The Reform of Education
The Reform of Education (1922) is a philosophical work by Giovanni Gentile, translated into English by Dino Bigongiari with an introduction by Benedetto Croce. Based on lectures delivered to teachers in Trieste, the book examines education through the principles of Actual Idealism, presenting it as a spiritual process through which individuals develop self-consciousness, character, and moral freedom. Gentile discusses the relationship between education and nationality, the nature of culture, the unity of teaching and learning, and the role of the teacher in the formation of the individual. Rejecting purely mechanical and materialist approaches to education, he argues that genuine education involves the continuous development of the human spirit. Written before Gentile's appointment as Minister of Public Education under Mussolini, the work provides the philosophical foundations of his later educational reforms and conception of the state's role in intellectual and moral life.