I "lacci e gli sbadigli": Pascoli, Martini, Giolitti, e l'insegnamento di latino e greco nell'Ottocento italiano

Before the great Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli (1855-1912) was appointed University Professor of Latin and later of Italian, he taught in several Italian high schools. In 1893, the Secretary for Education, the well known journalist and writer Ferdinando Martini, wishing to improve the teaching of Latin in Italy, appointed Pascoli as a member of a committee of specialists in this field. Pascoli, who was elected president of the committee, wrote a famous report criticizing the excess of grammar and erudition and the lack of a true ``reading'' of authors. The paper shows that Pascoli's statement must be understood within the framework of the cultural struggles concerning the teaching of Latin and Greek in the first decades of the recently unified Italy: the ``local'' tradition (practical teaching of Latin, particularly in Central Italy and Catholic schools) was challenged by a different approach , particularly in the North of the country. This was of German origin and placed the emphasis on grammar and philology. Many years later, in 1922, a letter of Giovanni Giolitti, who in 1893 was Prime Minister, shows the inluence of Pascoli's ideas, as well as of other disputes regarding the teaching of Greek in Italian high schools.

Nel 1893, prima di diventare professore universitario, Giovanni Pascoli, nominato presidente di un Comitato per l'esame dell'insegnamento del latino nelle scuole italiane, esprime il suo disagio nei confronti del fallimentare eccesso di erudizione nell'insegnamento. Il saggio esamina il contrasto tra queste metodologie, di origine tedesca, e quelle tradizionali italiane, soprattutto nelle scuole cattoliche del Centro Italia. Queste tematiche ritornano in una lettera di molti anni dopo di Giovanni Giolitti, che al tempo dell'inchiesta commissionata da Ferdinando Martini era presidente del consiglio.