In the Soviet Union alone it has run into eighty-five editions totalling two and a half million copies. The name of this distinguished educator, who broke new ground in pedagogics, is familiar to the English reader. Translations of his books The Road to Life (in three volumes), Learning to Live, and A Book for Parents have been published in English by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow. The object of the present book is to acquaint the reader more fully with the life and remarkable work of this Knight of Education. The volume is in two sections. The first opens with a short biographical sketch of Makarenko by Academician Medinsky, a leading personality in Soviet education. This is followed by stories and reminiscences by people who knew Makarenko closely -his wife and great friend Galina Stakhiyevna, the colonists' patron Maxim Gorky, and numerous ex-pupils of the Colony, themselves the chief characters in the books The Road to Life and Learning to Live. In the second section Makarenko speaks to the readers himself. He discusses his pedagogical experience and practice, gives his views on education, quotes numerous interesting examples from his own practice, gives advice to parents, and answers questions from listeners and readers. This collection, based on the numerous publications dealing with Makarenko issued in the Russian language, has been prepared for the press with the co-operation of the late Galina Stakhiyevna Makarenko.

    Many of the pedagogical principles maintained by Jan Komenski and John Locke (17th century), Jean Jacques Rousseau (18th century), Johann Pestalozzi (end 18th - beginning 19th century), Johann Herbart, Friedrich Deisterweg and K. Ushinsky (19th century), are invaluable contributions to the treasure house of world pedagogical thought. The views of these outstanding educators and thinkers determined in considerable measure the development of the theory and practice of education over the course of decades and even centuries. In the middle of the twentieth century the same role is played by the pedagogical heritage of Anton Makarenko, the Soviet practising educator, theoretician and writer. The name of this remarkable man, who has greatly furthered the development of Soviet pedagogy and practice of communist education, is well known not only in the Soviet Union but also far beyond its boundaries. Makarenko's educational novels The Road to Life and Learning to Live are read with absorbing interest in different parts of the world. Makarenko's Problems of Soviet School Education which is a generalisation of his vast pedagogical experience and which contains profound theoretical conclusions, has long been the bible of Soviet teachers. It is a series of lectures read by Makarenko for the staff of the People's Commissariat of Education, R.S.F.S.R., in January 1938.