A Book for Parents

Anton Semyonovich Makarenko, Russian educator and novelist, was born on March 13, 1888, in the town of Belopolye, in Kharkov Gubernia, the Ukraine. Besides being a remarkable teacher, he was a profound theoretician and made a major contribution to Soviet pedagogics.

Makarenko was an innovator. He worked out a new and original approach to the methodological foundations of pedagogy, a new theory of discipline - the "discipline of combating and surmounting difficulties" - and a system for the building of character. He laid great stress on the importance of home upbringing, and gave many valuable instructions in this field. To him we owe the first detailed elaboration of the educational significance of the collective. Another innovation was his remarkably profound "system of perspectives," the essence of which he defined in the following words: "Man must have something joyful ahead of him to live for. The true stimulus in human life is the morrow's joy."