He only stayed a few days in Berlin after getting rid of his toothache, and left on 14th July (old style), having however found time to attend lectures on History by Droysen, and on Physics and Physiology by Du Bois-Reymond, and having also visited some evening classes for artisans at the _Handwerksverein_, where he was greatly interested in the popular lectures, and particularly in the system of 'question-boxes.' The method of arousing the interest of the audience by allowing them to propound questions for the lecturer to reply to, was new to him, and he was struck by the life it brought into the classes, and by the freedom of mental contact between scholars and teacher. He noticed the same thing when he was in London a few months later, for he told me that nothing he saw there interested him more than a lecture he attended in South Kensington, at which questions were put by working men, and answered by a speaker who was master of his subject and knew how to popularise it. In Berlin he visited the Moabit Prison, in which solitary confinement was practised. Tolstoy strongly disapproved of this mechanical attempt to achieve moral reformation. From Berlin he went to Leipzig, where he spent a day inspecting schools; but he derived little satisfaction from the Saxon schools he visited, as is indicated by a remark he jotted down in his Diary, 'Have been in school--terrible. Prayers for the King, blows, everything by rote, frightened, paralysed children....' He then proceeded to Dresden, where he called on the novelist Auerbach, whose story, _Ein Neues Leben_ (_A New Life_), had much influenced him. The chief character in that story is Count Fulkenberg, who after being an officer in the army, gets into trouble, escapes from prison, buys the passport of a school-master, Eugene Baumann, and under that name devotes himself to the task of educating peasant children. When Auerbach entered the room in which his visitor was waiting, the latter introduced himself with the words: 'I am Eugene Baumann,' in such solemn tones and with so morose an appearance, that the German writer was taken aback and feared that he was about to be threatened with an action for libel. Tolstoy however hastened to add: '--not in name, but in character--' and went on to explain how good an effect Auerbach's _Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten_ (_Village Tales of the Black Forest_) had had on him. After three days in Dresden, he went on to Kissingen, which was in those days about five hours' journey from Soden, where Nicholas was staying. Still intent on his educational inquiries, he read _en route_ a history of pedagogics. From Kissingen he wrote his Aunt Tatiána that he thought the cure was doing him good, and added: