_The Science of Education in Italian Schools and in Italian Reviews._
Every nation is said to possess a peculiar physiognomy of its own,
through which it is distinguished from every other nation; and
consequently any nation will adopt a system of education that is best
suited to its own national genius, to its racial, religious, and
historical traditions. This may be true in a purely practical sense; but
on the other hand, education, theoretically, as science or pedagogics,
passes the narrow limits of any state or form of government, and ought
to be ruled by principles and general laws common to the entire human
family. Historically, ever since the 16th century, the educational
movements in Italy have been directly called forth by the Catholic
revival and reaction during and immediately following the period of the
renaissance. Such was the origin of the _Filippini_, _Ignorantelli_,
_Barnabiti_, _Ignaziani_, _Calasanziadi_, _Somaschi_, and of many other
religious teaching-bodies that have made Italy until recently a bustling
arena of ecclesiastical educational systems.
_The Philosophy of Empedocles._ This first instalment of Signor Ferrari’s
studies deals with the cosmological ideas of the great Agrigentine
poet-philosophers. From the formation of the first elements to the
highest functions of the human soul throughout, we perceive that
everything is governed by the same laws, and that which is best, all
happiness in fact, is only found in unity and harmony, evil and pain in
disagreement and in separation. The law of evolution, in the modern sense
of the word, prevails everywhere in the physical system of Empedocles.
Yet his philosophy did not exclusively consist in mechanical evolution.
To his cosmological doctrines were added moral and religious tenets,
which, however, are not evolved continuously with the former. (Rome.
Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane di G. Balbi—160 Via Cavour, 162.)
γνλν.
VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII. Vol. II. No. 4. May, 1891.