In the teaching of geography I did the same thing. First of all, I began with physical geography. I remember the first lesson. I began it, and immediately lost my way. The result obtained was what I did not at all anticipate; namely, that I did not know what I wanted ten-year-old peasant children to learn. I was able to explain "day" and "night," but in my explanation of "winter" and "summer" I went astray. Ashamed of my ignorance, I tried it again, and then I asked many of my acquaintances, cultivated men, and no one except those that had recently left school, or teachers, was able to give me a very good explanation without a globe. I beg all who read this to test this observation. I affirm that out of a hundred men not more than one knows this, though all children are taught it.

Having rehearsed pretty carefully, I once more took up the explanation, and with the aid of a candle and a globe, I explained it, as it seemed to me, admirably. They listened to me with great attention and interest. Especially interested were they to know something which their fathers did not believe and to be able to boast of their wisdom.

At the end of my explanation of "winter" and "summer" the skeptic Semka, the keenest-witted of all, staggered me with the question:

"How does the earth move and yet our izba still stand in the same place? Why, it ought to have moved from its place."

I perceived that in my explanation I had shot a thousand versts beyond the range of the most intelligent of the children; what must the dullest have understood of it? I went back I explained, I made sketches, I adduced all the proofs of the roundness of the earth; voyages around the globe, the masts of a ship showing before the deck and all the rest, and consoling myself with the thought that now they certainly understood, I set them to writing the lesson. All wrote: "The earth is like a ball first proof .... second proof ....;" they forgot the third proof and asked me about it. It was evident that the principal thing for them was to remember the proofs. More than once, more than a dozen times, yes, a hundred times I returned to these explanations and always unsuccessfully. At any examination the pupils would all answer, and they do now, satisfactorily. But I feel that they do not understand, and when I remember that I did not understand the matter very well until after I was thirty, I have pardoned them for this dullness of comprehension. I in my childhood believed that the world was round, and the like, but did not understand it, and so it is with them now. It was always far easier for me to comprehend what my nurse told me: that at the end of the world the earth and the sky met, and there at the end of the world the women wash their linen in the sea and mangle it on the sky. Our pupils have long been confirmed, and even now still persist, in notions diametrically opposed to those I wanted to give them. For a long time still, before they began to understand, it was necessary to dispel the impressions which they had formed, and their idea of the universe which nothing seemed as yet to modify. The laws of physics and mechanics were what first began to shatter these old concepts. But like myself and like all the rest of us they began physical geography before they began physics.

In the teaching of geography, as in all other subjects, the commonest, coarsest, and hurtf ulest mistake is haste. We were so delighted to know that the earth is round and turns around the sun, that we hasten as speedily as possible to communicate this to the pupil. But it is not valuable to know that the earth is round; it is valuable to know how this conclusion was reached. Very often children are told that the earth is so many billions of versts distant from the sun; and the fact does not interest or surprise the child at all. It is interesting to him to know how this was discovered. Whoever wishes to speak about this, let him tell about parallaxes. This is quite possible.

I have dwelt long on the roundness of the earth because what I have said about it refers to all geography. Out of thousands of cultivated men, aside from teachers and pupils, one may know very well why we have winter and summer, and may know where Guadaloupe is, while out of a thousand children, not one in his childhood understands the explanations of the roundness of the earth, and not one believes in the actual existence of Guadaloupe, but every one is still taught both of these things from earliest childhood.

After physical geography I began the parts of the world with their characteristics and with no lasting results, so that when you ask a question they will shout confusedly, "Asia, Africa, Australia," but if you suddenly ask: "In what part of the world is France?" even though it has just been said that England and France are in Europe, some one will cry that France is in Africa! The question "Why?" appears in each dulled eye, in every tone of the voice, when geography is begun, and there is no answer to that pitiable question "Why?"

As in history it is a common idea to begin with the end, so, in geography, the idea arose and became general to begin with the schoolrooms, with the village. As I have seen these experiments in Germany, and as I was wholly hopeless, by reason of my failure in ordinary geography, I took up the description of a room, a house, a village. Like the drawing of plans, such exercises are not devoid of profit, but to know what region is back of our village is not interesting, because all know that Telyatinki is there. And to know what is back of Telyatinki is not interesting, because, undoubtedly, another village just like Telyatinki is there, and Telyatinki with its fields is perfectly uninteresting. I proposed to them to place geographical way-marks, such as Moscow, Kief, but all this was packed away in their heads so disconnectedly that they had to learn it by heart.

I proposed to them to draw maps, and this occupied them and really helped their memory; but again appeared the question: "Why aid the memory?" I proposed again to tell them about polar and equatorial countries; they listened with pleasure and recited, but in their narrations they remembered everything except what was geographical in them. The chief thing was that the drawing of plans of the village was the drawing of plans, and not geography; the drawing of maps was the drawing of maps, and not geography; the stories of wild beasts, forests, ice-fields, and cities were tales, and not geography. Geography was only something learned by heart. Of all the new books Grube, Biernadsky not one was interesting. One little book, forgotten by every one, and somewhat resembling a geography, was read with more interest than anything else, and in my opinion is the best model of what ought to be done to prepare children for the study of geography by awakening in them an interest in the subject. This book is the Russian translation of Peter Parley, published in 1837. This little book is read, but seems rather as a guiding thread for the teacher who follows it in his narration, telling what he knows about each land and city.

The children recite, but they rarely retain any name and place on the map relating to the event described; for the most part, only the events remain. This class, however, belongs to a section of colloquies of which we shall speak in another place. Of late, notwithstanding all the skill with which the teaching of unnecessary names is disguised, notwithstanding all the circumspection with which we resorted to it, the children had a presentiment that they were only being tricked into reading history and they conceived a genuine disgust for this class.

I came at last to the conclusion that, as regards history, not only was there no necessity of knowing the stupid part of Russian history, but that Cyrus, Alexander of Macedon, Cesar, and Luther are likewise unnecessary for the development of any child. All these personages and events are interesting to the student, not in proportion to their significance in history, but in proportion to the artistic reason for their being at all, in proportion to the artistic skill shown by their historian, and generally not by their historian, but by popular tradition.

The history of Romulus and Remus is interesting, not because these brothers founded the mightiest empire in the world, but because it is entertaining, marvelous, and beautiful how the she-wolf suckled them, etc. The history of the Gracchi is interesting, because it is artistic, like the history of Gregory VII. and the humiliated emperor, and there is a possibility of getting interested in it; but the history of the migration of nations will be stupid and aimless, because its subject is not artistic, just exactly like the history of the invention of printing, however we strive to impress it on the pupil that this was a period in history, and that Gutenberg was a great man. If you relate cleverly how friction matches were invented, the pupil will never agree that the inventor of friction matches was not as great a man as Gutenberg: in a word, for the child, and in general for the learner, and for any one who has not yet learned to live, the interest in the historic, that is, apart from the universally human, does not exist. There is only the artistic interest.

It is said that with the working out of materials the artistic developments of all periods of history will be possible; but I do not see this. Macaulay and Thiers can just as little be put into the hands of the student as Tacitus or Xenophon.

In order to make history popular, an artistic form for it is not necessary; but the historic phenomena must be personified, as is often done by legend, sometimes by life, sometimes by great thinkers and artists. History pleases children only when the topic is artistic. Interest in the historic does not exist and cannot exist for them; consequently there is and can be no children's history. History serves only occasionally as material for artistic development, but as long as the interest in history is not developed there can be no history. Bert6, Kai'danof, still remain the only guides. The old anecdote begins: The history of the Medes is obscure and fabulous. It is impossible to make anything out of history for children who feel no interest in history.

The contrasting experiments in making history and geography artistic and interesting, the biographical sketches of Grube and Biernadsky, satisfy neither artistic nor historic demands, satisfy neither logic nor historical interest, and at the same time by their superfluity of particulars they spread out to impossible proportions.

It is the same with geography. When Mitrofanushka was persuaded to study geography, his mother said to him:

"Why study about all lands? The coachman will take you where you want to go."

Nothing stronger was ever said against geography, and all the teachers of the world are unable to furnish a reply to such an insurmountable argument.

I am speaking with perfect seriousness. What is the good of my knowing the position of the river and city of Barcelona when, after having lived thirty-three years, I have not once needed that knowledge? The most picturesque description of Barcelona and its inhabitants, as far as I can see, could not help toward the development of my spiritual powers. What good is it for Semka and Fedka to know about the Marinsky canal and aquatic communication, if they, as in all probability will be the case, will never go there? And even if Semka should happen to go there, it is a matter of indifference whether he learns about it or not, since he will know about this kind of aquatic communication, and will know it thoroughly, by experience. For the development of spiritual powers, what help will come from knowing that hemp goes down and tar goes up the Volga, that there is a harbor Dubovka, and that a subterranean stratum extends to such and such a point, and that the Samoyeds travel by reindeer, and so on I cannot imagine!

I have in me a whole world of lore mathematical, natural, linguistic, and poetic which I have not time to transmit; there is an endless collection of questions regarding the phenomena of life around me; and the pupil demands an answer to them, and I must answer them before drawing maps of the polar floes, the tropical lands, the mountains of Australia, and the rivers of America.

In history and geography experience tells the same story and everywhere confirms our ideas. Everywhere the teaching of geography and history goes badly, in expectation of examinations, the names of mountains, cities and rivers, kings and czars; the only possible manuals are Arsenyef and Obodovsky, Kai'danof, Smaragdof, and Berte; and everywhere complaint is made of the teaching of these subjects; they are searching for something new, and never find it.

It is very amusing that all recognize the incongruity of the study of geography with the spirit of the pupils of the whole world, and consequently invent thousands of ingenious means like Sidof's method to compel the children to remember the names; the simplest of all notions, that this kind of geography is entirely unnecessary, that it is entirely unnecessary to know these names, has never once entered any one's head.

All attempts to combine geography with geology, botany, ethnography, and I know not what else, history with biography, remain empty dreams, giving birth to wretched books like Grube's, not useful to children or to young people, or to teachers, or to the public in general. In fact, if the authors of these so-called new guides in geography and history thought of what they wanted, and attempted to apply these books to instruction, they would become convinced of the impossibility of the enterprise.

In the first place, geography, in conjunction with the natural sciences and ethnography, would constitute a prodigious science, for the teaching of which a human lifetime would not suffice, and a science still less child-like and still dryer than geography alone.

In the second place, for the composition of such a manual, sufficient material would not be found in a thousand years. If I taught the geography of the Krapivensky District, I should be compelled to give the pupils detailed notions of the flora, the fauna, the geological formation of the country up to the North Pole, and details regarding the inhabitants and the trade of the kingdom of Bavaria, because I should have plenty of material for these details, and I should have almost nothing to say of the Byelevsky and Yefrimovski Districts, because I should have no materials for that.

But the children and sound common sense demand from me a certain harmony and regularity in teaching. The only thing remaining is either to make them learn Obodovsky's geography by heart, or not teach the subject at all. Just as for history the historical interest must be awakened, so for the teaching of geography the geographical interest must be awakened. And the geographical interest, according to my experience and observation, is awakened either by study of the natural sciences or by travels, especially in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred by travels.

As the love of history is stimulated by the reading of newspapers, and especially of biographies, and by the interest in the political life of one's country, so for geography the first step toward the study of science is taken in the way of travels. Both means have become perfectly accessible to every one in our day, and, therefore, the less ought we to fear cutting loose from the ancient superstition regarding the teaching of history and geography. Life itself is now so instructive in this connection that if geographical and historical knowledge were so necessary for general development as we think, then it would always supply the lack.

And really, if we renounce the old superstition, it is not at all terrible to think of people growing up without once having learned in their childhood who Yaroslof was, who Otho was, or what Estramadura is, and the like. You see, people have ceased studying astrology, they have ceased studying rhetoric and poetics, they have ceased studying how to talk Latin, and the human race has not grown stupid. New sciences spring into birth; in our day the natural sciences have begun to grow popular; we must abjure and outgrow the old sciences, not the sciences but the phases of them, which with the birth of new sciences have become insufficient. To arouse an interest, to know how humanity lives and has lived and has acted and developed in various realms, an interest in learning those laws whereby humanity eternally moves; to arouse, on the other hand, an interest in understanding the laws of the phenomena of Nature over all this green globe, and of the distribution of the human race over it that is another thing. Maybe the awakening of such an interest is useful, but to the attainment of this end the Segurs, the Thiers, the Obodovskys, the Grubes, are of no use. I know only two elements that are the artistic feeling of poetry and patriotism. To develop either there are as yet no manuals, and as long as there are none we must keep searching, or waste our time and energies, and cripple a young generation by forcing it to learn history and geography merely because we were taught history and geography.

Up to the time of the university, I see not only no necessity, but even great injury, in the teaching of history and geography. Beyond that, I don't know.