Partly that they might learn English, partly because Tolstoy believed that education was freer in England than elsewhere, young English governesses were engaged to take charge of his children from the age of three to nine. He was extremely fortunate in his first choice, for the young lady remained with the Tolstoys for six years, and after her marriage continued in most friendly relations with the whole family. He aimed at acquainting the children with Nature, and developing their love of it, of animals, and of insects. He liked to let them realise their impotence and their complete dependence on their elders, but he always did this with kindly consideration. The children were not allowed to order the servants about, but had to _ask_ them for anything they wanted; and that a good example might be set, every one in the house was expected to do the same. This was the more important, because the peasant servants in Russia, even after the Emancipation, were scarcely regarded as belonging to the same race of human beings as their masters, and a famous Russian author could say without any exaggeration, 'The balcony was rotten. Only servants went there; the family did not go there.' But, to avoid giving a wrong impression, I must here make a reservation. Just because there was no idea of the two classes overlapping, and because so wide a gap existed between them that they dressed quite differently (the peasants having their own costume and style of garments) very cordial and sincere good feeling often grew up between master and man, or between proprietress and servant, and real human interest, such as is shown in Tolstoy's descriptions of the servants in _Childhood_, and in his other stories. It was, and is, not at all unusual for Russian servants to intervene in the conversation of the family or visitors; and the whole relation between employers and employed was quite different to what it is in England, where on Sundays the maid might be mistaken for her mistress, except that she often looks more attractive than the latter. The plan adopted in the Yásno-Polyána school, where no child was obliged to learn anything it did not care to learn, had to be abandoned in the family; but some scope was allowed to the children to reject what they had no capacity for, and they were never punished for neglecting to prepare lessons, though they were rewarded when they learnt well. To illustrate Tolstoy's way of developing the minds of those about him, Behrs tells of his own case when, as a youth, he stayed at Yásnaya: Regardless of my youth at the time, I remember that Tolstoy discussed quite seriously with me all the scientific and philosophic questions it came into my head to put to him. He always answered simply and clearly, and never hesitated to admit the fact if he himself did not understand this or that matter. Often my talk with him took the form of a dispute, on which I embarked in spite of my consciousness of his immense superiority.