ROMAGNOLI, AUGUSTO. — Apostle of the new education of the blind, b. in Bologna on 19 July 1879, with conjunctivitis that caused him to lose his sight after a few days, d. in Rome on 8 March 1946.
At the age of five he entered the Institute for the Blind in Bologna, and subsequently succeeded in pursuing classical studies at the public schools, obtaining his secondary-school diploma at the age of 21. At 19 he felt called to publish a programme for reforming the education imparted to the blind; and, studying their psychology in himself, he gathered his observations and deductions in his philosophy thesis (1905), subsequently published under the title Introduzione all'educazione dei ciechi. From then on R. devoted his entire life to the mission of making the blind men among men. During the Fifth National Congress of the Blind in Rome (Dec. 1906), he proceeded to a vigorous affirmation of his principles, which aroused many responses and already brought him into prominence as the herald of the redemption of the blind. In the article Dalla pietà alla scienza. I ciechi non saranno infelici (Nuova Autologia, 1 July 1908), he maintained that it was necessary for the education of the blind to begin not from the concept of alleviating an irremediable misfortune, but of healing it, by making those afflicted by it fully conscious of it, so that they might learn to derive from it every lesson and all the hidden resources represented by the numerous physical, intellectual and moral compensations that education must develop. Meanwhile, he offered himself as an example of how a blind man educated according to these principles could live and work among the sighted, obtaining permission — the first blind professor to do so — to teach sighted students in the chairs of philosophy at Massa (1908), Rieti (1911) and Lanciano (1920). Among other things, he went on to found the Society of Italian Blind Teachers, of which he became president (1910).
In 1912 Queen Margherita commissioned him to conduct, at the Margherita di Savoia hospice for the blind in Rome, an experiment in the new education he advocated. He then went on to apply his method at the House for the Re-education of War-Blinded Men. With the help of Carlo Delcroix and Aurelio Nicolodi, in 1923 he obtained the law establishing compulsory schooling for blind children; in 1924, he was entrusted with inspecting all the Italian institutes for the blind and with drafting a reform project, from which arose the Ordinanza sulla Istruzione elementare dei ciechi, promulgated in June; he was also entrusted with organising and subsequently directing the R. School of Method for Educators of the Blind in Rome, where he remained until his death, assisted by his wife, Dr Elena Coletta. In the volume Ragazzi ciechi (Bologna 1924), he published an account of the educational experiment conducted from 1912 to 1916, and in a 2nd edition the fundamental work Introduzione all'educazione dei ciechi, with substantial additions and the new
title Pagine vissute di un educatore cieco (1943).
He possessed a profound and conscious Catholic faith from his early youth, having regarded the religious problem as the first to be resolved among all the problems presented by blindness; his life was strictly consistent with the faith he professed, at all times and in every setting.
BIRL.: G. Fabbri,