Studies on schools in the Agro Romano and Pontino. An innovative line of research

Abstract

This article aims to reconstruct the human, historical, and educational trajectory of rural schools in the Lazio countryside during the early twentieth century through a survey of the main studies on the archive of the Ente Scuole per i Contadini dell’Agro romano e pontino. The collection is currently preserved at MuSEd, the Museum of School and Education at Roma Tre University, and it documents an extraordinary endeavor that rescued thousands of children, women, men, and adult laborers from malaria and illiteracy – individuals who lived in extreme poverty and remained invisible to the institutions of the newly established Italian State. This contribution also seeks to highlight the exploratory potential of historical-educational research on the philanthropic initiative that inspired the establishment of rural schools in other Italian regions, and which may still serve as a source of inspiration for the formative ideals underpinning not only education but also the shaping of an aesthetic canon within human Bildung.