Dmitry Andreevich Tolstoy (1823-1889) was a government figure and, according to his contemporaries, one of most interesting and paradoxical persons of his time. His tenure as minister of public education for almost a decade and a halfstill raises controversy. Since the mid 1860-s D.A. Tolstoy kept a «working journal» where he commented on the events and facts that were important to his professional activities. These notes can allow one not only to reconstruct his day-to-day work, but also to create the image of the «ministerial workings», of the ideology of a person who controlled all the threads and levers of educational power in his hands. We are publishing fragments from these notes.