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

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 analyzes the crisis at the turn of the 1870-1880s, when the Novocherkassk Gymnasium ceased to exist in its initial form. This was the outcome of the conflict between teachers with opposing pedagogical views. In respond to the snowballing problems with the discipline among students, the gymnasium's teaching staff splintered into two groups. The first one was led by gymnasium inspector M.K. Kalmykov, a prominent Don educator and author of a textbook on Russian literature. This group rallied local community support and believed that discipline issues should be addressed by engaging students in extracurricular activities. The leader of the second one was D.F. Shcheglov, the gymnasium's new director and author of works on the history of social doctrines, who came to the Don Host Oblast from another region. His supporters insisted only on punitive measures intended to teach children to be "serious". The conflict ended when both groups discredited each other and most their members were dismissed, which ultimately destroyed the gymnasium's authority as the most important cultural, research and educational center of the Don Host. [For part III of the series, see EJ1284287. For part 2 of the series, see EJ1272587. Part 1 of the seri