Besides the Bible, the only books the people understand and like, says Tolstoy, are those written not for the people but by the people; such as folk-tales and collections of songs, legends, proverbs, verses, and riddles. There was much in his experience which fits in with what Mr. Cecil Sharp and Miss Neal of the Espérance Club, have lately been demonstrating by their revivals of English Folk Songs and Dances: namely, that there is an excellent literature and art which children and common folk appreciate and assimilate as eagerly and excellently as any one, and which it is the height of folly for cultured people to despise; and his keen perception of the gap that separates the art and literature accessible to the people from the art that by its artificiality is beyond their reach, led him subsequently to undertake, first a series of school primers, and then the re-telling of a number of folk-tales and legends, which have reached more readers, and perhaps benefited the world more, than anything else he has written. With penmanship it happened at Yásno-Polyána school, as with reading: The pupils wrote very badly, and a new master introduced writing from copies (another exercise very sedate and easy for the master). The pupils became dull, and we were obliged to abandon calligraphy, and did not know how to devise any way of improving their handwriting. The eldest class discovered the way for itself. Having finished writing the Bible stories, the elder pupils began to ask for their exercise-books to take home [probably to read to their parents]. These were dirty, crumpled, and badly written. The precise mathematician P. asked for some paper, and set to work to rewrite his stories. This idea pleased the others. 'Give me, too, some paper!'-- 'Give me an exercise-book!' and a fashion for calligraphy set in, which still prevails in the upper class. They took an exercise-book, put before them a written alphabet copy from which they imitated each letter, boasting to one another of their performance, and in two weeks' time they had made great progress. Grammar turned out to be an unsatisfactory subject, and to have hardly any connection with correct writing or speaking.