LOMBARDO RADICE, GIUSEPPE. - Pedagogue, b. at Catania on 28 June 1879, d. near Cortina d'Ampezzo on 16 Aug. 1938. At first a teacher in secondary schools, he moved in 1911 to the chair of pedagogy at the University of Catania, where he remained until 1922. In 1923-24 he was summoned by G. Gentile to the General Directorate of elementary schools, collaborating in their reform and drawing up their new programs. From 1924 until his death he taught pedagogy at the Higher Institute of Teaching (Istituto Superiore di Magistero), now the Faculty of Teaching, of Rome.
He embraced teaching as a mission; he was the herald of a "serene" school, which, respecting the spontaneity and freedom of the child, was capable of directing him to the worship of country, family and religion. Although moving within the orbit of Gentilian thought (the spirit understood as the creator of its own world, the unity of teacher and pupil, culture as the overcoming of every method), he showed a more discerning sensitivity, which, in contact with the school, made him better grasp the soul and the world of childhood in all its essence. Whence that sense of humanitas that pervades his entire work.
He directed three periodicals of pedagogy: Nuovi doveri (1907-11), Rassegna di pedagogia politica e scolastica (1912-13), L'educazione nazionale (1919-33), and wrote numerous articles in various periodicals, and works of value, among them: Il concetto dell'educazione e le leggi della formazione spirituale (Palermo 1910); Lezioni di didattica e ricordi di esperienza magistrale (ibid. 1915); L'ideale educativo e la scuola nazionale. Lezioni di pedagogia generale (ibid. 1916); Athena fanciulla. Scienza e poesia della scuola serena (Florence 1925); Saggi critici didattici (Turin 1927); Orientamenti pedagogici per la scuola italiana (ibid. 1931).