However, for the most part, the Doukhobor education of the time was of an oral nature without formal schooling, and without luxuries such as paper and pens. It follows then, that most such writings were committed to memory. The spoken word also presented a freedom, and when sung, an opportunity for improvisation and elaboration. These earlier writings, then, continued to evolve under different influences and different interpreters. In the Canadian settlement experience, the same original song appears with variations in tempo, words, and even melody between British Columbia and Saskatchewan, and this in only a few decades. Well known myths which originated in the Old Testament also went through a metamorphosis as they were elaborated upon and repeated to provide certain moral lessons.

Making a virtue out of necessary limitations, the Doukhobors sought inspiration and justification in the Gospels: [God]...hath made us able ministers of the new testament: not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life, [II Corinthians, 3, 6.] This concept was further enhanced by an old Russian proverb: Written on the heart - revealed through the mouth - and this too reinforced the idea that the oral tradition was a righteous one.

Today the majority of Doukhobors read and write English, some of them read and write Russian and other languages as well, and the members of the community who are the most revered are indeed the teachers, business men, realtors and even lawyers and politicians and artists, occupations which would have been regarded as scandalous less than one hundred years ago. [Especially by those Doukhobors who do not recall that Peter V. Verigin received his first education in order to run the family store, one of the family holdings which amounted to half a million roubles, wealth which indicates a level of sophistication and an availability of any cultural opportunities].

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