Chapter VI · TRAVELS ABROAD (continued 2)
Reading edition
He adds that he intends to return to Yásnaya viâ St. Petersburg, as he wants to obtain permission to publish an educational magazine he is projecting.
On 22nd April he was already in Berlin, where he made the acquaintance of the head of the Teachers' Seminary, the son of the celebrated pedagogue Diesterweg, whom, to his disappointment, he found to be 'a cold, soulless pedant, who thinks he can develop and guide the souls of children by rules and regulations.'
On 23rd April (old style) he re-entered Russia, after a stay abroad of nearly ten months.
He brought with him complete editions of the works of several of the greatest European writers. They were kept at the Custom House to be submitted to the Censor, and, as Tolstoy plaintively remarked nearly half a century later, 'he is still reading them!'