PARATO, GIOVANNI and ANTONINO. - GIOVANNI, teacher and pedagogue, b. at Sommariva Bosco (Cuneo) in 1816, d. at Turin in 1874. Ordained priest in Rome, he was professor of rhetoric in Lazio; in 1848 he moved to Turin, where discussions were rife regarding the organization of elementary schools.
Appointed teacher, he devoted himself to drafting various textbooks for pupils of different classes following the programmed method of *Esercizi graduati*; *Composizioni italiane*; *Grammatica italiana per le elementari superiori*; *Compendio per le inferiori*; *Grammatica normale teorica e applicata*, for normal, grammar and technical schools, in collaboration with C. Mottura; *Manuale per il maestro*; *Storia romana*; *Storia sacra*; books which reveal the pedagogical and didactic skill of the author and which held the leading position in schools for a quarter of a century; above all, *Storia sacra* became one of the most popular texts. For teachers he founded in 1864 the journal: *Guida del maestro elementare italiano*, initially to facilitate the teacher’s practical application of the university teachings of Turin; later adding a bibliographical review and discussion of the laws and educational issues of the day. This was one of the first attempts in Italy to produce a periodical to guide teachers in the performance of their duties. He did not forget rural teachers, for whom he established prizes and provisions; and at his death his estate benefited the nursery school of Carmagnola, the Artigianelli of Turin and the College of Assisi for the orphans of teachers.
ANTONINO, valuable assistant to his brother Giovanni, b. at Cuneo in Aug. 1823, d. at Turin in 1908. After teaching rhetoric in various institutes, in 1854 he was called to Turin as associate professor at the University and in 1861 was sent by Minister De Sanctis to Campania as inspector and organizer of elementary and secondary schools.
Returning to Turin, he collaborated with his brother on the *Guida del maestro italiano* and after the latter’s death took over its direction until 1897. Primary and secondary education owes him a fine series of useful and educational schoolbooks (*Libro di lettura*; *Storia d’Italia*; *L’Uomo*, etc.) and pedagogy the valuable volume: *La scuola pedagogica nazionale. Studi educativi, teorici e pratici* (Turin 1885), where he extols the necessity of following the Italian pedagogical tradition, of religious instruction, of the national idea, of care for the family, the first school and first society charged with the duty of education; then refuting the so-called positivist scientific psychology then in vogue, in favour of traditional Italian spiritualism. In *Gli asili d’infanzia di Torino in 60 anni di vita* he provides very valuable information for the history of education in the second half of the past century.