Summary

Educational anthropology is intermediary or mediator between all sciences about man, philosophy, religion and art, on the one hand, and theory and practice of education, on the other hand.

Educational anthropology is naturally the hub of knowledge of man about man. This knowledge is called to give the basis to proper education. «If the pedagogics wants to bring up a human being in every respect, it should before learn him also in every respect», — this principle by Constantine D. Ushinsky (1824—1870) was and remains the constant truth for realistic pedagogics.

«An educator should know as much as possible about man in his family, in his society and community, in all ages, all classes, all situations, in pleasure and trouble, in greatness and humiliation, in abundance of forces and in illness, among unlimited hopes and on a death-bed, when a word of a human consolation is already powerless», — contended Ushinsky.

Parents, teachers, social workers, advisers — psychologists, any tutors and instructors require some understanding of social and individual world. They vitally need to know, what awaits their pupils in the near future, when the former pupils are pressed to manage without the help of the tutors, and how creative and destructive characters, murderers and tyrants, benefactors of mankind and oppressor are being brought up.

The text of the manual is made of adapted works by great men of culture and science. These works are reduced, partially retold, ter-minologically modernised, facilitated for easier understanding. The compiler of the manual bears the complete responsibility for their semantic authenticity. Educational — anthropological interpretation of these documents belongs also to the compiler.

The bibliographic descriptions of the sources are given at the end of the book.

With rare exception, specially stipulated in the appropriate cases, all texts are grouped on themes, and turned into the uniform document. Thus, the reader is to confront with a certain conditional collective author being of venerable age — he is not less than three thousand years old. And simultaneously this author is quite alive — in the ordinary and the figurative sense.