p In the northern settlement of Solenga 1 began to seriously study the theory and history of pedagogics. I needed theory for two reasons. On the one hand, I needed to lay a foundation for my debates against the pedagogical opponents that had appeared, while on the other, I was searching for theoretical allies in whom I could find inner moral support. And I began to read Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius and Montaigne, Fourier and Owen, Ushinsky and Chernyshevsky, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, Shatsky and Makarenko, I could not list them all here.

I would like to foieword this section with an account of two masters of education who influenced my own development at that time. They were Ushinsky, the renowned Russian democrat and educationist, and Makarenko, the Soviet teacher and writer. In some ways they contradict each other, while in others they complement one another. One viewed pedagogics as the greatest of arts, while the other argued for a closer link of educational activities with reality, and advocated a mastery of teaching skills. I believe that in order to gain an insight into the very essence of Russian and Soviet pedagogics, one should have some knowledge of these two outstanding educationists. It was there in that northern settlement, as my experiments caused heated debates, that Ushinsky and Makarenko helped me by strengthening the faith in my calling that was then being born.