on the younger generation, in what would we look for that wonderful law ? A mother loves her child, wants to satisfy his wants, and consciously, without the least mystical necessity, feels the need of adapting herself to his incipient reason, to speak the simplest language to him. She does not at all strive after equality with her child, which would be in the highest degree unnatural, but, on the contrary, intentionally tries to transmit to him the whole supply of her knowledge. In this natural transmission of the mental acquisitions of one generation to the next lies the progress of education, which needs no other special laws. Every age casts its handful upon the common heap, and the longer we live, the higher rises this heap, and the higher we rise with it. This is known to the point of triteness, and I see no justification in the attempts to shake such a logically and historically manifest truth.”

Here we have the best sample of the historical view. You are looking for an explanation of the most significant phenomenon of life; you surmise that you have found a general law which serves as the foundation of the phenomenon ; you imagine you have found the ideal toward which humanity is tending, and the criterion of his activity, — and you are told that there is a heap which grows with every age, and that that is known to the point of triteness. Is it right that it should grow ? Why does it grow ? To these questions we receive no answer; on the contrary, they wonder why you bother about the solution of such questions.

In another passage Air. Markov, paraphrasing our words, says: ” Each generation hinders the new in its development: the further we go, the greater the resistance, the worse it gets. What a strange progress! If, without relying on history, we were obliged to believe the Ydsnaya Polyana theory, we should, probably, have to come to believe that the world has been dreadfully ailing from millennial resistances, and that its death is now not beyond the mountains, but behind its shoulders.” (Ibid. p. 152.)

“A fine progress!” No, a very bad one, — that is exactly what I have been talking about. I do not hold to the religion of progress: outside of faith, nothing proves the necessity of progress. ” Is it possible the world has been ailing all the time ? ” It is precisely this that I tried to prove, with this difference, that not all humanity is ailing, but that part of it which is subjected to the activity of the education whi^h Air. Markov defends.

But here Air. Markov’s historical view appears in all its splendour.

“ Ydsnaya Polyana is disturbed by the circumstance that at different times people teach different things and in a different manner. Scholasticism taught one thing, Luther another, Rousseau in his own way, Pestalozzi again in his way. It sees in this the impossibility of establishing a criterion of pedagogy, and on that basis denies pedagogy. It seems to me that Ydsnaya Polyana has pointed out the necessary criterion, by adducing the above-mentioned examples. The criterion is that one must teach in conformity with the demands of the time. It is simple and in absolute harmony with history and with logic. Luther could be the teacher of a whole century because he himself was the creature of his age, and thought its thoughts, and acted to its liking. Otherwise his enormous influence would have been impossible or supernatural; if he did not resemble his contemporaries, he would have disappeared fruitlessly, like an incomprehensible, useless phenomenon, — a stranger among his people, whose language even he did not understand.

” The same is true of Rousseau and of anybody else. Rousseau formulated in his theories the overboiling hatred of his age against formalism and artificiality, its thirst for simple, heartfelt relations. It was an inevitable reaction against the Versailles mode of life; if Rousseau alone had felt it, there would not have appeared the age of Romanticism, there would not have appeared the masses to regenerate humanity, the declaration of rights, the Karl Moors, and all such things. To rebuke Luther and Rousseau for having unloaded their theories on men, while arming themselves against the historical fetters, would be the same as rebuking a whole age for the illegality of its mood. You cannot unload theories on a whole age.

” But one will hardly get rid of Iris theories. I cannot understand what Count Tolstoy would have of pedagogy. He is all the time troubled about the final end, about the imperturbable criterion. There are none, says he, and so none are needed. Wiry not consider the life of each individual, say, his own life? He, of course, does not know the final end of his existence, nor the common philosophical criterion for the activity of all the periods of his life. And yet he lives and acts; and he lives and acts only because in his childhood he had one purpose and one criterion, and others in youth, and now others again, and so on. He, no doubt, was a lively boy, — we know what criterion boys have, — and a religious youth, and a poet with liberal tendencies, and a practical man of the world; every such a natural mood made him look differently at the world, expect something different, and be guided by something else. In this constant change of view lies the wealth of human evolution, his philosophic and his every-day experience. Where Count Tolstoy sees a reproach to humanity and pedagogy and a self-contradiction, I see necessity, naturalness, and even advantage.” (Ibid., pp. 159-160.)

How much said, you would think! How clever, how instructive, what a calm historical view of everything! You yourself stand on some imaginary height, and below you act Rousseau, and Schiller, and Luther, and the French Revolution. From your historical height you approve or disapprove their liistorical acts and classify them according to historical patterns. More than that. Each human personality is crawling about somewhere there, subject to the immutable historical laws, which we know; but there is no final end, and there can be none, — there is only the historical view -

But we are asking for something different. We are endeavouring to find that common mental law which has guided man’s activity in education, and which, therefore, could be a criterion for the correct human activity in education, whereas the historical view to all our questions answers only by saying that Rousseau and Luther were the products of their time. We are searching for the eternal principle which found its expression in them ; and we are told about the form in which it found its expression, and they classify them and determine their orders.

We are told that the criterion is that one must teach in conformity with the demands of the time, and we are told that that is very simple. I understand teaching according to the dogmas of the Christian or of the Mohammedan religion, but teaching according to the demands of the time is something of which I fail to comprehend a single word. What are these demands ? Who will determine them ? Where will they be expressed ? It may be very amusing to discuss up and down the liistorical conditions which compelled Rousseau to express himself in the particular form in which he did express himself, but it is impossible to discover those historical conditions in which a future Rousseau will express himself. I can understand why Rousseau should have written with malice against the artificiality of life; but I positively fail to see why Rousseau appeared, and why he discovered the great truths. I have no business with Rousseau and his surroundings; I am interested only in the thoughts which he expressed, and I can verify and comprehend his thoughts only by thinking, and not by reflecting on his place in history.

It was my problem to express and determine the criterion in pedagogy, whereas the historical view, not following me on that path, replies to me that Rousseau and Luther were in their place (as though they could be in somebody else’s place), and that there are different schools (as though we did not know that), and that each carries a kernel to that mysterious historical heap. The historical view can breed many pleasant conversations, when there is nothing else to do, and can explain that which everybody knows; but it is not able to say a word on which to build reality. If it does utter something, it says a commonplace such as that one must teach according to the demands of the time.

Tell us, what are these demands in Syzran, in Geneva, along the Syr-Darya ? Where can we find the expression of these demands and of the demand of the time, — of what time? When it comes to talking about what is historical, I will say that the historical moment is only in the present. One assumes the demands of the year 1825 for the demands of the present; another knows what the demands will be in August, 1892; a third regards the demands of the Middle Ages as our present demands. I repeat that if the phrase to teach according to the demands of the time, not one word of which has any meaning for us, is written with due reflection, we ask you, point those demands out to us; we say frankly, with all our heart, that we should like to know those demands, for we do not know them.

We could adduce many more samples of Mr. Markov’s historical view with references to the Trivium and the Quadrivium of Cassiodorus, of Thomas Aquinas, of Shakespeare, of Hamlet, and with other similar interesting and pleasant discussions. But all these passages give no better answer to our questions, and so we shall confine ourselves to the elucidation of the causes which make the historical view invalid for the solution of philosophical questions.

The cause lies in this: people with the historical view have come to the conclusion that abstract thought, which they abusively call metaphysics, is fruitless the moment it is contrary to historical conditions, that is, to speak more simply, to existing convictions; that this thought is even useless because they have discovered a general law by which humanity advances without the participation of the thought which is contrary to reigning convictions. This supposed law of humanity is called progress. The whole reason of our disagreement with Mr. Markov, and of his complete contempt for our proofs, which he does not take the trouble to answer, lies in the fact that Mr. Markov believes in progress, and I have no such faith.

What is this conception of progress and the faith based upon it ?

The fundamental idea of progress and its expression will be like this: ” Humanity is continually changing in form; it lives through the past, retaining the labours begun by that past and its recollections.” In the metaphorical sense we call this change of human relations ” motion,” and the past change we call « back,” and the future change we call ” forward.” In general, in a metaphorical sense we say that humanity moves forward. Though not clearly expressed, this statement is, in a metaphorical sense, quite correct. But back of this undoubted statement, those who believe in progress and the historical evolution make another unproved assertion that humanity in former days enjoyed less wellbeing, and the farther we go back the less, and the farther forward the more. From this the conclusion is drawn that for a fruitful activity it is necessary to act only in conformity with historical conditions; and that by the law of progress, every historical action will lead to an increase of the general wellbeing, that is, that all will be well, while all attempts to arrest or even oppose the movement of history are fruitless.

The process of progress has taken place in all humanity from time immemorial, says the historian who believes in progress, and he proves this assertion by comparing, let us say, the England of the year 1685 with the England of our time. Even if it were possible to prove, by comparing Russia, France, and Italy of our time with ancient Rome, Greece, Carthage, and so forth, that the prosperity of the modern nations is greater than that of antiquity, I am still struck by one incomprehensible phenomenon : they deduce a general law for all humanity from the comparison of one small part of European humanity in the present and the past. Progress is a common law of humanity, they say, except for Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, except for one thousand millions of people.

We have noticed the law of progress in the dukedom of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, with its three thousand inhabitants. We know China, with its two hundred millions of inhabitants, which overthrows our whole theory of progress, and we do not for a moment doubt that progress is the common law of all humanity, and that we, the believers in that progress, are right, and those who do not believe in it are wrong, and so we go with cannon and guns to impress the idea of progress upon the Chinese. Common sense, however, tells me that if the greater part of humanity, the whole so-called East, does not confirm the law of progress, but, on the contrary, overthrows it, that law does not exist for all humanity, but only as an article of faith for a certain part of it.

I, like all people who are free from the superstition of progress, observe only that humanity lives, that the memories of the past as much increase as they disappear; the labours of the past frequently serve as a basis for the labours of the present, and just as frequently as an impediment ; that the wellbeing of people now increases in one place, in one stratum, and in one sense, and now diminishes; that, no matter how desirable it would be, I cannot find any common law in the life of humanity; and that it is as easy to subordinate history to the idea of progress as to any other idea or to any imaginable historical fancy.

I will say even more: I see no necessity of finding common laws for history, independently of the impossibility of finding them. The common eternal law is written in the soul of each man. The law of progress, or perfectibility, is written in the soul of each man, and is transferred to history only through error. As long as it remains personal, this law is fruitful and accessible to all; when it is transferred to history, it becomes an idle, empty prattle, leading to the justification of every insipidity and to fatalism. Progress in general in all humanity is an unproved fact, and does not exist for all the Eastern nations; therefore, it is as unfounded to say that progress is the law of humanity as it is to say that all people are blond except the dark-complexioned ones.

But we may not yet have defined progress as most understand it. We try to give it a most general and reasonable definition. Maybe progress is a law discovered only by the European nations, but one that is so good that the whole of humanity ought to be subjected to it. In this sense progress is a path over which a certain part of humanity is travelling, and which this part of humanity recognizes as leading it to wellbeing. In this sense Buckle understands the progress of the civilization of the European nations, including in this general conception of progress the social and the economic progress, the progress of the sciences, the industrial and the fine arts, and especially the invention of powder, printing, and roads of communication.

Such a definition of progress is lucid and intelligible; but there involuntarily arises the question, first, who has decided that this progress leads to wellbeing ? In order to believe that it does, I need that not exceptional people, who belong to an exceptional class, — historians, thinkers, and journalists, — should recognize it as so, but that the whole mass of the people, subject to the action of progress, should recognize that progress leads it to wellbeing. We, on the contrary, constantly see a phenomenon which contradicts it.

The second question consists in tins: What shall be recognized as wellbeing ? Is it the improvement of means of communication, the dissemination of the art of printing, the illumination of the streets by means of gas, the increase of homes for the poor, and so forth ? or the virgin wealth of Nature, the woods, the game, the fish, strong physical development, purity of morals, and so forth ? Humanity lives at the same time by so many varied sides of its existence that it is impossible for any given man to define the degree of wellbeing for any given period.

One man sees only the progress of art; another, the progress of virtue; a third, the progress of material comfort ; a fourth, the progress of physical force; the fifth, the progress of the social order; the sixth, the progress of science; a seventh, the progress of love, equality, and liberty; the eighth, the progress of illumination by gas, and of sewing-machines. A man who will look at all sides of humanity’s life without bias will always find that the progress on the one side is purchased at the expense of a retrogression on the other side of human life.

Have not the most conscientious political actors, who believed in the progress of equality and liberty, convinced themselves each day that in ancient Greece and Rome there was more liberty than in the England of to-day with its Chinese and Indian wars; than in modern France with its two Bonapartes; than in the very newest America with its sanguinary war for the rights of slavery ? Have not the most conscientious men, believing in the progress of art, convinced themselves that there are no Phidiases, no Raphaels, no Homers in our day ? Have not the most rabid economic progressists convinced themselves that it is necessary to prohibit the working people from procreating children in order to be able to feed the existing population ?

Thus, in reply to the two questions which I have put, I say that, first, it is possible only then to recognize a progress winch leads to wellbeing when the whole nation, subjected to the action of progress, will recognize this action as good and useful, whereas now we constantly see the opposite in nine-tenths of the population, in the so-called common, labouring people; and, secondly, when it shall be proved that progress leads to the improvement of all the sides of human life, or that all the consequences of its influence taken together by their good and useful qualities overbalance its bad and injurious results.

The people, that is, the mass of the nation, nine-tenths of all people, are always inimical toward progress and constantly not only do not recognize its usefulness, but positively and consciously recognize its harmfulness for them.

We cannot believe the deductions of the historians, such as Macaulay (the one whom Mr. Markov adduces to prove the power of the English education), who presume that they have weighed all sides of human life, and who, on the basis of this weighing, have decided that progress has done more good than evil, because these deductions are not based on anything. These deductions manifestly prove to every conscientious and unbiassed judge, in spite of the opposite aim of the writer, that progress has done more evil than good to the people, that is, to the majority, not to mention the State.

I ask the serious reader to read the whole third chapter of the first part of Macaulay’s history. The deductions are made boldly and with decision, but it is positively unintelligible to a sound-minded man who is not dulled by the faith in progress, which they are based upon. The important facts are only these:

(1) The population has increased, and that to such an extent that Malthus’s theory becomes a necessity. (2) There was no army, and now it has become immense; the same is true of the fleet. (3) The number of petty agriculturists has diminished. (4) The cities have drawn to them the greater part of the population. (5) The land has been stripped of forests. (6) Wages have become half as large again, but the prices have increased on everything and the comforts of life have become fewer. (7) The taxes for the poor have been increased tenfold; there are more newspapers; the illumination of the streets is better; wives and children are beaten less, and English ladies have begun to write without orthographical mistakes.

I ask the reader to read this third chapter with the most conscientious attention, and to remember the simple facts that the army once increased can never be diminished ; that the century-old forests, once destroyed, can never be restored; that a population, corrupted by comforts, can never return to its primitive simplicity and moderation. I ask the reader who has no faith in progress, or who for the time being has given up this faith, to read everything which has been written in proof of the good of progress, and to ask himself, with entire disregard of his faith, whether there are any proofs that progress has done people more good than evil. It is impossible to prove this to an unbiassed man; but for the biassed man any paradox is possible, even the paradox of progress, clothed in historical facts.

What a strange and incomprehensible phenomenon I There is no common law of humanity’s progress, as the immovable Eastern nations prove to us. It is impossible to prove that the European nations are constantly moving in the direction of the improvement of their wellbeing, and nobody has ever proved it; and, finally, the most remarkable thing is that nine-tenths of that very European humanity, who are subject to the process of the progress, consciously hate progress and use all the means at their command to resist it, while we recognize the progress of civilization as an unquestioned good. However incomprehensible this phenomenon may appear, it will become quite clear to us if we look at it without prejudice.

Only one small part of society believes in progress, preaches it, and tries to prove its benefit. The other, the greater part of society, resists progress and does not believe in its benefit. From this I conclude that for a small part of society progress is a benefit; but for the majority it is an evil. I conclude this from the reflection that all men consciously or unconsciously strive after the good, and evade the evil. Having made this deduction,

# I shall verify it by reference to facts.

Who are that small part who believe in progress? They are the so-called cultured society, the leisure classes, to use Buckle’s expression. Who are the majority who do not believe in progress ? They are the so-called people, the busy classes. The interests of society and of the masses are always opposed to each other. The more advantageous to one set, the more disadvantageous to the other.

My supposition is confirmed in the matter of progress, and I conclude that progress is the more advantageous for society the more disadvantageous it is for the masses. This ratiocination, in addition, gives me a complete explanation of that strange phenomenon why, despite the fact that progress is not a common law of humanity, despite the fact that progress does not lead to an increased wellbeing of the whole European humanity, despite the fact that nine-tenths of the masses are opposed to it, progress is lauded all the time and is ever more disseminated.

Those who believe in progress are sincere in their

belief, because that faith is advantageous to them, and so they preach their faith with passion and fury. I involuntarily recall the Chinese war, in which three great Powers quite sincerely introduced the belief in progress into China by means of powder and cannon-balls.

But am I not mistaken ? Let us see in what may be the advantage of progress for society, and its disadvantage for the masses. Speaking here of facts, I feel the necessity of leaving Europe in peace and speaking of Russia, with which I am familiar. Who with us is a believer, who an unbeliever ? The believers in progress are: the educated gentry, the educated merchant and official classes, — the leisure classes, according to Buckle’s expression. The unbelievers of progress and its enemies are: the master mechanics, the factory workmen, the peasants, the agriculturists, and the trades-people, men directly occupied with physical labour, — the busy classes. Reflecting upon this distinction, we find that the more a man works the more conservative he is, and the less he works the more he is a progressist. There are no greater progressists than contractors, writers, the gentry, students, officials without places, and manufacturers. There is no greater opponent to progress than the agricultural peasant.

” Man takes possession of the forces of Nature; thought, with the speed of thought, flies from one end of the universe to another. Time is vanquished.” All that is beautiful and touching, but let us see for whom that is advantageous. We have in mind the progress of the electric telegraphs. It is apparent that the advantage and application of the telegraph is only for the higher, so-called cultured class. The masses, nine-tenths of the people, hear only the buzzing of the wires and are importuned by the severe laws not to injure the telegraphs.

Over the wires flies the thought that the demand on such and such an article of commerce has increased and

to us. We do uot see that at all in the so-called enslavement of space and time. We see, on the contrary, that the advocates of progress iu this respect judge precisely as did the old landed proprietors, who assured everybody that for the peasants, for the state, and for humanity at large there was nothing more advantageous than serfdom and manorial labour; the only difference is that the faith of the landed proprietors is old and unmasked, while the faith of the progressists is still fresh and in full force.

The art of printing is another favourite and trite theme of the progressists. Its dissemination, and the dissemination of the rudiments which comes with it, has always been regarded as an undoubted good for the whole nation. Why is that so ? The art of printing, reading, and that which is called culture, are the deep-rooted superstitions of the religion of progress, and so I will ask the reader in this matter most frankly to renounce all such faith and to ask himself: Why is it so, and why is that culture, which we, the minority, regard as a benefit, and as we, consequently, do the art of printing and of reading, which latter we wish to disseminate so, — why are that art of printing, that reading, and that culture a benefit to the majority, — to the masses ?

We have said before, in several articles of ours, why that culture, which we possess, by its essence cannot be a good for the masses. We shall now speak exclusively of the art of printing.

It is evident to me that the distribution of periodicals and books, the uninterrupted and immense progress of the art of printing, have been very advantageous to writers, editors, publishers, proof-readers, and compositors. Immense sums have in this manner passed by indirect ways from the people into the hands of these men. The art of printing is so advantageous for these people that all kinds of means are thought out in order to increase the number of readers: poetry, stories, scandals, obloquy, gossips, polemics, presents, premiums, societies for the encouragement of reading, distribution of books, and schools for the increase of the number of those who can read. No labour is so well paid as literature. No interest is so great as on the literary capital. The number of literary workers grows with every day. The pettiness and insignificance of literature increases in proportion with the increase of its organs.

” But if the number of books and periodicals increases, if literature pays so well, it must be necessary,” naive people will tell me. “Consequently the farming out of the monopolies is necessary, if they pay so well,” I will reply.

The success of literature would appear as satisfying a want of the people, only if the whole nation were in sympathy with it; but that condition does not exist, just as it did not exist when the monopolies were farmed out. Literature, just like the monopolies, is only an artful exploitation, advantageous only for those who take part in it, and disadvantageous for the masses.

There is the Contemporary, and the Contemporary Wordt and the Contemporary Chronicle, and the Russian Word, the Russian Messenger, and the Time, and Our Time, and the Eagle, and the Little Star, the Garland, and the Reader, the Popular Reading, and Reading for the People; and there are certain words in certain combinations and permutations, as titles of periodicals and newspapers, and all these periodicals believe firmly that they represent certain thoughts and tendencies. And there are the works of Pushkin, of Gdgol, of Turgenev, of Derzhavin. And all these periodicals and works, in spite of their long existence, are unknown and unnecessary to the people and are of no advantage to it.

I have already spoken of the efforts which I have made to inoculate the masses with our social literature. I became convinced, as any one else would, that in order that a Russian from the masses should take a liking to Pushkin’s ” Boris Godundv,” or Solovov’s history, this man must cease being what he is, that is, an independent man, who satisfies all his human wants. Our literature has taken no hold on the masses — I hope that those who know the people and the literature will not doubt it.

What benefit do the masses derive from literature ? The people have as yet no cheap Bibles and saints’ almanacs. Other books, which fall into their hands, to their thinking, betray only the stupidity and insignificance of their authors; their money and work are wasted, and the advantage from printing to the masses — see how much time has passed — is nil. The masses have not learned from books to plough, to make kvas, to weave bast shoes, to build huts, to sing songs, or even to pray. Every conscientious judge, who is not enthralled by his faith in progress, will admit that there have been no advantages to the masses from printing. But the disadvantages are many.

Mr. Dal, a conscientious observer, has published his observations on the influence exerted by the knowledge of the rudiments on the masses. He proclaimed that the rudiments corrupt the masses. Incontinent accusations and curses were heaped on the observer by all the believers in progress; it was decided that the knowledge of reading was injurious when it was an exception, and that this danger would disappear when it became the general rule. This may be an ingenious supposition, but it is only a supposition. The fact remains, and it has been confirmed by my own observations, and will be confirmed by all people who have direct relations with the masses, such as merchants, burghers, captains of rural police, priests, and peasants themselves.

But I shall probably be told by those who accept my deductions as just, that the progress of the art of printing, without bringing any direct advantage to the people, still works in the direction of their wellbeing by softening the manners of society; that, for example, the solution of the serf question is only the product of the progress of the art of printing.

To this I will reply that the softening of the manners of society has to be proved and that I personally do not see it and that I do not consider it necessary to take it on faith. I do not find, for example, that the relations of the manufacturer to the workman are any humaner than were the relations of the landed proprietor to the serf. But that is my personal ■view, which cannot serve as a proof. The chief objection that I have against such an argument is that, even taking as an example the emancipation from serfdom, I do not see that the art of printing has cooperated in its progressive solution. If the government had not said its decisive word in the matter, the press would certainly have decided it quite differently. We saw that the greater part of the organs of the press would have demanded emancipation without land, and would have adduced proofs which would have appeared just as reasonable, ingenious, and sarcastic.

The progress of the art of printing, like the progress of the electric telegraphs, is the monopoly of a certain class of society, advantageous only for the people of that class, who by the word ” progress ” understand their personal advantage, which thus is always contrary to the advantage of the masses.

It gives me pleasure to read the periodicals when I have nothing else to do, and I am even interested in Otho, the King of Greece. It gives me pleasure to write or edit an article, and to get money and fame from it. It gives me pleasure to receive a despatch about my sister’s health and to know for certain what price I may expect for my wheat. In all these cases there is nothing prejudicial in the pleasures which I experience, and in the desires which I have that the conveniences giving rise to these pleasures may be increased; but it will be quite incorrect to suppose that my pleasures coincide with the increase of the wellbeing of humanity at large. It would be as incorrect to suppose this, as to suppose with the monopolist or landed proprietor that, by getting a great income without labour, he makes all humanity happy by encouraging art and giving many people work to do to supply his luxuries. I beg the reader to observe that Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, the German fairy-tales and songs, and, finally, the Russian epos, did not need the art of printing in order to be eternal.

Steam, the railways, and the much lauded steamboats, locomotives, and engines in general, — we shall not speak of what may be in the future, of the results that arise from these inventions according to the contradictory theories of political economy, but will examine only those advantages which steam has brought to the masses.

I see a Tula peasant, a good friend of mine, who is in no need of rapid transit from Tula to Moscow, to the Rhine, to Paris, and back again. The possibility of such migrations does not in the least increase his wellbeing. He satisfies all his wants from his own labour, and, beginning with his food and ending with his wearing apparel, everything is produced by him alone: money is not wealth to him. This is so true that when he has money, he buries it in the ground and finds no need of making use of it. Thus, if the railways make the objects of manufactures and commerce more accessible to him, he remains quite indifferent to this greater accessibility. He needs no tricot, no velvets, no watches, no French wines, no sardines. Everything which he needs, and which to his thinking forms wealth and increase of wellbeing, is acquired by his labour on his land.

Macaulay says that the best measure of the wellbeing of the labouring people is the amount of wages they receive. Is it possible that we, Russians, are to such an extent unacquainted with the condition of our people, and do not want to know it, that we repeat such a senseless and false proposition, so far as we are concerned ? Is it not evident to every Russian that the earnings are to a common Russian an accident, a luxury, upon which nothing can be based ?

The whole nation, every Russian without exception, will doubtless call rich a peasant of the steppe with his old ricks of grain on his threshing-floor, who never in his life has seen such a thing as wages, just as he will certainly regard as poor a suburban Moscow peasant, who always commands high wages. Not only is it impossible in Russia to determine the wealth by the amount of the wages, but one may boldly assert that for Russia the appearance of wages is a sign of the decline of wealth and wellbeing. This rule we, Russians, who know our people, can verify throughout Russia, and therefore, without discussing the wealth of the nations and the wealth of the whole of Europe, we may and must say that for Russia, that is, for the great majority of the Russian people, the scale of wages not only does not serve as a measure of their wellbeing, but that the very appearance of wages indicates the decline of the national wealth.

It is obvious that we must look for different first principles than those which exist in the rest of Europe; in the meantime European political economy wants to prescribe its laws for us. For the great majority of the Russian people money constitutes no wealth, and the cheapening of articles of manufacture does not increase their wellbeing. For this reason, the railways bring no advantages to the great mass of the population. (I beg the reader to observe that I am speaking of the advantages according to the conception of the masses themselves, and not of those advantages which the progress of civilization wants to enforce upon them.)

According to the ideas of the Russian people, the increase of their wellbeing consists in the increase of the powers of the soil, in the increase of the amount of live stock, in the increase of the quantity of grain and, consequently, in its cheapening (I beg you to observe that no peasant ever complains of the cheapness of grain; it is only the European political economists who console him with the idea that the price of grain will be higher so that he will be able to purchase manufactured articles, — in which he is not interested), in the increase of working powers (a peasant never complains that there are too many people in his village), in the increase of forest land and pastures, in the absence of city temptations.

Which of these benefits do the railways offer the peasant? They increase the temptations; they destroy the forests; they take away labourers; they raise the price of bread. Maybe I am mistaken when I speak of the causes which lead the spirit of the people always to assume a hostile attitude toward the introduction of railways; I may have omitted some causes, but the undoubted fact of the permanent resistance of the popular spirit to the introduction of railways exists in its full force. The masses get accustomed to them only in the measure in which they succumb to the temptations of the railways and themselves become participants in the exploitation. The real people, that is, all those who work and live directly by the fruits of their work, — the preeminently agricultural masses, nine-tenths of the nation, without whom no progress could be thought of, are always inimical to them. Thus, those who believe in progress, a small part of society, say that the railways are an increase of the people’s wellbeing, while the great majority of society says that it is a decrease.

We could easily verify and explain such a resistance to progress on the side of the people in every aspect of progress, but we shall confine ourselves to the above mentioned examples, and shall attempt to reply to the question which naturally arises: ” Is there any need of trusting this counteraction of the masses ? You say,” we shall be told, “ that those who are dissatisfied with the railways are the agricultural peasants, who pass their lives on the hanging beds, in a smoky hut, or behind the plough; who mend their own bast shoes and weave their own shirts; who have never read a book; who once every two weeks take off their vermin-ridden shirts; who tell the time by the sun and by cockcrows, and who have no other needs than slave labour, sleeping, eating, and intoxication. They are not men, but beasts,” the progressists will say and think, ” and therefore we think we are right not to pay any attention to their opinion, and to do for them what we have found to be good for us.”

Such an opinion, though it be not expressed, is always at the basis of the reflections of the progressists; but I presume that these people, who are called savages, and whole generations of these savages, are just such people and just the same kind of humanity as your Palmer-stons, Othos, and Bonapartes. I presume that generations of workmen have in them the same human characteristics, and especially the characteristic of finding a better place, — as a fish looks for a greater depth, — as your generations of lords, barons, professors, bankers, and so forth.

In this idea I am confirmed by my personal, no doubt insignificant, conviction, which is, that in the generations of workmen there lies more force and a greater consciousness of truth and goodness than in generations of barons, bankers, and professors; I am, above all, confirmed in this idea by the simple observation that a peasant just as sarcastically and cleverly condemns the master and makes fun of him, because he does not know what a plough is, or a drag, or buckwheat, or grits; and when to sow oats, when buckwheat; how to tell one track from another; how to find out whether a cow is with calf, or not; and because the master passes all his life in idleness, and so forth, — just as the master condemns the peasant because he mispronounces words, and because on a holiday he drinks like a fish, and because he does not know how to indicate a road.

I am also struck by the observation that two men, quarrelling, quite sincerely call each other fools and rascals. I am still more struck by this observation in the conflicts of Eastern nations with Europeans. Hindoos regard the English as barbarians and scoundrels, and thus the English look upon the Hindoos; the Japanese look thus upon the Europeans, and the Europeans upon the Japanese; even the most progressive nation, the French, regards the Germans as dullards, while the Germans think that the French are brainless.

From all these observations I come to the conclusion that if the progressists look upon the masses as having no right to consider their wellbeing, and the masses look upon the progressists as occupied with their own selfish ends, it is impossible from these contradictory views to conclude as to the justice of the one side or the other. For this reason I am constrained to side with the masses, on the ground that, first, the masses are more numerous than society, and because it must be assumed that a greater measure of truth is on the side of the masses, and, secondly and chiefly, because the masses could well get along without the society of the progressists, and could satisfy all their human wants, such as working, enjoying themselves, loving, thinking, and producing works of art (the Iliad, the Russian songs), whereas the progressists could not exist without the masses.

We lately read the history of the civilization of England by Buckle. This book had a great success in Europe (which is quite natural) and an immense success in the literary and learned circles of Russia, — and that is incomprehensible to me. Buckle analyzes the laws of civilization in a very entertaining manner; but this whole interest is lost for me and, it seems to me, for all Russians, who have no foundation whatever to suppose that we, Russians, must of necessity be subject to the same law of the progress of civilization to which the European nations are subject, and that the progress of civilization is a good. It is necessary first to prove both to us Russians.

We personally, for example, regard the progress of civilization as one of the greatest violent evils, to which a certain part of humanity is subject, nor do we regard this progress as inevitable. The author, who so strongly contends against propositions which are based on no proof, himself does not prove to us why the whole interest in history for him lies in the progress of civilization. For us this interest lies in the progress of the common wellbeing. The progress of wellbeing, according to our conviction, not only does not spring from the progress of civilization, but for the most part is opposed to it. If there are people who think differently, this statement must be proved. We have found these proofs neither in the direct observations of the phenomena of life, nor in the pages of historians, philosophers, and publicists. We see, on the contrary, that these people, and Mr. Markov with them, in their arguments against us, without any foundation recognize as proved the question of the identity of the wellbeing and the civilization.

We have made a very long digression, which may appear to be irrelevant, only to say that we do not believe in progress as increasing wellbeing; that we have no grounds whatever for believing in it; and that we have been looking in our first article for a different measure of what is good and bad than the recognition of progress as good and that which is not progress as bad. Having elucidated this chief hidden point of our disagreement with Mr. Markov, we presume, with the majority of the so-called cultivated society, that the answers to the points of the article in the Russian Messenger will become easy and simple for us.

(1) The article in the Russian Messenger recognizes the right of one generation to interfere in the education of another, on the ground that it is natural and that each generation casts its handful on the heap of progress. We do not recognize this right because, not regarding progress as an unconditional good, we seek other foundations for such a right, and we assume that we have found them. If it were proved that our suppositions are erroneous, we still should not be able to recognize the belief in progress as well founded any more than the belief in Mohammed or in the Dalai-Lama.

(2) The article in the Russian Messenger recognizes the right of the upper classes to interfere in the popular education. We think we have shown sufficiently in the previous pages why interference in the education of the masses by those who believe in progress is unjust, but advantageous for the upper classes, and why their injustice seems to them a right, just as serfdom seemed to be a right.

(3) The author of the article in the Russian Messenger thinks that the schools cannot and must not be exempted from historical conditions. We think that these words make no sense, because, first, it is impossible, either in fact or in thought, to exempt anything from historical conditions; secondly, because, if the discovery of the laws upon which the school has been built and ought to be built is, in Mr. Markov’s opinion, an exemption from historical conditions, we assume that our thought, which has discovered certain laws, also acts within historical conditions, and that it is necessary to condemn or approve the thought itself by means of reason, in order to make it clear, and not to answer by the truth that we are living under historical conditions.

(4) The author of the article in the Russian Messenger thinks that our modern schools more nearly correspond to the demands of the time than the mediaeval ones. We are sorry that we have given Mr. Markov an occasion to prove this to us, and we gladly confess that, in proving the opposite, we fell into the common habit of subordinating historical facts to a preconceived idea. Mr. Markov has done the same, probably more successfully and more eloquently than we. We do not wish to discuss this, sincerely confessing our error. It is so easy to talk a great deal in this field, without convincing anybody !

(5) The author of the article in the Russian Messenger regards our education as not injurious, but as useful, because our education trains men for progress, in which they believe. But we do not believe in progress and therefore continue to regard our education as injurious.

(6) The author of the article in the Russian Messenger thinks that full liberty of education is injurious and impossible. It is injurious, because we need men of progress, and not merely men, and impossible, because we have ready-made programmes for the education of men of progress, but we have no programmes for the education of mere men.

(7) The author thinks that the structure of the school at Yasnaya Polyana contradicts the editor’s convictions. We admit that, as a personal matter, the more so, since the author himself knows how strong the influence of historical conditions is, and, therefore, ought to know that the school at Yasnaya Polyana is subject to the action of two forces, to what the author calls an extreme conviction and to historical conditions, that is, to the education of the teachers, the means, and so forth; besides, the school could gain but a very small degree of freedom and, consequently, of advantage over other schools. What would have happened if these convictions had not been extreme, as the author thinks they are ? The author says that the success of the school depends on love. But love is not accidental. Love can exist only with freedom. In all the schools founded on the convictions of the school at Yasnaya Polyana the same phenomenon has been repeated: the teacher fell in love with his school; and I am sure that the same teacher, with all the idealization possible, could not fall in love with a school where the children sit on benches, walk by the ringing of bells, and are whipped on Saturdays.

And (8) finally, the author does not agree with the Yasnaya Polyana definition of education. It is here that we shall have to make our meaning clearer. It seems to me that it would have been juster on the side of the author, if he, without entering into any further discussion, had taken the trouble to overthrow our definition. But he did not do that; he did not even look at it; called it trite, and gave his own definition: progress, — and, therefore, to teach in accordance with the demands of the time. Everything which we wrote about progress was written for the purpose of eliciting people’s retorts. Instead of it, they do not dispute with us, but only say: What is the use of instinct, of the necessity of equality, and all that baggage of words, when there is a growing heap ?

But we do not believe in progress, and so cannot be satisfied with the heap. Even if we did believe, we should say: Very well, the aim is to teach in accordance with the demands of the time, to add to the heap; we should admit that the mother teaches the child, with the intention of transmitting her knowledge to him, as Mr. Markov says. But why ? I should ask, and I should have a right to get an answer. A man breathes. Why ? I ask. And I receive a reply, not that he breathes because he breathes, but in order to get the necessary supply of oxygen and to cast off the useless gases. And again I ask: Why the oxygen ? And a physiologist sees the meaning of such a question and answers: In order to get heat. Why the heat ? I ask. And here he answers, or tries to answer, and he seeks and knows that the more general such an answer will be, the richer it will be in deductions.

Now we ask: Why does one teach another ? It seems to me there can be no question which lies nearer to a pedagogue than this. And we answer it, maybe irregularly, without proofs, but the question and the answer are categorical. Mr. Markov (I do not attack Mr. Markov, — every one who believes in progress will make the same reply) not only does not answer our question, he is not even able to see it. For him this question does not exist: it is nothing but a trite commonplace, to which, as to something funny, he directs the reader’s especial attention. And yet, in this question and answer lies the essence of everything I have said, written, and thought about pedagogy.

Mr. Markov and the public who agree with Mr. Markov are intelligent, cultivated men, accustomed to reasoning; whence comes that sudden dulness of comprehension ? Progress. The word ” progress ” is said, — and nonsense becomes clear, and what is clear looks like nonsense. I do not recognize the benefit of progress so long as it is not proved to me, and, therefore, as I observe the phenomenon of education, I need a definition of education, and I again repeat and explain what I have said: Education is the activity of man which has for its base the need of equality and the invariable law of educational progress.

As said before, to the study of the laws of education we apply not the metaphysical method, but the method of deductions from observations. We observe the phenomena of education in its most general sense, including the bringing up.

In every phenomenon of education we see two factors, the educator and the one who is being educated. In order to study the phenomena of education, as we understand it, and to find its definition and criterion, we necessarily must study both activities and find the cause which unites the two activities into one phenomenon, called education.

Let us first examine the activity of the person under education, and its causes. The activity of the person who is being educated, whatever, wherever, and in whatever way he may learn (even if he reads books by himself), consists in assimilating the manner, the form, or the contents of the idea of the man, or men, whom he regards as knowing more than he knows. The moment he reaches the level of his educators, the moment he no longer considers the educators higher in knowledge than he is, the activity of education, on the side of the person under education, involuntarily stops, and no conditions whatever can make him continue it. A man cannot learn from another, if the man who learns knows as much as the man who teaches. A teacher of arithmetic, who does not know algebra, involuntarily stops his teaching of arithmetic the moment the pupil has made the knowledge of arithmetic completely bis own.

It would seem useless to prove that, as soon as the knowledge of the teacher and the pupil is equalized, the activity of teaching, of education in the larger sense, inevitably stops between the pupil and the teacher, and there begins a new activity, which consists in the teacher’s opening to the pupil a new perspective of knowledge, familiar to him, but unknown to the pupil, in this or that branch of science, and the education continues until the pupil’s knowledge is equalized with that of the teacher; or having reached the teacher’s level in his knowledge of arithmetic, the pupil gives up his teacher and takes up a book, from which he learns algebra. In this case, the book, or the author of the book, appears as the new teacher, and the activity of education lasts only so long as the pupil has not reached the level of the book, or of the author of the book. Again the activity of education conies to a close immediately upon having reached a point of equality in knowledge.

It seems useless to prove this truth, which may be verified in all imaginable cases of education. From these observations and considerations we conclude that the activity of education, considered only from the side of him who is being educated, has for its foundation the tendency of the pupil to become equal in knowledge with his educator. This truth is proved by the simple observation that the moment the equality has been reached, the activity immediately and inevitably comes to an end, and by this other, more simple observation, that in every education may be observed this greater or lesser approach to equality. A good or a bad education is always and everywhere, in the whole human race, determined only by the rapidity with which this equality between teacher and pupil takes place : the slower, the worse; the faster, the better.

This truth is so simple and self-evident that there is no need of proving it. But it behoves us to prove why this simple truth never occurs to anybody, is not expressed by anybody, or meets with enraged resistance when it is expressed.

The following are the causes: Outside of the chief foundation of every education, which springs from the very essence of the activity of education, — the tendency toward an equalization of knowledge, — there have arisen other causes in civil society, which urge on toward education. These causes seem so persistent that the pedagogues keep only these in view, losing sight of the chief foundation. Considering now only the activity of him who is being educated, we shall discover many seeming foundations of education, besides the essential one which we have enunciated. The impossibility of admitting these foundations can easily be proved.

These false, but active, foundations are the following: The first and most operative, — the child learns in order not to be punished; the second, — the child learns in order to be rewarded; the third, — the child learns in order to be better than the rest; the fourth, — the child, or young man, learns, in order to obtain an advantageous position in life.

These foundations, acknowledged by all, may be classified under three heads: (1) Learning on the basis of obedience; (2) learning on the basis of egotism; and (3) learning on the basis of material advantages and ambition. Indeed, on the basis of these three divisions the various pedagogical schools have been built up: the Protestant schools, on obedience ; the Catholic schools of the Jesuits, on the basis of rivalry and egotism ; our Russian schools, on the basis of material advantages, civil privileges, and ambition.

The groundlessness of these incentive causes is apparent, in the first place, in actual life, on account of the universal dissatisfaction with the educational institutions based on these foundations; in the second place, for the reason, which I have expressed ten times, and will keep expressing until I get an answer to it, that under such conditions (obedience, egotism, and material advantages) there is no common criterion of pedagogy, and the theologian and the natural scientist at once regard their schools as impeccable, and all the other schools as positively harmful; finally, in the third place, because, taking obedience, egotism, and the material advantages for the basis of the activity of the learner, the definition of education becomes impossible.

By admitting that the equality of knowledge is the aim of the learner’s activity, I see that upon reaching this aim the activity itself stops; but by assuming obedience, egotism, and material advantages as the aim, I see, on the contrary, that however obedient the learner may become, however he may surpass all the others in worth, no matter what material advantages and civil rights he may have obtained, his aim is not reached, and the possibility of the activity of education does not stop. I see, in reality, that the aim of education, by admitting such false bases, is never attained, that is, that the equality of knowledge is not acquired, but there is obtained, independently of education, a habit of obedience, an irritable egotism, and material advantages. The adoption of these false foundations of education explains to me all the errors of pedagogy and the incompatibility of the results of education with the demands, inherent in man, made upon it, to which these errors lead.

Let us now analyze the activity of the educator. Just as in the first case, we shall find, by observing this phenomenon in civil society, many various causes of this activity. These causes may be brought under the following heads: the first and foremost, — the desire of making people useful to us (landed proprietors who had their manorial servants instructed in music; the government which trains officers, officials, and engineers for itself); the second, — also obedience and material advantages, which cause a student of the university, for a certain remuneration, to teach children according to a given programme ; the third, — egotism, which urges a man on to teach in order to display his knowledge; and the fourth, — the desire to make others participants in one’s interests, to transmit one’s convictions to them, and, for that reason, to impart one’s knowledge to them.

It seems to me that every activity of the educator comes under one of these four heads, from the activity of the mother, who teaches her child to speak, and the tutor, who, for a set remuneration, teaches the French language, to the professor and author.

By applying the same measure to these subdivisions that we have applied to the bases of the learner’s activity, we shall find:

Firstly, that the activity which has for its aim the training of useful people, such as the former landed proprietors and the government trained, does not come to an end when the aim is reached, — consequently, it is not its final end. The government and the landed proprietors could proceed still farther in their activity of education. Very frequently the attainment of the aim of usefulness has nothing in common with education, so that I cannot recognize usefulness as the measure of the activity of the educator.

Secondly, if we are to assume as the basis of the activity of a teacher of a gymnasium, or of a tutor, obedience to him who has entrusted him with the education, and the material advantages accruing to him from this activity, — I again see that with the acquisition of the greatest quantity of material advantages the education does not stop. On the contrary, I see that the acquisition of greater material advantages, as a reward for the education, is frequently independent of the degree of the education furnished.

Thirdly, if we are to admit that egotism and the desire to display one’s knowledge serve as the aim of education, then 1 again see that the attainment of the highest praise for one’s lectures or book does not stop the activity of education, for the praise bestowed upon the educator may be independent of the amount of education acquired by the student; I see, on the contrary, that the praise may be squandered by people who are not acquiring education.

Fourthly, at last, by examining this last aim of education, I see that if the activity of the educator is directed toward equalizing the knowledge of the learner with his own, this activity comes to an end the moment this aim has been attained.

Indeed, by applying this definition to reality, 1 see that all the other causes are only external, vital phenomena, which cloud the fundamental aim of every educator. The direct aim of a teacher of arithmetic consists only in having his pupil assimilate all the laws of mathematical thinking which he himself possesses. The aim of a teacher of French, the aim of a teacher of chemistry and philosophy, are one and the same; and the moment that aim is attained, the activity comes to an end.

Only that instruction has everywhere and in all ages been regarded as good, in which the pupil becomes completely equal to the teacher, — and the more so, the better, and the less the worse. Precisely the same phenomenon may be observed in literature, in this mediate means of education. We regard only those books as good, in which the author, or educator, transmits all his knowledge to the reader or the learner.

Thus, by considering the phenomena of education as a mutual activity of educator and learner, we see that this activity in either case has for its basis one and the same thing,— the tendency of man toward equalized knowledge.

In the definition which we made before, we expressed precisely this, except that we did not make it clear that by equality we meant the equality of knowledge. We added, however: ” The tendency toward equality and the invariable law of educational progress.” Mr. Markov understood neither the one nor the other, and was very much startled to find there the invariable law of educational progress.

The law of educational progress means only that inasmuch as education is the tendency of people toward an equality of knowledge, this equality cannot be obtained on a lower stage of knowledge, but may be obtained only on a higher stage, for the simple reason that a child may find out what I know, while I cannot forget what I know; and also, because I may be acquainted with the mode of

thought of past generations, while past generations cannot know my inode of thought. This I call the invariable law of educational progress.

Thus I answer to all of Mr. Markov’s points as follows : First, that it is not right to prove anything by the fact that everything is growing better, — it is necessary first to prove whether really everything is growing better, or not; secondly, that education is only that activity of man which has for its base man’s need of equality and the invariable law of educational progress.

I have only tried to lead Mr. Markov out of the waste of useless historical considerations and to explain to him that which he did not understand.