TEACHERS DEPARTMENT. 
2 I 
such a long time only a name—an empty sound to me. The 
“ laboratory ” had been a place where professors only have the 
privilege to work. After taking up some work in the laboratories 
in America, I wrote to my friends about it, but it was hard for 
them to believe, or rather, understand it. 
Physics and chemistry are also taught in a ridiculous fashion 
in Russia. There are neither physical nor chemical laboratories 
used for elementary teaching. Everything is studied by means 
of the teacher’s instructions and by the text-book. Once in two 
or three months the tutor performs some experiments in physics, 
but no chemical experiments are ever shown before the class. It 
will surprise the reader to know that our school had a pretty good 
physical laboratory equipped with many and various instruments, 
but it was forbidden ground. Passing by, we could see the layers 
of dust which covered the instruments, and I wonder now what 
the laboratory was for! That no experiments were performed 
was due, not to the lack of a laboratory, but to the ignorance of 
the teacher who did not know how to use the capital that he pos¬ 
sessed. As for chemistry, we did not even know of the existence 
of a chemical laboratory. Chemistry was in our eyes a science 
of nomenclature, of elements, and of formulas which we were 
obliged to learn by heart, without the slightest understanding of 
whys and wherefores. 
While at home this last summer I visited my old schools and 
explained to the schoolmasters the teaching methods used in 
American schools and I described to them the laboratories which 
I had seen there. In some Russian schools laboratories have been 
established in the last two years, so that there are hopes that the 
old and faulty methods will be replaced by a new and useful one. 
Before I left for the United States I met my old tutor in physics 
and we had a long talk about the necessity of laboratory work 
for the student, but it was difficult to convince him. Having no 
power to struggle against the truth, he pointed out that Russians 
ought not to take lessons from Americans who recognized no 
theory at all, but made a god of practice. I could not help laugh¬ 
ing at the attitude which he had taken to justify himself. Bid¬ 
ding him “ good-bye,” I asked him to visit some American col- 
