Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1862
Source: From RevoltLib.com
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Although, as we have said, mechanical reading and graded reading in reality blend in one, for us these two methods are always distinguishable by their purposes: it seems to us that the purpose of the former is the art of fluently forming words out of certain signs; the object of the latter is the knowledge of the literary language. A method of learning the literary language naturally presented itself to us, seemingly very simple, but in reality most difficult. It seemed to us that after the reading of phrases written on their slates by the scholars themselves, it was the proper thing to give them the stories of Khudyakof and Afanasief, then something more difficult and in a more complicated style, then something still more difficult, and so on till they should reach Karamzin, Pushkin, and the Code. But this, like the most of our suppositions and like suppositions in general, was not realized.
From the language written by the scholars themselves on their slates or blackboards, I succeeded in bringing them to the language of tales; but to bring them from the language of tales to a higher standard, the "something" that should be the intermediate step was lacking in our literature. We tried "Robinson," but it did not work: some of the pupils wept with vexation, because they could not comprehend and relate the story; I tried to tell it to them in my own way and they began to believe in the possibility of comprehending the wisdom of it; they succeeded in getting at its meaning and in a month they were reading "Robinson," but it bored them and finally almost disgusted them. This labor was too great for them. They trusted more to their memories, and in repeating the story immediately after what had been read during a whole evening they retained snatches of it, but no one took it in as a whole. They remembered unfortunately certain words incomprehensible to them, and they began to use these words askew and amiss, as half-educated people are wont to do.
I saw that this was not good, but I did not know how to remedy the evil. To convince myself and clear my conscience, I began to give them to read various popular sophistications like "Dyadi Naumui" and "Tetushki Natali," though I knew in advance that they would not satisfy them; and my prognostication was verified. These books were more of a bore to the pupils than anything else, if they were required to recapitulate them.
After "Robinson" I tried Pushkin, notably his story "The Undertaker"; but unless they were helped they were even less able to tell about it afterwards than they had been in the case of "Robinson," and "The Undertaker" seemed to them still more of a bore. The addresses to the reader, the un-serious relation of the author to his personages, the humorous characterization, his conciseness, all this was so incompatible with what they wanted that I definitely abandoned Pushkin, whose stories had hitherto seemed to me by hypothesis most regularly constructed, simple, and therefore comprehensible to the people. Then I made the experiment with Gogol's "Night before Christmas."
As I read it to them, it pleased them at first very much, especially the older ones; but as soon as they were left to read it themselves, they could not understand it, and it bored them. Even when I read it, they did not ask me to go on. The richness of the coloring, the fancifulness, and the capricious method of construction were opposed to their habit of thought.
Then I tried them with a Russian translation [19] of the "Iliad," and the reading of this caused a curious perplexity among them; they supposed that the original was written in French, and they could not at all understand even after I had told them its subject-matter in my own words; even then the fable of the poem did not make itself intelligible to their minds.
The skeptic Semka, a healthy, logical nature, was struck by the picture of Phoebus with the arrows rattling on his back, as he flew down from Olympus; but evidently he was at a loss what to make of this picture.
"How did he fly down from the mountain, and not dash himself to pieces?" he kept asking me.
"Why, you see, they supposed he was a god," I replied.
"How a god?"
"They had many of them."
"Then he must have been a false god, or else he flew down lightly from that mountain; otherwise he would have been dashed in pieces," he exclaimed, spreading his hands.
I tried George Sand's "Gribouille," some popular and military reading, and all in vain. We try everything we can find, and everything that is sent us, but we have very little hope in our experiments.
You sit down in school and open a so-called popular book just brought from the mail.
"Little uncle, let me read it, me! me!" cry various voices, and hands are eagerly thrust out. "Let us have it, we can understand it better!" You open the book, and read:
"The life of the great Saint Alexis presents us with a model of ardent faith, piety, indefatigable zeal, and fiery love to his native land, to which this holy man performed important services."
Or, "Long ago men noted the frequent apparition in Russia of self-taught men of talents, but the phenomenon is not explained by all in the same way."
Or, "Three hundred years have passed since the land of the Czechs became a dependency of the German Empire."
Or, "The village of Karacharevo, scattered along the mountain flank, is situated in one of the most fertile grain-producing governments of Russia."
Or, "The road wandered wide and lost itself;" or it is a popular exposition of something in natural science on a single printed sheet, filled half full of flatteries addressed by the author to the muzhik.
^ If you give such a book to any one of the children, his eyes begin to grow dull, he begins to yawn.
"No, it is too deep for us, Lyof Nikolayevitch," he will say, and he will give you back the book. For whom and by whom such "popular books" are written remains a mystery to us. Of all the volumes of this kind read by us not one was retained except the "Dyedushki" of the old story-teller Zolotof, which had a great success in school and at home. Some are simply wretched writings, composed in a miserable literary style, and as they find no readers in the ordinary public, are therefore consecrated to the common people. Others are still more wretched written in a style which is not Russian, a style lately invented, pretending to be "popular," like that of Kruilof's "Fables." Still others are sophistications of foreign books designed for the people but lacking the elements of popularity.
The only books comprehensible for the people and adapted to the taste of the people are those not written for the people, but proceeding from the people folktales, proverbs, collections of songs, legends, poems, enigmas, like the recent collection of Vodovozofs.
Without having had experience of it, one cannot believe how much fresh zeal they put into the constant reading of all books of this kind, even the narratives of the Russian people, the heroic legends [20] and poems, the proverbs of Snegiref, the old chronicles, and all the memorials of our ancient literature without exception.
I have observed that children have a greater passion than their elders for reading books of this sort. They read them over and over, learn them by heart, carry them home with delight, and in their games and talk give one another nicknames taken from the old legends and songs.
Adults, either because they are not so natural, or because they have already acquired a taste for the elegance of the book-language, or because they unconsciously feel the need of acquiring a knowledge of literary style, are less attracted by books of this kind, and prefer those in which half of the words, figures, and ideas are incomprehensible to them.
But as books of this kind are not liked by the pupils, the object which we perhaps erroneously set before ourselves is not attained by them; between these books and the literary language the same gulf exists.
So far we see no means of escape from this vicious circle, though we have made, and are all the time making, experiments and new hypotheses, we strive to detect our mistakes and beg all those who feel interested in this matter to communicate to us their notions, experiments, and successes in resolving the problem.
The question so insoluble for us consists in this:
For the education of the people it is essential that they should have and like to read the best books; but the best books are written in a style which the people do not understand. In order to learn to read understandingly, they must read much; in order to like to read, they must understand.
In what lies the error and how escape from this situation? Maybe there is a transition literature which we do not know about, simply through lack of knowledge; maybe the study of the books which circulate among the people, and the opinion of the people regarding these books, will open to us ways by which men from among the people will attain an understanding of the literary language.
To such a study we shall consecrate a special department in our journal, and we beg all who realize the importance of this matter to send us articles on the subject.