This discord between the demands of pedagogy and reality has of late found its peculiarly striking expression not only in the matter of instruction itself, but also in another very important side of the school, namely in its administration. In order to show in what condition this matter has been and might be, I shall speak of Krapívensk County of the Government of Túla, in which I live, which I know, and which, from its position, forms the type of the majority of counties of central Russia. In 1862 fourteen schools were opened in a district of ten thousand souls, when I was rural judge; besides, there existed about ten schools in the district among the clericals and in the manors among the servants. In the three remaining districts of the county there were fifteen large and thirty small schools among the clericals and manorial servants. Without saying anything about the number of the learners, of which, I assume, there were in general not less than now, nor about the instruction itself, which was partly bad and partly good, but on the whole not worse than at present, I will tell how and on what that business was based. All schools were then, with few exceptions, based on a free agreement of the teacher with the parents of the pupils, or with the whole partnership of the peasants paying a lump sum for everybody. Such a relation between the parents or Communes and the teachers is even now met with in some exceedingly rare places of our county and of the Government in general. Everybody will agree that, leaving aside the question of the quality of instruction, such a relation of the teacher to the parents and peasants is most just, natural, and desirable. But, with the introduction of the law of 1864, this relation was abolished and is being abolished more and more. Everybody who knows the matter as it is will observe that with the abolition of this relation the people take less and less part in the matter of their education, which is only natural. In some County Councils the school tax of the peasants is even turned into the County Council, and the salary, appointment of teachers, location of schools,--all that is done quite independently of those for whom it is intended (in theory the peasants, no doubt, are members of the County Council, but in practice they have through this mediation no influence on their own schools). Nobody will, I suppose, assert that that is just, but some will say: "The illiterate peasants cannot judge what is good and what bad, and we must build for them as well as we can." But how do we know? Do we know firmly, are we all of one opinion, how to build schools? And does it not frequently turn out bad, for we have built much worse than they have?