In the singing class, Tolstoy very soon found that notes written on the staff were not easily grasped by the pupils, and after using the staff for some ten lessons, he once showed the boys the use of numbers instead, and from that day forward they always asked him to use numbers, and they themselves always used numbers in writing music. This method is much more convenient, Tolstoy considers, for explaining both the intervals and the changes of key. The pupils who were not musical soon dropped out of the class, and the lessons with those who were, sometimes went on for three or four hours at a stretch. He tried to teach them musical time in the usual manner, but succeeded so badly that he had to take that and melody separately. First he took the sounds without reference to time, and then beat the time without considering the sounds, and finally joined the two processes together. After several lessons he found that the method he had drifted into, combined the chief features (though not some of the minor peculiarities) of Chevet's method, which, as already mentioned, he had seen in successful operation in Paris. After a very few lessons, two of the boys used to write down the melodies of the songs they knew, and were almost able to read music at sight. From the limited experience he had in teaching music, Tolstoy--to quote his own words almost textually--became convinced that: (1) To write sounds by means of figures is the most profitable method; (2) To teach time separately from sound is the most profitable method; (3) For the teaching of music to be willingly and fruitfully received, one must from the start teach the _art_ and not aim merely at dexterity in singing or playing. Spoilt young ladies may be taught to play Burgmüller's exercises; but it is better not to teach the children of the people at all, than to teach them mechanically; (4) Nothing so harms musical instruction as what looks like a knowledge of music: namely the performance of choirs, and performances at examinations, speech-days, or in church; and (5) In teaching music to the people, the thing to be aimed at is to impart our knowledge of the general laws of music, but not the false taste we have developed among us.