LOMBARDO RADICE, GIUSEPPE. - Pedagogue, born in Catania on 28 June 1879, died near Cortina d'Ampezzo on 16 August 1938. Initially a teacher in secondary schools, from 1911 to 1922 he held the chair of pedagogy at the University of Catania. In 1923-24 he was called by G. Gentile to the General Directorate of Elementary Schools, collaborating on their reform and drafting their new programs. From 1924 until his death he taught pedagogy at the Istituto Superiore di Magistero, now the Faculty of Education, in Rome.
He embraced teaching as a mission; he was a herald of a “serene” school that, while respecting the spontaneity and freedom of the child, would be able to direct him toward the veneration of country, family, and religion. While 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 displayed a more careful sensitivity that, in the context of the school, enabled him to grasp the child’s soul and world in all their essence. Hence that sense of humanity that pervades all his work.
He directed three pedagogical periodicals: *Nuovi doveri* (1907-11), *Rassegna di pedagogia politica e scolastica* (1912-13), and *L’educazione nazionale* (1910-33), and wrote numerous articles for various journals, as well as valuable works, including: *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).