In England, as elsewhere, Tolstoy saw as much as he could of the educational methods in vogue. He also visited the House of Commons and heard Palmerston speak for three hours; but he told me he could form no opinion of the oration, for 'at that time I knew English with my eyes but not with my ears.' While in London, he received news that he had been nominated Arbiter of the Peace for his own district, near Toúla. The duties of the office were to settle disputes between the serfs and their former proprietors. Except a short service on the Zémstvo in 1874, this was the only official position in which Tolstoy ever took much active part after leaving the army. On 3rd March (new style), the day of Alexander II's famous Manifesto emancipating the serfs, Tolstoy left London for Russia _viâ_ Brussels. In that city he made the acquaintance of Proudhon (the author of _Qu'est-ce que la Propriété?_ and a _Système des Contradictions Économiques_) to whom Herzen had given him a letter of introduction. Proudhon impressed Tolstoy as a strong man who had the courage of his opinions; and though Proudhon's theories had no immediate effect on Tolstoy's life, the social political and economic views expounded by the latter a quarter of a century later, are deeply dyed with Proudhonism. Both writers consider that property is robbery; interest immoral; peaceful anarchy the desirable culmination of social progress, and that every man should be a law unto himself, restrained solely by reason, conscience and moral suasion. Another writer whose acquaintance Tolstoy made in Brussels was the Polish patriot Lelewel, who had taken a prominent part in the rebellion of 1830, and had written on Polish history and on many other subjects. He was at this time a decrepit old man living in great poverty. While in Brussels Tolstoy wrote _Polikoúshka_, almost the only story of his (besides _A Squire's Morning_) that implies a condemnation of serfdom. Passing through Germany, Tolstoy stopped at Weimar, where he stayed with the Russian Ambassador, Von Maltitz, and was introduced to the Grand Duke Carl Alexander. Tolstoy (who had been reading Goethe's _Reineke Fuchs_ not long before) visited the house in which Goethe had lived, but was more interested in a Kindergarten conducted by Minna Schelholm, who had been trained by Froebel. From another school he visited, we hear of his collecting and carrying off the essays the pupils had written, explaining to the master that he was much concerned with the problem, 'How to make thought flow more freely.' At Jena he made acquaintance with a young mathematician named Keller, whom he persuaded to accompany him to Yásnaya to help him in his educational activities. He also stopped at Dresden, where he again visited Auerbach, concerning whom he jots down in his Diary: