m an old man, I have been lecturing for thirty years, but I notice
neither degeneration nor lack of ideals, and I don't find that the
present is worse than the past. My porter Nikolay, whose experience of
this subject has its value, says that the students of today are neither
better nor worse than those of the past.

If I were asked what I don't like in my pupils of today, I should answer
the question, not straight off and not at length, but with sufficient
definiteness. I know their failings, and so have no need to resort
to vague generalities. I don't like their smoking, using spirituous
beverages, marrying late, and often being so irresponsible and careless
that they will let one of their number be starving in their midst while
they neglect to pay their subscriptions to the Students' Aid Society.
They don't know modern languages, and they don't express themselves
correctly in Russian; no longer ago than yesterday my colleague, the
professor of hygiene, complained to me that he had to give twice as many
lectures, because the students had a very poor knowledge of physics and
were utterly ignorant of meteorology. They are readily carried away
by the influence of the last new writers, even when they are not
first-rate, but they take absolutely no interest in classics such as
Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, or Pascal, and this inability
to distinguish the great from the small betrays their ignorance of
practical life more than anything. All difficult questions that have
more or less a social character (for instance the migration question)
they settle by studying monographs on the subject, but not by way of
scientific investigation or experiment, though that method is at their
disposal and is more in keeping with their calling. They gladly become
ward-surgeons, assistants, demonstrators, external teachers, and are
ready to fill such posts until they are forty, though independence,
a sense of freedom and personal initiative, are no less necessary
in science than, for instance, in art or commerce. I have pupils and
listeners, but no successors and helpers, and so I love them and am
touched by them, but am not proud of them. And so on, and so on....

Such shortcomings, however numerous they may be, can only give rise to
a pessimistic or fault-finding temper in a faint-hearted and timid
man. All these failings have a casual, transitory character, and are
completely dependent on conditions of life; in some ten years th