** Italian schools : individual schools Rudolf Steiner School, Milan





(Scoula) Tre Cancelli


Figure 1.-- The photo was taken at the rural Scoula Tre Cancelli located in the Pontine Marshes (Agro Pontino) south of Rome. It looks like the in early-1930s. The Pontine Marshes were a malaria ridden swap since time menorial. Even the Romans who were masters of enginerring were unable to drain the area. It was not until rhe Fascist era that the marshes were finally drained (1924-37), one of Mussolini's great achievements. Notice the rudimentary smocks the children are wearing. We are guessing that peasants were too poor to afford proper smocks. If it was left to the parents it would not have been so uniform I think. All the children are barefoot. With the children are a woman, probably the teacher, and a man. He is Giuseppe Lombardo Radice (1879-1938) an important Italian pedagogist. Like most other academics, he never openly opposed Fascism, but had many problems with it. Among othere matters, he wanted to involve make regional languages in the schools, but this did not go along with Fascist ideology of unifying Italy.

The photo was taken at the rural Scoula Tre Cancelli located in the Pontine Marshes (Agro Pontino) south of Rome. It looks like the in early-1930s. The Pontine Marshes were a malaria ridden swap since time menorial. Even the Romans who were masters of enginerring were unable to drain the area. It was not until rhe Fascist era that the marshes were finally drained (1924-37), one of Mussolini's great achievements. Probably the school here was built during the drainage operations converting the marsh area into arable farmland. Due to the unhelty and uneconomic conditions in the marshes, the peasants there were among the poorest in Italy unyil the marshes were drained. Many peasant families lived in shabby straw huts. The wooden school was substantial compared to the straw huts. It was, however, very basic. Notice the rudimentary smocks the children are wearing. We are guessing that peasants were too poor to afford proper smocks. We do not see anything like them in our assessment of Italian school smocks. If it was left to the parents it would not have been so uniform I think. All the children are barefoot. An Italian reader tells us, "Those peasant families were extremely poor. Probably their children never had shoes to weat. It is possible that the smocks were given to the children by the school to cover the poor clothing of the children and in some cases without any clothing."







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Created: 6:57 PM 1/2/2018
Last updated: 6:57 PM 1/2/2018