Education

EDUCATION. - The art of forming the man in the child, as such: that is, with all the perfection that his nature entails.

I. CONCEPT OF EDUCATION

Etymologically, the term education is derived by some from the Latin educare, which in its proper sense means "to care for, to rear, to nourish" and by extension: "to form, to instruct"; and in this sense it is used preferably by the ancients, for example, Quintilian: "nec alter quam si mihi tradatur educandus orator" (De instit. or., I, 1); "de pueris, inter quos educabitur ille, huic spei destinatus" (ibid., I, 1); others, and better, derive it from educere, "to draw out, to bring forth into the light what lies within, is hidden," because it is more expressive of the characteristic concept of the educative action.

From this certain consequences immediately follow: 1) education involves a dualism of elements: one active, which forms, that is, the educator; the other passive, which is formed, that is, the educand; 2) properly speaking, one cannot speak of education except between man and man, between a perfect man and a perfectible man. It is true that the term education is also used when speaking of plants and animals (to educate roses, the dog, the horse); but, applied to the vegetable kingdom, the term education is equivalent simply to "cultivation," which is the work by which the necessary and favorable conditions are established so that the germ may develop into flowers and fruits as perfectly as possible; and this work cannot be called education except with regard to the care that a rational being, the cultivator, devotes to it. Applied to the animal kingdom, the term education is equivalent to "rearing," if the work is directed at preserving and strengthening the physical energies; to "domestication," if it is directed at restraining and eliminating certain psychic acts; to "training," if it aims at favoring and accentuating the development of particular qualities (for example, training a hunting dog, a racehorse). And even in these cases, one can speak of education only insofar as the attentions and cares employed proceed from a rational being, who knows the end toward which he tends and the relation of means to end, that is, the raiser, the domesticator, the trainer. When, instead, not only the subject who employs cares and attentions but also the object of these is rational and spiritual, then there is true education, because only in this case does the educand participate actively in the work of the educator with his consciousness, his will and his freedom. Education, in fact, does not tend nor should it tend to form a being that acts or reacts mechanically or instinctively to the various impressions coming from outside and from within, but a person, who knows the exterior and interior world, is conscious of what he knows and does; can therefore judge actions, recognize them as conforming or not conforming to the dictates of conscience; 3) if education is a perfecting, one cannot say that every perfecting is education, because this, as daily experience teaches, requires an influence that proceeds from an agent, who exercises it deliberately, with method and continuity, rationally. Therefore a systematic order of actions and influences is required in order to obtain that determined effect, which is the harmonious, intellectual, moral and physical development of man.

Hence the overall definition of education: the art by which an adult human individual (teacher, educator) exercises his action upon an adolescent or minor individual (pupil, educand) in order to bring into act all his faculties, developing determined intellectual habits (science) and practical habits (morality) with a view to the true and complete end of human life.

With this, all the elements of education have been enumerated: the relationship between educand and educator; the concept of the habits and of the human spiritual faculties to be developed and together of the means suited to the purpose; the concept of coordinated and methodical action, or influence concretized in a method; the concept of the end to be aimed at, which is ultimately nothing other than the integral end itself of human life.

II. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDUCAND AND EDUCATOR

It constitutes the intimate essence of education. In education, in fact, there is on the one hand the subjective factor, the one who is its active subject, that is, the pupil with all his instincts, faculties, natural and hereditary tendencies, disposition, temperament. He does indeed form the object around which the norms of educational action are deployed; but he is not so much an object that he is not at the same time and predominantly the subject, because by the law of spontaneity he gradually educates himself, organizing within himself the whole world of his experiences, thus conquering himself and his personality. On the other hand there is the extra-subjective factor, which is the action of the educator, conscious and deliberate. But this does not replace, nor should it replace, the action of the pupil; rather it cooperates with it. Another extra-subjective factor is given by the physical environment in which one is born, by the family and social environment in which one lives, with all the achievements attained, its traditions, its culture.

There is therefore in education an action in which physical, spiritual and moral factors come into play, which, influencing through a series of coordinated acts, determines another in the pupil, who, so to speak, reacts by developing and gradually educating himself. The educator does not do everything, as though he had to pour into the pupil all that is science and virtue; his action does not correspond to a simple passivity or reception; rather, two activities are deployed, of which the one helps the other, controls it, guides it, makes it develop.

From this derives the solution to the question: "self-education or hetero-education?" Some pedagogical theories, founded on erroneous philosophical ideas, wish to insinuate or maintain that in education the work of the educator is entirely secondary and the whole educational process consists in the free development of the pupil's activities, or in their adaptation to the exterior reality (nature) that surrounds them and presses upon them (materialists and positivists). Others go even further and simply abolish the educator, declaring that all education is simply "self-education" (idealists). The alternative mentioned has no basis in reality. In the educational relationship, as has been said, two factors must be distinguished which complement each other and, thus integrated, concur to produce a single result, the formation of the complete man. This result is certainly something immanent in the educated subject (physical, moral, intellectual perfection); it does not derive in the pupil only from the outside; but on the other hand it is certain that it cannot be achieved without the influence of the educator factor. There will therefore be self-education and hetero-education together. Self-education is to be understood as a series of acts by means of which the pupil realizes himself, brings about his own perfection, but under the necessary influence of hetero-education; this, in turn, is to be understood as a series of acts which do not extinguish, nor substitute themselves for, the self-developing activity in the pupil, but awaken it, direct it, empower it with the use of all educational means.

III. THE HUMAN FACULTIES TO BE DEVELOPED

The concept of the faculties to be developed up to the perfect flowering of man as such (external senses, imagination, memory, intellect and will), of the methods to be followed to attain the goal and of the habits to be contracted for the formation of character, are furnished by rational and experimental psychology, and are treated under the individual entries. Here it is only necessary to keep a just middle way between exaggerated conservatism and an excessive, indiscriminate love of novelty for novelty's sake. Not everything ancient and traditional is bad, nor among the novelties and conquests of modern times is there only good; the golden advice of St. Paul therefore holds: "prove all things and hold fast that which is good" (I Thess. 5, 1 ff.). The new good must blend with and increase the old good; it must not destroy it in order to begin everything anew. This is a demonstration of a genuine historical sense, because history is the teacher of life and, rather than not illuminating it, it is a duty to draw the light that emanates from it.

IV. COORDINATED AND METHODICAL ACTION

The methods by which educational activity is exercised can be reduced to two: subjective-introspective and objective.

1) Introspection, which serves to induce the subject being educated to turn his attention to things or facts on which he generally does not dwell by himself, can be, so to speak, spontaneous or provoked. Spontaneous, when one, turning inward, recalls past experiences that concern the educational field, studies, in the light of the present, their elements and their fruits (e.g., the Confessions of St. Augustine, the various diaries and autobiographical recollections). Many pedagogists in fact base their systematic constructions on this introspection, taking as a rule what they have learned from their educators, sifting more or less the impressions they received from them, and reproducing the elements that appear good to them because they have yielded good results. These constructions, however, because of the large subjective part they may contain, can lead to errors and skewed evaluations. More useful, therefore, is the introspection provoked in the pupil by suitable contrivances, which oblige him to express what he feels, helping him to observe himself well, giving him guiding ideas, providing him with a thread to follow, correcting whatever is a deviation from the right path.

2) The objective method, which consists in the study of educational facts insofar as they are examined outside of ourselves: continuous observation of the pupil, of what he says and does, of his behavior in the various circumstances of the day, of the attitude of his body, of the changes in his physiognomy, of the words that escape among companions, of the varying degree of intensity and attention that he displays according to the various subjects dealt with. In this way one can gather a vast store of knowledge, which serves to adapt the general norms of education to the different individuals.

V. THE AIM OF EDUCATION

The two methods mentioned, and others that could easily be adduced, are good and validly effective only insofar as they are suited to the aim to be attained by education. And this is not simply a question of technique or of particular philosophical conceptions, but of logic and of coherence with the living reality of human nature. Now, for one who takes man as he is, the aim of education can be none other than to guide the pupil toward absolute perfection in the future life through his relative perfection in the present life.

For once it is posited - and this is demonstrated elsewhere - that the whole of human life is not enclosed within the sphere of material and earthly things, that there are higher values, the values of the spirit, that man is endowed with a spiritual and immortal soul, with free will, with a moral conscience, and is destined for eternal happiness; and that above contingent beings there is a necessary and absolute Being from which everything proceeds and in which everything converges, God, true and full education cannot prescind from these truths, but must conform to them. These considerations acquire greater prominence and efficacy when they are illuminated by the light of Revelation. This makes known to us co-how man has been raised to the supernatural order of adopted son of God, endowed with supernatural faculties and means to attain his supernatural end, that is, the possession of God through the beatific vision. With all the more reason, therefore, an e. that wishes to be true and complete must take account of this complex of higher truths in order to lead man to that perfection which this state of elevation requires.

Consequently, every e. will be deficient that aims at purely naturalistic ends and considers negatively (by neglecting them) or positively (by denying or combating them) the highest supernatural values of man and of life, whatever particular and determinate aspect it may assume in the various systems, inasmuch as it turns one-sidedly to physical culture (man-animal) or to the intellect (man-knowledge) and the will (man-will to power) or to the civic aspect (man-citizen) or national and racial (man-racial) or economic (man-economic) or professional (man-worker), precisely because it would start from partial considerations that would not embrace the whole man and therefore not the whole end of e. This, in fact, must be totalitarian.

VI. TOTALITARIAN EDUCATION

The twofold purpose of man — of the present and the future life — characterizes one of the fundamental requirements of e., its totality. And first of all as regards the one being educated. The work of education must extend to the whole child and not to only one part or to one or some of his faculties. Now the child has a body and a soul; the latter thinks, reasons, wills and is free; e. must therefore be physical, moral and intellectual. The child, moreover, is a being destined not to an egoistic and solitary life, but to social life, first in the family, then in the State: he is an essentially religious being, which religion he must practice as an individual and as a member of a society in which he lives: the Church. E. must therefore also be familial, civic and religious (v. FAMIGLIA; ISTRUZIONE RELIGIOSA; SCUOLA; STATO).

From a second aspect too e. must be totalitarian: as regards duration. «It concerns not only school and children. It is not enough to be adults to no longer need e. E. is a duty, from which only death releases us. And like every other duty, this one too entails that we continually fail in it, that we always find ourselves exposed to the risk of not fulfilling it; since duty is a value, which each time proposes itself as something that must be and that our freedom can prevent from coming true» (F. Bongiovanni, Lezioni di pedagogia. I, Turin 1947, p. 10).

And since the spirit of the child to be educated is one, even in the multiple forms and aspects that have been mentioned, so e. must be unitary, that is, possess a unity that harmoniously composes everything together and avoids every excess of individual parts; otherwise there can be no true formation of human spirits. A poem, in fact, is not created simply by placing and piling up words, rhymes and verses, one beside the other, but by permeating the whole with the inspiring breath that synthesizes multiplicity into an organic whole, nor can a song, if it is to be harmonious, disregard unity in the multiplicity of its notes. In the same way the poem and the song expressed by human consciousness. The harmony of life is not achieved, except when ideas, affections, notions, volitions, though being multiple, do not spring from one and the same source and do not possess a life-giving soul.

VII. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Religious education deserves a wholly particular consideration, especially in the face of theories and systems that would relegate it to the attic among things indifferent or useless or even harmful, as being something that cannot be achieved without the suppression or impairment of the natural faculties and without renunciation of the works of earthly life, and therefore alien to social living and to temporal prosperity, contrary to all progress in letters, sciences, arts and every other work of civilization. Christian education has as its proper and immediate end to cooperate with divine Grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, for whom life is Christ (Col. 3, 4) and all activities are manifestations of Christ in him (II Cor. 4, 11), and therefore it embraces the whole range of human life, sensible, spiritual, intellectual, and moral, individual, domestic and social, not to diminish it, but to elevate, regulate and perfect it. Hence the true Christian, far from renouncing the works of earthly life or diminishing his natural faculties, rather develops and perfects them, coordinating them to the supernatural life in such a way as to ennoble natural life itself and to procure for it more effective benefit, not only of a supernatural and eternal order, but also material and temporal.

«We are not strangers to life, we repudiate no fruit of the works of God; we only moderate ourselves so as not to use them immoderately or badly. And so not without the forum, the markets, the baths, the shops, the stables, our markets and all the other trades do we live in this world. We too sail and serve as soldiers with you, we cultivate the fields and trade, and therefore we exchange works and place our works at your disposal» (Tertullian, Apolog., 62).

Religious education, while it makes us keep in mind that man has fallen through the work of original sin, and has therefore remained weakened in his will and broken by disordered tendencies, knows how to add the necessary antidote: per-

for to natural means and human motives, which have their incontestable usefulness, it knows how to add the supernatural means of a far more intimate and profound efficacy: the life and doctrine of Jesus Christ; prayer, worship, the Sacraments, among which Penance and the Eucharist are of the highest pedagogical value, its rites, its feasts and its art. Moreover, a wonderful testimony to this is the history of the Church, which is identified with the history of true civilization and genuine progress down to our own times. And the saints remain always the most perfect models in every class and profession, in every state and condition of life, from the simple and rustic peasant to the scientist and man of letters, from the humble craftsman to the leader of armies, from the private father of a family to the monarch who rules peoples, from the simple girls and women of the domestic enclosure to queens and empresses.

In conclusion, it must be said that in the formation of the Christian one must not see religion as a practice or a habit added to or put on over a life that shapes itself to live according to the model offered by worldly fickleness; but as a cohesive and unifying principle, which stamps all of life and its individual actions with its own character and professions.

VIII. THE RIGHT TO EDUCATE

Since the work of education is an eminently social activity, inasmuch as it does not aim at the perfecting of individual persons, considering them as solitary beings, but as elements that form and in turn strengthen the perfecting of others, with whom they live, the question spontaneously arises as to which of the three distinct and necessary societies (family, State and Church) amid which man is born and lives, the right to educate belongs.

Catholic doctrine is clear and precise; the right to educate belongs to all three, but in different ways; all three must therefore fuse their activities into a harmonious whole, acting in mutual understanding of their own and others' prerogatives, and not only of these, but also of their own limits.

1. Education belongs to the family by natural right

To the family, in fact, God immediately communicates fecundity, which is not only the principle of life, but also of education for life and of authority. The child is naturally something of the father and the mother, is as it were their extension; he is so strictly their own that no one can take him from them. They therefore have the right not only to raise him, but also to educate him according to their desires and their preferences.

It is true that the family is an imperfect society and does not have in itself all the means necessary to fully form the citizen, the cultured man, the professional, etc., according to the end and the requirements proper to social life, and therefore must have recourse to the competence and help of the State; but this does not take from it the primordial and innate right to initiate these different aspects of education, to watch over them and to have recourse to those institutions and particular persons that it considers most in conformity with its own way of thinking. A right, however, not despotic, but subordinate, like every other human right, to the natural and divine law and to the ultimate end established for all by the Creator. This truth, which finds the common sense of the human race consenting and in agreement, is confirmed and sanctioned by the CIC (can. 1113), according to which parents are gravely obliged to attend with all their power to the education, whether religious and moral or physical and civil, of their offspring, and was always openly defended by the Church.

2. Education belongs to the Church by positive divine right

It, in fact, was constituted by its Divine Founder teacher of all nations (Mt. 28, 18-20); it also possesses a spiritual motherhood, because it generates to Christ, nourishes and educates souls in the divine life of Grace by means of the Sacraments and of its doctrine. Hence the right to carry out its mission, independent of every earthly authority, both with regard to its proper object (faith and morals) and with regard to the means necessary and suitable for attaining its end, among which are culture and teaching. By full right, therefore, it promotes science, letters and the arts; it founds schools and institutions of its own in every discipline and at every level of culture; it also concerns itself with physical education, with sport, because all these are so many means that can benefit or harm Christian education; and by full right it watches over, in every public or private institution, not only with regard to religious teaching, but also with regard to every other discipline and orientation (CIC, cann. 1381-82).

It might seem that such vigilance is undue, and that such a pre-eminent right of the Church is harmful to the progress of humanity. That this is not true, because this vigilance is a protection of its children against every doctrinal and moral poison; and this pre-eminence respects every just freedom of science, of studies, of scientific methods, of research; in a word, of every profane culture. And it does not oppose the fact that its own institutions and schools, when they are in favor of the laity, adapt themselves in each nation to the legitimate dispositions of the civil authority, ever ready to come to an agreement with them in arising difficulties. Not only that: but the supernatural order, from which the rights of the Church derive, far from destroying or even merely diminishing the natural order and the rights that belong to it, elevates, perfects and completes it, since both orders proceed from the same God.

3. Education belongs to the State by title of authority

The State has as its own end the temporal common good, which consists in the peace and security of citizens, in the exercise of their rights and in spiritual and material well-being as far as is possible in the present life. However, just as it is not a father, because it presupposes citizens and does not generate them, so it does not create education; but it already finds it as an anterior natural right of the family and a supernatural right of the Church. It cannot therefore have or claim in education a primary and much less an exclusive function; its function is secondary, with respect to that of the family and of the Church, while nonetheless remaining necessary and most important.

To the State, therefore, will belong: a) to protect and perfect the work of the family and of the Church in all that pertains to the advantage of the common good, favoring their activities, creating the conditions suitable so that these may be carried out in the best way; b) to supply for the defects of the family, when the work of the parents should come to be lacking physically and morally; c) to integrate the work of the family and of the Church (especially where it does not reach or does not suffice) by means of its own schools and institutions; all the more so since it is more than any other provided with means, placed at its disposal by citizens for the common necessity, and it is therefore just that it employ them for the advantage of all; d) the State has the full right to reserve to itself the instruction and direction of those schools that prepare for the right administration of public affairs (civil officials, dicasteries, ministries) and for the internal and external defense of the fatherland (army), because these ends to be attained concern precisely and directly the temporal common good, over which it presides. Naturally it will have to beware in this of injuring the anterior and superior rights of the family and of the Church; therefore it must avoid an excessive militarization, an employment of time either too extensive or not timely that prevents the fulfillment of religious or domestic duties. One must not in fact confuse the spirit of fortitude, the sense of military valor, the art of legitimate offense and defense with the spirit of violence, with the instinct or the love of struggle for struggle's sake, with an exaggerated and often brutal athleticism. e) The State also has the right to demand — and therefore to employ the appropriate means — that all citizens have the necessary and suitable knowledge of their civic and national duties and a certain degree of intellectual, moral and physical culture, such as is required by the conditions and the progress of the times and by the common good. As for higher and specialized culture, which cannot be imposed on everyone, the State must seek to make it possible for all who seek it.

But from all this it does not follow that it has the right to monopolize e. and the schools (v. SCUOLA, LIBERTÀ della).

There will need to be, therefore, on the part of the State and of the Church, a just cooperation and the most perfect understanding. Nor can it be admitted that the two societies should go along two parallel paths, as if the State were not subject to God and to His natural and divine law, without creating consequences most pernicious for the e. of youth and for the security of civil society itself. Just as, on the other hand, nothing harmful or unbecoming can be feared from this collaboration. "Let those who say that the doctrine of Christ is hostile to the State give us an army such as the doctrine of Christ teaches soldiers ought to be; let them give us such subjects, such husbands, such spouses, such parents, such children, such masters, such servants, such kings, such judges, in short such taxpayers and tax collectors as the Christian doctrine commands them to be... and we shall see whether they will hesitate for a moment to proclaim it, if it is observed, the great salvation of the State" (St. Augustine, Ep., 138, 3, 15: PL 33, 53a).

IX. COEDUCATION

Simultaneous education of individuals of both sexes, in the same environment and under the same educators. Welcomed favorably by a few pedagogues in the most ancient times (Plato, T. Campanella, J. M. Condorcet, J. Fichte) and opposed by the majority, coeducation, as a fact, began to gain vogue at the beginning of the 19th century in the United States of America, more for economic reasons and shortage of personnel than for anything else; and during that century it made only slow progress, despite attempts to justify it with new theories of union and social well-being, of leveling the two sexes, of better preparation for life, of the emancipation of women.

The theory of the Church, even without wishing to determine a practice that would be univocal, is nevertheless in principle clearly opposed to coeducation. And not without reasonable motives: the theory of coeducation is in fact founded either on naturalism, which denies original sin and its consequences, or on a confusion of ideas, which mistakes the legitimate human coexistence that occurs in the family and in society for promiscuity and a leveling equality, which is not in conformity with nature and therefore becomes dangerous. In the intention of the Creator the perfect coexistence of the two sexes has been ordained only in the unity of marriage. Nature, moreover, has made the two sexes different in organism, in inclinations, in aptitudes, so that they cannot be called or considered equal, but complementary. Now precisely this complementarity demands that there be a distinction also in education, if the future spouses are to reach marriage in their full masculine and feminine formation. Furthermore, in the psycho-didactic order the two sexes differ in their way of understanding, in their conception and interpretation of facts, in their aptitude for depth of study; a differentiation that increases with the onset of puberty, which has different periods in the two sexes. It is therefore easy to understand how education must necessarily differ both in method and in content.

Promiscuity, moreover, if it can sometimes effeminate the young man, more easily masculinizes the young woman, who loses that grace, that femininity, that reserve which, besides forming her charm, is her best defense. Whence an exaggerated comradeship, which can be the source of other worse harms. Not to mention that the assiduous proximity of the two sexes can easily cause premature irritability, especially in the age of evolution and adolescence.

These principles and these observations must, as is natural, be applied with discernment, at the right time and place, with prudence, according to the various ages and the various circumstances; above all in gymnastic exercises, in amusements, in bathing, where every display and every publicity is unbecoming, especially to female youth. Moreover, the results of coeducation, as can be learned from experience, especially in the countries where it is most practiced, are truly not encouraging.

X. PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Modern physical education is the science that uses movement to educate the psychic faculties of man and to foster the harmonious development of the body, with the aim of improving the individual's general psychophysical performance.

It differs considerably from sport, understood both in the sense of recreation and in the competitive, spectacular sense (v. GINNASTICA; SPORT),

although it includes much of sporting practice.

Knowledge of anatomy, physiology, anthropology, constitutional typology, hygiene, kinematics, pedagogy, psychology, the pathology of the locomotor system and physical therapy represents the basis on which the theory and practice of physical education are founded; and it is by virtue of this foundation that it rises to the value of a science.

Many authors reject the term physical education because of the contradiction between its terms, inasmuch as it is maintained that physical culture is breeding, training or something similar. This would be true if physical education were concerned with the breeding of animals, but, given that the object of physical education is man, and only man, in the inseparable unity of spirit and body, if it is true that every act of the spirit has repercussions on the body and vice versa, it is also true that physical exercise, disciplined within certain limits (physical education), besides offering harmony of the body, often represents an effective triumph of the spirit over the body itself.

Historical notes. - As a science, physical education has a life of little more than a century and a half, whereas as an art it is extremely ancient. The roots of physical education sink into the very sources of civilization. Already several millennia before the Christian era, physical exercises were practiced among the Chinese with genuinely hygienic-therapeutic intentions.

The phenomenon presents itself from time to time as a religious, political, social phenomenon. In Greece physical exercise reaches a remarkable maturity and is realized in an act of perfection and education for body and spirit in the harmonious unity of the individual. In the Gymnasium the teaching of physical culture holds first place along with that of philosophy, rhetoric and music, until it degenerates into the cult of athleticism at the expense of the values of the spirit. Once the balance between spirit and body is broken, physical exercise is violently repudiated. Not differently does it happen, albeit with a different orientation, in Rome, where physical exercise is placed at the service of the end of the State. And when the exercises on the Campus Martius come to be lacking and the evolution of Roman customs brings the citizen into the splendor of the baths and to the idolatry of the man of the circus, the decline of physical exercise is under way. Rising Christianity accelerates the times of this disintegration, when it energetically and tenaciously reacts to the shameful spectacle of the circus and the baths, proclaiming the pre-eminence of all that is a conquest of the spirit over what is instead a care of the body. Theodosius in 393, by prohibiting the Olympic games, deals a decisive blow to the practice of physical exercises.

In the Middle Ages physical exercises are not part of so-called scholastic education, being reduced only to competitive exercises, such as tournaments. With the age of chivalry physical exercise becomes the privilege and necessity of the knight.

To two humanists, Guarino Veronese (1374-1460) and Vittorino da Feltre (1373-1446), belongs the merit of having brought physical exercise back into teaching practice. Above all the latter, with the «casa giocosa», succeeds in realizing that marvelous system of education that is the boast of the best Italian tradition. Vittorino, alternating literary and scientific studies with physical exercises (wrestling, running, swimming, horseback riding, dancing)
EDUCATION - Catechism lesson at the airport - Lan chow (China).

and singing, he prepares not only learned and good men, but also robust ones, rich in grace of bearing. Through the work of Rambaldoni, that harmony in the spirit-body pairing which had departed returns. The example does not remain isolated if, later, Maffeo Vegio (1407-1458) in his six books "De educatione liberorum et eorum claris moribus" encompasses the entire educational process, from the physical care of rearing to the highest forms of instruction, and Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) has Lionardo say in the first book of "Della Famiglia" that "exercise preserves life, kindles natural warmth and vigor, scours away superfluous and harmful matters, strengthens every virtue and sinew," and, later, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606), physician and humanist, availing himself of his vast erudition to have translated into Latin, from the best codices, the works of Greek authors, especially Hippocrates, compiles that celebrated treatise of his, "De arte gymnastica," which is a true encyclopedic collection of physical exercise.

Francesco Bracciolini (1566-1645) too, in the "Instruzione alla vita civile" (1637), recommends physical exercises, just as Parini would do later. It is with the end of the 18th century that interest in physical exercise becomes noticeable. Rousseau's Émile, with its return to nature, is from 1762; in 1774 Basedow founds the first "philanthropinum" at Dessau, in 1793 Guts-Muths writes Gymnastik für die Jugend, in 1794-95 the Enzyklopädie der Leibesübungen appears. In 1798 F. Nachtegall founds the first Turmanstalt at Copenhagen. Henry Pestalozzi (1746-1827) in the school of Burgdorf and Yverdon matures his system of education in which the educator must take care of the whole man: body, intellect, heart, will. In Germany Ludwig Friedrich Jahn (1788-1852), valiant patriot and father of German gymnastics, founds the first gymnastics institute and the so-called German system or system of "training" based on the practice of apparatus such as parallel bars, horse, rings, etc., tending toward the military formation of youth in the spirit of national resurgence. Meanwhile at Stockholm in 1813 Pehr Henrik Ling (1776-1839), formerly a pupil of Nachtegall, founds, by commission of the government, the Central Institute of Gymnastics, giving rise to that system of hygienic gymnastics which goes under the name of the

"Swedish system" and which is based on knowledge of anatomy and physiology, aiming to remedy organic deficiencies and to strengthen the young. In Paris the exiled Spanish colonel Amorós, coming from Madrid where he had already founded a military institute, by commission of Charles IV, according to Pestalozzi's method, creates the teaching of rational and practical gymnastics, publishing in 1838 a "Manuel d'éducation physique, gymnastique et morale." In 1868 in France the teaching of gymnastics enters the lycées and colleges, remaining under the influence of the Swedish method, until, later, Georges Hébert's "natural method" flourishes, which consists in the practice of natural exercises such as walking, climbing, jumping, running, throwing and swimming. In England, a legacy of a centuries-old tradition, the so-called sporting system prevails.

In Italy it is the Swiss R. Obermann who in 1833, by commission of the Government of Turin, introduces the systematic practice of physical exercises in the training of soldiers, since up to this time physical exercise was practiced only in colleges, particularly in those run by religious. Only in 1898, with the De Sanctis law, is the teaching of gymnastics made obligatory in secondary, normal, teachers' and elementary schools.

Interest in physical education makes itself felt most vividly also among statesmen and men of science: personalities such as Senator Francesco Todaro, Angelo Mosso, Luigi Pagliani and other university professors devote much of their scientific activity in favor of the diffusion and study of physical education. The contrasts are evident regarding the path to follow: the followers of the Swedish method are in conflict with those of the German system, while the English one finds, in part, a supporter in Mosso. In a heated climate of ideas and actions, a figure of scholar and precursor towers above all, the doctor of medicine Emilio Baumann (1843-1917) from Canonica d'Adda (Bergamo), a pupil of Obermann.

Baumann, who is the true founder of Italian gymnastics, posits as the postulate of his teaching the concept of cultivating the body as a means of educating the spirit.

After the First World War, under the influence of the victorious war and of new events, the problem of physical education becomes a problem of the State. With the institution of the Academy of Physical Education of Rome and that of Orvieto, replacing the Magisteri of physical education, the orientation of physical education in Italy asserts itself in an eclectic form extended to the masses, achieving considerable results. Scientific progress is accompanied by adequate legislation. With the recovery after the Second World War, within the framework of the new school reform, physical education moves decisively toward an educational-hygienic-sporting direction. Such an orientation harmonizes fully with the Christian idea, which in physical education sees the optimal means for the formation and balanced education of the whole man, bearing in mind however what Pius XII admonished, addressing the sportsmen of Rome in 1945, extolling physical exercise, in exhorting them to be: "always aware that the highest honor and the holiest destiny of the body is to be the dwelling of a soul, which may shine with moral purity and be sanctified by divine Grace."

Michele Di Donato

recchi, Trattato di e. fisica, 3 vols., Bologna 1942; Discorsi e radiotecnologi di San Santità Pio XII, VII, Milan 1946, pp. 55-63; Atti del Congresso internazionale degli amici dell'e. fisica, Venice 1948; D. La Salle, Guida per l'e. fisica dei bambini, Milan 1949; J. P. Müller, Il mio sistema, ibid. 1949.

Michele Di Donato

XI. THE CONTRIBUTION OF MEDICINE TO EDUCATION

If the education of a perfectly normal individual, or of one who deviates but little from normality, is the task of pedagogy, in particular cases, in practice far more numerous than is believed, in which by degrees one arrives at the clearly abnormal individual, pedagogy becomes insufficient if it does not avail itself of medicine. The latter offers it useful diagnostic contributions for classifying the subject with regard to constitution, temperament, and disposition; and it provides valid assistance by supplying the means suited to modifying, as far as possible, the physical and psychological abnormalities of the pupil. Moreover, the medical study of the individual, for the purposes of pedagogical formation, can prove very useful for the best future utilization.

In particular, with regard to the biotypology of the young (v. TIPI INDIVIDUALI), to which the educator's work is especially directed, it is possible to know, through the medical study of the subject: a) the morphological characteristics; b) the endocrine formula; c) the neuro-psychological characteristics and practical aptitudes; d) the psycho-passional tendencies and the particular vicious inclinations proper to each individual type; e) the ability to orient oneself more easily toward this or that activity, whether physical or mental. Far easier and more effective will be the educator's work if, beforehand, from the contribution of medicine, he can know, for example, whether the object of his care is, with regard to action, "tachypragic" or "bradypragic," and with regard to the characteristics of intelligence, "tachypsychic" or "bradypsychic." Obstacles insurmountable by educational means alone can be overcome by medical action which, acting, for example, on endocrine imbalances, can bring a given individual type at the margins of variability back into the field of normality and render it an object educable by normal pedagogy.

The educator can know in advance, through the contribution of medicine, that, for example, the hyperthyroid individual is tachypsychic and tachypragic, endowed with strong will in the moment but with scant capacity to endure in effort; a possessor of good mental order, excellent memory, intelligence predominantly of the inductive-synthetic, practical, intuitive type; rich in affectivity and emotivity that easily drives him to romantic manifestations; often timid and difficult to adapt to his environment; introverted and tendentially pessimistic; naturally inclined to hope, to audacity, to wrath, to pride; with the development of fantasy and feeling prevailing over reason.

Different constitutional, endocrine, and neuro-vegetative equilibria induce in the individual other neuro-psychological characteristics and practical aptitudes (v. TIPI INDIVIDUALI), whence the usefulness or indeed the necessity for pedagogy to avail itself largely of the contributions that medicine offers it.

The aim is thus to arrive at a true "science of education" capable of more positive applications and more general developments than an art of education can be, the prerogative of certain famous educators such, more than for acquired science, for innate disposition, as they demonstrated from childhood in the ability to moderate and mold their playmates of the same age.

In a particular way, in the education of chastity (v.) the educator's work must be flanked by that of the physician. - See plates VI-VII.

Giuseppe de Nismo