If a teacher has only love for the cause, it will be a good teacher. If a teacher has only love for student, as a father, mother, he will be better than the teacher, who read all the books, but has no love for the cause, nor to the students. If the teacher combines love to the cause and to his disciples, he is the perfect teacher.

He was not just a great writer but also a famous educator who believed that educating children was vital. Tolstoy thought of teaching as the “most important work in the world” because “everything we dream of can only come to life thanks to the next generations.” Seeing the school system that prevailed in Russia at that time, he visited Europe, where it was just as horrible: “I could write whole books on the ignorance I’ve seen in schools in France, Switzerland, and Germany.” The trips led him to open his own school for peasant kids at his Yasnaya Polyana estate. He was convinced that education should be enjoyable and based in conversation between teachers and students.