On the History of the Pedagogical Thought in South Russia: Pedagogical Views of Major Pedagogues at the Novocherkassk Gymnasium in the 19th century. Part III

Recent years have witnessed the publication of a variety of scholarly papers highlighting region-specific peculiarities of education in the Russian Empire. However, they tend to focus on statistical information regarding the number of schools, the number of students, etc. Therefore, theoretical and pedagogical views and unique features of the methodological work done by major provincial teachers remain poorly researched. The paper discusses the case study of the Novocherkassk Gymnasium that was the most prominent scientific and educational center in the Don region in the 19th century and that boasted a teaching personnel of renowned local figures. Remarkably, the material on the actual pedagogical process in the gymnasium was already collected before 1917, mainly in the initiative to celebrate the facility's centenary, and as many appropriate documents lacked, much attention was paid to gathering information from former gymnasium students. As a result, the knowledge of real teaching practices used in the gymnasium is based both on official documents and on oral, often critical, accounts by contemporaries of its teachers, and the group of teachers include persons who played an important role in the Don history. The third part of the paper encompasses the period in the late 1850-1860s, when the Novocherkassk Gymnasium enjoyed a true "golden age". At the time, the institution had two teachers of national, not regional scale, the future authors of the famous textbooks, A.A. Radonezhskii and A.G. Filonov. S.S. Robush, director of the gymnasium, commanded great respect in Novocherkassk society, wrote pedagogical articles in the capital and local press and worked to publish the Don's first pedagogical journal. Each of the personalities shared a common pedagogical vision that epitomized a return to the ideas of A.G. Popov and A.G. Oridovsky about the overriding importance of the moral benefits of education, but brought forth the return through a new theoretical and practical lens. Teachers of the new generation ventured to use a conscious approach to the very process of teaching, giving consideration to how and what they taught children, for the first time in Don pedagogical practice. As a result, after it had abandoned attempts to adapt to the needs of the Don Host in the training of officers and officials, the gymnasium successfully brought up specialists in a wide range of subject matter areas and claimed a leading position in the Kharkov educational district f