School Programs from Casati to Gentile

Abstract

After the Unity of Italy, it was essential to ensure literacy teaching. Then the History programs established themselves as an element of citizenship formation. They had to give a well-defined telling, monarchist and formative for respectful citizen. For a long time, the formulation of the programs was a work in progress. At first the positivist thought of Aristide Gabelli had great importance; then idealistic reaction and nationalist tendencies gained space while the idea of the exam was increasingly affirmed as a fundamental tool of the social selection. The Great War accelerated those beliefs by feeding an out-and-out nationalist idea of History. Confidence in a national education plan focused on the state examination and selection prevailed. History was fundamental in the project of Croce; Philosophy in the project of Gentile. But between the two there was affinity in the vision of an elitist society.