Page 740 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

fits, so she was taking him to be doctored. I asked, ‘Why,
how does the wise woman cure screaming fits?’ ‘She puts
the child on the hen-roost and repeats some charm....’ ‘
‘Well, you’re saying it yourself! What’s wanted to

prevent her taking her child to the hen-roost to cure it of
screaming fits is just...’ Sviazhsky said, smiling good-
humoredly.
‘Oh, no!’ said Levin with annoyance; ‘that method of
doctoring I merely meant as a simile for doctoring the
people with schools. The people are poor and ignorant—
that we see as surely as the peasant woman sees the baby is
ill because it screams. But in what way this trouble of
poverty and ignorance is to be cured by schools is as
incomprehensible as how the hen-roost affects the
screaming. What has to be cured is what makes him poor.’
‘Well, in that, at least, you’re in agreement with
Spencer, whom you dislike so much. He says, too, that
education may be the consequence of greater prosperity
and comfort, of more frequent washing, as he says, but not
of being able to read and write..’
‘Well, then, I’m very glad—or the contrary, very sorry,
that I’m in agreement with Spencer; only I’ve known it a
long while. Schools can do no good; what will do good is
an economic organization in which the people will

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