In August 1879, Ter-Tadevos took his ten-year-old son Hovhannes to Etchmiadzin to study at the Gevorgyan Seminary, but when he saw student’s pale faces he gave up his intention.
After returning from Etchmiadzin to Dsegh, Toumanian's father heard about Jalalogli's (now Stepanavan) newly opened school for boys and girls. In the fall of 1879, he took his two sons, Hovhannes and Rostom, there to study in the large and exemplary school, founded on the initiative of teacher Tigran.
Tigran Ter-Davtyan was a close friend of Ter-Tadevos.
At the time of Toumanian's admission to Jalaloghli School, the number of pupils in the boys' school was 125, and in the girls' school - 60.
The school had a regular teaching staff of four male and two female teachers. The following subjects were taught here with a new pedagogical approach: Armenian language, history, Russian language, geography, arithmetic, singing, French, physics and general history.
The inspector of the school, teacher of geography and history was Tigran Ter-Davtyan, one of the educated and developed individuals of the time.
Toumanian particularly liked the teacher's history lessons, especially when he told his travel impressions of Constantinople, Jerusalem and Egypt.
Tigran Ter-Davtyan organized “learning” classes in his house in order to increase the studen’s educational progress, which Toumanian also attended. The lessons were conducted by the teacher’s eldest daughter Vergine.
The teacher also had a rich library, which the students used during reading hours: sometimes teacher Tigran took part of those hours by reading and translating excerpts from the French illustrated edition of Hugo’s “Les Miserables”.
In the warm atmosphere of those evenings, a feeling of tender closeness towards Vergine is formed in young Toumanian. As an answer to Vergine’s remark “Maybe you'll forget about your lessons as you're obsessed with me”, Toumanian wrote his first love verse “A part of my soul” (1881) (it is the first among those preserved).
It was the time that young Toumanian stood out for his poetic skills, writing not only love, but also patriotic and satirical poems: for instance, “Sway” (1882), “When the strict winter passes away” (1883), “The Armenian Merchants” (1883).
After 1882-1883 academic year, the history of the school’s four-year existence ended by order of the tsarist government – Toumanian returns to the village.