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THE REFORM OF EDUCATION

PAGE
Introduction vii
I. Education and Nationality 3
II. Education and Personality 18
III. The Fundamental Antinomy of Education 40
IV. Realism and Idealism in the Concept of Culture 63
V. The Spirituality of Culture 85
VI. The Attributes of Culture 110
VII. The Bias of Realism 139
VIII. The Unity of Education 166
IX. Character and Physical Education 192
X. The Ideal of Education 219
XI. Conclusion 246

NOTE

Shortly after Trieste fell into Italian hands, a series of lectures was
arranged for the school teachers of the city, in order to welcome them
to their new duties as citizens and officials of Italy. The task of
opening the series was assigned to Giovanni Gentile, Professor of
Philosophy in the University of Rome, who delivered the lectures which
constitute the present volume. At my request Signor Gentile has
rewritten the first chapter, eliminating some of the more local of the
allusions which the nature of the original occasion called forth, and
Senatore Croce has very generously contributed his illuminating
Introduction. The volume as it stands is more than a treatise on
education: it is at one and the same time an introduction to the thought
of one of the greatest of living philosophers, and an introduction to
the study of all philosophy. If the teachers of Trieste were able to
understand and to enjoy a philosophic discussion of their chosen work,
why should not the teachers of America?

J. E. S.

INTRODUCTION

The author of this book has been working in the same field with me for
over a quarter of a century, ever since the time when we undertook--he a
very young man, and I somewhat his senior--to shake Italy out of the
doze of naturalism and positivism back to idealistic philosophy; or, as
it would be better to say, to philosophy pure and simple, if indeed
philosophy is always idealism.

Together we founded a review, the _Critica_, and kept it going by our
contributions; together we edited collections of classical authors; and
together we engaged in many lively controversies. And it seems indeed as
though we really succeeded in laying hold of and again firmly
re-establishing in Italy the tradition of philosophical studies, thus
welding a chain which evidently has withstood the strain and destructive
fury of the war and its afterclaps.

By this I do not mean to imply that our gradual achievements were the
result of a definite preconcerted plan. Our work was the spontaneous
consequence of our spontaneous mental development and of the spontaneous
agreement of our minds. And therefore this common task, too, gradually
becoming differentiated in accordance with the peculiarities of our
temperaments, our tendencies, and our attitudes, resulted in a kind of
division of labour between us. So that whereas I by preference have
devoted my attention to the history of literature, Gentile has
dedicated himself more particularly to the history of philosophy and
especially of Italian philosophy, not only as a thinker but as a
scholar too, and as a philologist. He may be said to have covered the
entire field from the Middle Ages to the present time by his works on
Scholasticism in Italy, on Bruno, on Telesio, on Renaissance
philosophy, on Neapolitan philosophy from Genovesi to Galluppi, on
Rosmini, on Gioberti, and on the philosophical writers from 1850 to
1900. And though his comprehensive _History of Italian Philosophy_,
published in parts, is far from being finished, the several sections
of it have been elaborated and cast in the various monographs which I
have just mentioned.

In addition to this, Gentile has been devoting special attention to
religious problems. He took a very important part in the inquiry into
and criticism of "modernism," the hybrid nature of which he laid bare,
exposing both the inner contradictions and the scanty sincerity of the
movement.

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THE REFORM OF EDUCATION