XXIV
LETTER ON EDUCATION
Dear S.,
I was very glad to have a serious conversation with X. about the education of children. What he and I quite agree about, but what is only negative, is that children should be taught as little as possible.[1] That children should grow up without having learnt certain subjects is not nearly so bad as what happens to nearly all children, especially those whose education is directed by mothers who do not know the subjects their children learn—viz., they get educational indigestion and come to detest education. A child, or a man, can learn when he has an appetite for what he studies. Without appetite, instruction is an evil—a terrible evil causing people to become mentally crippled. For Heaven's sake, dear S., if you do not quite agree with me, take my word for it, that were it not a matter of such enormous importance I would not write to you about it. Above all, believe your husband, who sees the thing quite reasonably.
But then comes the customary reply: If children are not taught, how are they to be occupied? Are they to play knuckle-bones with the village children, and learn all sorts of stupidities and nastiness? With our squirely way of life, this reply has some reasonable ground. But is it really necessary to accustom children to a squirely way of life, and to make them feel that all their requirements are satisfied by someone, somehow, without their having to take any part in the
- ↑ This is meant to be taken comparatively and not absolutely. Elsewhere Tolstoy has expressed the opinion that a child may reasonably do lessons for eight hours a day; though he should not be compelled to learn what he does not wish to learn.
[338]
