Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 28
“Our own, of course. Besides, it’s not true that it doesn’t answer. It answers with
Vassiltchikov.”
“A factory...”
“But I really don’t know what it is you are surprised at. The people are at such a
low stage of rational and moral development, that it’s obvious they’re bound to oppose
everything that’s strange to them. In Europe, a rational system answers because
the people are educated; it follows that we must educate the people–that’s all.”
“But how are we to educate the people?”
“To educate the people three things are needed: schools, and schools, and schools.
“But you said yourself the people are at such a low stage of material development:
what help are schools for that?”
“Do you know, you remind me of the story of the advice given to the sick man–You
should try purgative medicine. Taken: worse. Try leeches. Tried them: worse. Well,
then, there’s nothing left but to pray to God. Tried it: worse. That’s just how it is
with us. I say political economy; you say–worse. I say socialism: worse. Education:
worse.”
“But how do schools help matters?”
“They give the peasant fresh wants.”
“Well, that’s a thing I’ve never understood,” Levin replied with heat. “In what
way are schools going to help the people to improve their material position? You
say schools, education, will give them fresh wants. So much the worse, since they
won’t be capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge of addition and
subtraction and the catechism is going to improve their material condition, I never
could make out. The day before yesterday, I met a peasant woman in the evening
with a little baby, and asked her where she was going. She said she was going to the
wise woman; her boy had screaming fits, so she was taking him to be doctored. I
asked, ‘Why, how does the wise woman cure screaming fits?’ ‘She puts the child on
the hen-roost and repeats some charm....’ ”
“Well, you’re saying it yourself! What’s wanted to prevent her taking her child
to the hen-roost to cure it of screaming fits is just...” Sviazhsky said, smiling goodhumoredly.
“Oh, no!” said Levin with annoyance; “that method of doctoring I merely meant
as a simile for doctoring the people with schools. The people are poor and ignorant–
that we see as surely as the peasant woman sees the baby is ill because it screams.
But in what way this trouble of poverty and ignorance is to be cured by schools is as
incomprehensible as how the hen-roost affects the screaming. What has to be cured
is what makes him poor.”
“Well, in that, at least, you’re in agreement with Spencer, whom you dislike so
much. He says, too, that education may be the consequence of greater prosperity
and comfort, of more frequent washing, as he says, but not of being able to read and
write...”
“Well, then, I’m very glad–or the contrary, very sorry, that I’m in agreement with
Spencer; only I’ve known it a long while. Schools can do no good; what will do good
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