The Road to Life

Anton Semyonovich Makarenko, Russian educator and novelist, was born on March 13, 1888, in the town of Belopolye, in Kharkov Gubernia, the Ukraine. Besides being a remarkable teacher, he was a profound theoretician and made a major contribution to Soviet pedagogics.

Makarenko was an innovator. He worked out a new and original approach to the methodological foundations of pedagogy, a new theory of discipline - the "discipline of combating and surmounting difficulties" - and a system for the building of character. He laid great stress on the importance of home upbringing, and gave many valuable instructions in this field. To him we owe the first detailed elaboration of the educational significance of the collective. Another innovation was his remarkably profound "system of perspectives," the essence of which he defined in the following words: "Man must have something joyful ahead of him to live for. The true stimulus in human life is the morrow's joy."

The Road to Life, in which Makarenko describes life in the Gorky Colony (or, more correctly, the building-up of the colony), and his pedagogical system, was begun in 1925 and completed in 1935, Maxim Gorky much admired this book, which he called "one of the best examples of Soviet literature.

The language of the book is vivid, full of imagery, truth and humor, and gives subtle psychological descriptions of the pupils and teachers in the colony. Gorky said that Makarenko "knew how to describe each colonist in a few words, with photographic fidelity."