Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales

The time of instruction ought to be, as is the wish of all peasants, during the seven winter months, and so the salary is to be determined by the month. With such an arrangement, leaving out the rapidity and the equal distribution of education, the advantage will be this, that the schools will be established in those centres where the necessity for them is felt by the masses, where they are established spontaneously and, therefore, firmly. Where the character of the population demands education it will be permanent. Just look: in the towns, the children of the innkeepers and well-to-do peasants learn to read in one way or another and never forget what they have learned; but in the backwoods, where a landed proprietor founds a school, the children learn well, but in ten years all is forgotten, and the population is as illiterate as ever. For this reason the centres, large or small, where the schools are established spontaneously, are particularly precious. Where such a school has germinated, no matter how poor it be, it will throw out roots, and sooner or later the population will be able to read and write. Consequently, these sprouts ought to be deemed precious, and not be treated, as they are everywhere, – they ought not to be forbidden, because the schools are not according to our taste, that is, the sprouts ought not to be killed, and branches stuck in the ground where they will not take root.

With merely such an arrangement, without the establishment of costly and artificial seminaries, the chosen ones – those selected from the best of the pupils themselves, and those who are educated in the schools – will form that contingent of cheap popular teachers who will take the place of the soldiers and sextons and will fully satisfy all the demands of the masses and of the educated classes. The chief advantage of such an arrangement is that it alone gives the development of popular education a future, that is, takes us out from that blind alley into which the County Councils have gone, thanks to the expensive schools and to the absence of new sources for the increase of their numbers. Only when the masses themselves choose the centres for the schools, themselves choose teachers, determine the amount of the remuneration, and directly enjoy the advantages of the schools, will they be ready to add means for the schools if such should become necessary. I know Communes that paid fifty kopeks a soul for a school in each of their villages; but it is difficult to compel the peasants to pay fifteen kopeks for a school in the township, if not all of them can make use of it. For the whole county, for the County Council, the peasants will not add a single kopek, because they feel that they will not enjoy the advantages of their money. Only with such an arrangement will be found soon the means for the proper maintenance of all schools, of one to each one hundred souls, which seems so impossible in the present state of affairs.

In addition to this, with the arrangement which I propose, the interests of the peasant Communes and of the County Council, as the representative of the intelligence of the locality, will indissolubly be connected. Let us say that the County Council gives one-third of what the peasants give. In furnishing this amount, it will evidently, in one way or another, see to it that the money is not wasted, and, consequently, will also keep an eye on the two-thirds given by the peasant Communes. The peasant Commune sees that the County Council gives its part, and so admits the right of the Council to follow the progress of the instruction. At the same time, it has an object-lesson in the difference which exists between a school maintained at a smaller and that maintained at a greater expense, and chooses the one which it needs or which is more accessible to it in accordance with its means.

I will again take Krapívensk County, with which I am familiar, to show what difference the proposed arrangement would make. I cannot have the slightest doubt that the moment permission is granted to open schools, wherever wanted and of any description desired, there will at once appear very many schools. I am convinced that in Krapívensk County, in which there are fifty parishes, there will always be a school in each parish, because the parishes are always centres of population, and because among the church servants there will always be found one who is capable of teaching, likes to teach, and will find his advantage in it. In addition to the schools maintained by the church servants there will be opened those forty schools that have been closed (more correctly thirty, because ten of them were church schools), and there will be opened very many new schools, so that in a very short time there will be not far from four hundred instead of the twenty at present.

I may be believed or not, but I will assume that in Krapívensk County 380 additional schools will be opened, the moment they are given over to the masses, so that there will be four hundred in all, and I will try to determine whether the existence of these four hundred schools, that is, of twenty times as many as at present, is possible under the conditions which I have assumed in discussing the existing order.

Assuming that all peasants pay fifteen kopeks per soul, and the County Council gives three thousand roubles, there will be nine thousand roubles, which will suffice only for thirty schools with the former arrangement. But with the new arrangement:

I assume that ten of the old schools are left intact; in these schools the teachers get twenty roubles per month, which, for the seven winter months, amounts to fourteen hundred roubles.

I assume that in every parish there will be established a school with the teacher's salary at five roubles per month, which, for fifty schools, amounts to 1,750 roubles.

I assume the remaining 340 schools are of the cheap character, at two roubles per month; fifteen roubles for each of the 340 schools makes 5,100 roubles.

Thus the four hundred schools will demand an expenditure in salaries amounting to 8,250 roubles. There are still left 750 roubles for school appliances and transportation.

The figures for the teachers' wages are not chosen arbitrarily by me: on the other hand, the expensive teachers are given a larger salary than they now get by the month for the whole year. Even so, the amount apportioned to the church servants is what they now receive in the majority of cases. But the cheap schools at two roubles per month are assumed by me at a higher rate than what the peasants in reality pay, so that the calculation may boldly be accepted. In this calculation is included the kernel of ten chief teachers and ten or more church servant teachers. It is evident that only with such a calculation will the school business be placed on a serious and possible basis and have a clear and definite future.

If what I have pointed out does not convince anybody that will mean that I did not express clearly what I wanted to say, and do not wish to enter into any disputes with anybody. I know that no deaf people are so hopeless as those who do not want to hear. I know how it is with farmers. A new threshing-machine has been bought at a great expense, and it is put up and started threshing. It threshes miserably, no matter how you set the screw; it threshes badly, and the grain falls into the straw. There is a loss, and it is as clear as can be that the machine ought to be abandoned and another means be employed for threshing, but the money has been spent and the threshing-machine is put up. "Let her thresh," says the master. Precisely the same thing will happen with this matter. I know that for a long time to come there will flourish the object instruction, and cubes, and buttons instead of arithmetic, and hissing and sputtering, in teaching the letters, and twenty expensive schools of the German pattern, instead of the needed four hundred popular, cheap schools. But I know just as surely that the common sense of the Russian nation will not permit this false, artificial system of instruction to be foisted upon it.

The masses are the chief interested person and the judge, and now do not pay a particle of attention to our more or less ingenious discussions about the manner in which the spiritual food of education is best to be prepared for them. They do not care, because they are firmly convinced that in the great business of their mental development they will not make a false step and will not accept what is bad, – and it would be like making pease stick to the wall to attempt to educate, direct, and teach them in the German fashion.

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. (First Ep. of John, iii. 14.)

But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth, up his heart from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? (Ib. iii. 17.)

My children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. (Ib. iii. 18.)

Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (Ib. iv. 7.)

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (Ib. iv. 8.)

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us. (Ib. iv. 12.)

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (Ib. iv. 16.)

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen. (Ib. iv. 20.)

I

A shoemaker was lodging with his wife and children at the house of a peasant. He had no house, no land of his own, and supported his family by his shoemaker's trade. Bread was dear, but work was cheap, and he spent everything he made. The shoemaker and his wife had one fur coat between them, and even that was all worn to tatters; this was the second year that the shoemaker had been meaning to buy a sheepskin for a new fur coat.

Toward fall the shoemaker had saved some money: three roubles in paper lay in his wife's coffer, and five roubles and twenty kopeks were outstanding in the village.

In the morning the shoemaker went to the village to get him that fur coat. He put on his wife's wadded nankeen jacket over his shirt, and over it his cloth caftan; he put the three-rouble bill into his pocket, broke off a stick, and started after breakfast. He thought:

"I shall get the five roubles from the peasant, will add my own three, and with that will buy me a sheepskin for the fur coat."

The shoemaker came to the village, and called on the peasant: he was not at home, and his wife promised to send her husband with the money, but gave him none herself. He went to another peasant, but the peasant swore that he had no money, and gave him only twenty kopeks for mending a pair of boots. The shoemaker made up his mind to take the sheepskin on credit, but the furrier would not give it to him.

"Bring me the money," he said, "and then you can choose any you please; we know what it means to collect debts."

Thus the shoemaker accomplished nothing. All he got was the twenty kopeks for the boots he had mended, and a peasant gave him a pair of felt boots to patch with leather.

The shoemaker was grieved, spent all the twenty kopeks on vódka, and started home without the fur coat. In the morning it had seemed frosty to him, but now that he had drunk a little he felt warm even without the fur coat. The shoemaker walked along, with one hand striking the stick against the frozen mud clumps, and swinging the felt boots in the other, and talking to himself.

"I am warm even without a fur coat," he said. "I have drunk a cup, and the vódka is coursing through all my veins. I do not need a sheepskin. I have forgotten my woe. That's the kind of a man I am! What do I care! I can get along without a fur coat: I do not need it all the time. The only trouble is the old woman will be sorry. It is a shame indeed: I work for him, and he leads me by the nose. Just wait! If you do not bring the money, I'll take away your cap, upon my word, I will! How is this? He pays me back two dimes at a time! What can you do with two dimes? Take a drink, that is all. He says he suffers want. You suffer want, and am I not suffering? You have a house, and cattle, and everything, and here is all I possess; you have your own grain, and I have to buy it. I may do as I please, but I have to spend three roubles a week on bread. I come home, and the bread is gone: again lay out a rouble and a half! So give me what is mine!"

Thus the shoemaker came up to a chapel at the turn of the road, and there he saw something that looked white, right near the chapel. It was growing dusk, and the shoemaker strained his eyes, but could not make out what it was.

"There was no stone here," he thought. "A cow? It does not look like a cow. It looks like the head of a man, and there is something white besides. And what should a man be doing there?"

He came nearer, and he could see plainly. What marvel was that? It was really a man, either alive or dead, sitting there all naked, leaning against the chapel, and not stirring in the least. The shoemaker was frightened, and thought to himself:

"Somebody must have killed a man, and stripped him of his clothes, and thrown him away there. If I go up to him, I shall never clear myself."

And the shoemaker went past. He walked around the chapel, and the man was no longer to be seen. He went past the chapel, and looked back, and saw the man leaning away from the building and moving, as though watching him. The shoemaker was frightened even more than before, and he thought to himself:

"Shall I go up to him, or not? If I go up, something bad may happen. Who knows what kind of a man he is? He did not get there for anything good. If I go up, he will spring at me and choke me, and I shall not get away from him; and if he does not choke me, I may have trouble with him all the same. What can I do with him, since he is naked? Certainly I cannot take off the last from me and give it to him! May God save me!"

And the shoemaker increased his steps. He was already a distance away from the chapel, when his conscience began to smite him.

And the shoemaker stopped on the road.

"What are you doing, Semén?" he said to himself. "A man is dying in misery, and you go past him and lose your courage. Have you suddenly grown so rich? Are you afraid that they will rob you of your wealth? Oh, Semén, it is not right!"

Semén turned back, and went up to the man.

II

Semén walked over to the man, and looked at him; and saw that it was a young man, in the prime of his strength, with no bruises on his body, but evidently frozen and frightened: he was leaning back and did not look at Semén, as though he were weakened and could not raise his eyes. Semén went up close to him, and the man suddenly seemed to wake up. He turned his head, opened his eyes, and looked at Semén. And this one glance made Semén think well of the man. He threw down the felt boots, ungirt himself, put his belt on the boots, and took off his caftan.

"What is the use of talking?" he said. "Put it on! Come now!"

Semén took the man by his elbows and began to raise him. The man got up. And Semén saw that his body was soft and clean, his hands and feet not calloused, and his face gentle. Semén threw his caftan over the man's shoulders. He could not find his way into the sleeves. So Semén put them in, pulled the caftan on him, wrapped him in it, and girded it with the belt.

Semén took off his torn cap, intending to put it on the naked man, but his head grew cold, and so he thought: "My whole head is bald, while he has long, curly hair." He put it on again. "I had better put the boots on him."

He seated himself and put the felt boots on him.

The shoemaker addressed him and said:

"That's the way, my friend! Now move about and get warmed up. This business will be looked into without us. Can you walk?"

The man stood, looking meekly at Semén, but could not say a word.

"Why don't you speak? You can't stay here through the winter. We must make for a living place. Here, take my stick, lean on it, if you are weak. Tramp along!"

And the man went. And he walked lightly, and did not fall behind.

As they were walking along, Semén said to him:

"Who are you, please?"

"I am a stranger."

"I know all the people here about. How did you get near that chapel?"

"I cannot tell."

"Have people insulted you?"

"No one has. God has punished me."

"Of course, God does everything, but still you must be making for some place. Whither are you bound?"

"It makes no difference to me."

Semén was surprised. He did not resemble an evil-doer, and was gentle of speech, and yet did not say anything about himself. And Semén thought that all kinds of things happen, and so he said to the man:

"Well, come to my house and warm yourself a little."

Semén walked up to the farm, and the stranger did not fall behind, but walked beside him. A wind rose and blew into Semén's shirt, and his intoxication went away, and he began to feel cold. He walked along, sniffling, and wrapping himself in his wife's jacket, and he thought:

"There is your fur coat: I went to get myself a fur coat, and I am coming back without a caftan, and am even bringing a naked man with me. Matréna will not praise me for it!"

And as Semén thought of Matréna, he felt sorry; and as he looked at the stranger and recalled how he had looked at him at the chapel, his blood began to play in his heart.

III

Semén's wife got things done early. She chopped the wood, brought the water, fed the children, herself took a bite of something, and fell to musing. She was thinking about when to set the bread, whether to-day or to-morrow. There was a big slice of it left.

"If Semén has his dinner there," she thought, "and does not eat much for supper, the bread will last until to-morrow."

Matréna turned the slice around and a second time, and thought:

"I will not set any bread to-day. I have enough meal for just one setting. We shall somehow hold out until Friday."

Matréna put the bread away, and seated herself at the table to put a patch in her husband's shirt. She was sewing and thinking of how he would buy a sheepskin for a fur coat.

"If only the furrier does not cheat him, for my man is too simple for anything. He himself will not cheat a soul, but a little child can deceive him. Eight roubles is no small sum. One can pickup a good fur coat for it. It will not be tanned, still it will be a fur coat. How we suffered last winter without a fur coat! We could not get down to the river, or anywhere. And there he has gone out, putting everything on him, and I have nothing to dress in. He went away early; it is time for him to be back. If only my dear one has not gone on a spree!"

Just as Matréna was thinking this, the steps creaked on the porch, and somebody entered. Matréna stuck the needle in the cloth, and went out into the vestibule. She saw two coming in: Semén, and with him a man without a cap and in felt boots.

Matréna at once smelt the liquor in her husband's breath. "Well," she thought, "so it is: he has been on a spree." And when she saw that he was without his caftan, in nothing but the jacket, and that he was not bringing anything, but only keeping silent and crouching, something broke in Matréna's heart. "He has spent all the money in drinks," she thought, "and has been on a spree with some tramp, and has even brought him along."

Matréna let them pass into the hut, and then stepped in herself. She saw the lean young man, and he had on him their caftan. No shirt was to be seen under the caftan, and he had no hat on his head. When he entered, he stood still, and did not stir, and did not raise his eyes. And Matréna thought: "He is not a good man, – he is afraid."

Matréna scowled and went to the oven, waiting to see what would happen.

Semén took off his cap and sat down on the bench like a good man.

"Well, Matréna, will you let us have something for supper, will you?" he said.

Matréna growled something under her breath. She stood at the oven, and did not stir: she looked now at the one, and now at the other, and shook her head. Semén saw that his wife was not in a good humour, but there was nothing to be done, and he acted as though he did not see it. He took the stranger by the arm:

"Sit down, my friend," he said, "we shall have our supper."

The stranger sat down on the bench.

"Well, have you not cooked anything?"

That simply roiled Matréna.

"I have cooked, but not for you. You seem to have drunk away your senses, I see. You went to get a fur coat, and come back without your caftan, and have even brought some kind of a naked tramp with you. I have no supper for you drunkards."

"Stop, Matréna! What is the use of wagging your tongue without any sense? First ask what kind of a man it is – "

"Tell me what you did with the money."

Semén stuck his hand into the caftan, took out the bill, and opened it before her.

"Here is the money. Trifónov has not paid me, – he promised to give it to me to-morrow."

That enraged Matréna even more: he had bought no fur coat, and the only caftan they had he had put on a naked fellow, and had even brought him along.

She grabbed the bill from the table, and ran to put it away, and said:

"I have no supper. One cannot feed all the drunkards."

"Oh, Matréna, hold your tongue. First hear what I have to say – "

"Much sense shall I hear from a drunken fool. With good reason did I object to marrying you, a drunkard. My mother gave me some linen, and you spent it on drinks; you went to buy a fur coat, and spent that, too."

Semén wanted to explain to his wife that he had spent twenty kopeks only, and wanted to tell her that he had found the man; but Matréna began to break in with anything she could think of, and to speak two words at once. Even what had happened ten years before, she brought up to him now.

Matréna talked and talked, and jumped at Semén, and grabbed him by the sleeve.

"Give me my jacket. That is all I have left, and you have taken it from me and put it on yourself. Give it to me, you freckled dog, – may the apoplexy strike you!"

Semén began to take off the bodice; as he turned back his arm, his wife gave the bodice a jerk, and it ripped at the seam. Matréna grabbed the jacket, threw it over her head, and made for the door. She wanted to go out, but stopped: her heart was doubled, for she wanted to have her revenge, and also to find out what kind of a man he was.

IV

Matréna stopped and said:

"If he were a good man, he would not be naked; but, as it is, he has not even a shirt on him. If he meant anything good, you would tell me where you found that dandy."

"I am telling you: as I was walking along, I saw him sitting at the chapel, without any clothes, and almost frozen. It is not summer, and he was all naked. God sent me to him, or he would have perished. Well, what had I to do? All kinds of things happen! I picked him up and dressed him, and brought him here. Calm yourself! It is a sin, Matréna. We shall all die."

Matréna wanted to go on scolding, but she looked at the stranger and kept silence. The stranger sat without moving, just as he had seated himself on the edge of the bench. His hands were folded on his knees, his head drooped on his breast, his eyes were not opened, and he frowned as though something were choking him. Matréna grew silent. And Semén said:

"Matréna, have you no God?"

When Matréna heard these words, she glanced at the stranger, and suddenly her heart became softened. She went away from the door, walked over to the oven corner, and got the supper ready. She placed a bowl on the table, filled it with kvas, and put down the last slice of bread. She handed them a knife and spoons.

"Eat, if you please," she said.

Semén touched the stranger.

"Creep through here, good fellow!" he said.

Semén cut up the bread and crumbled it into the kvas, and they began to eat. And Matréna sat down at the corner of the table, and leaned on her arm, and kept looking at the stranger.

And Matréna pitied the stranger, and took a liking for him. And suddenly the stranger grew merry, stopped frowning, raised his eyes on Matréna, and smiled.