School belongs to all and is for
everyone, President Sergio Mattarella said on the centenary of
the birth of Catholic priest and Florentine educator of the poor
Don Lorenzo Milani.
"School belongs to everyone. School must be for everyone. Don
Milani explained, having before him peasant children who seemed
inexorably destined to be strangers to school life.
Mattarella quoted Milani, who died in aged 54 in 1967 after a
lifetime of teaching the poor around Florence, saying: "A school
that selects destroys culture.
"From the poor it takes away the means of expression.
"From the rich it takes away the knowledge of things".
Mattarella said "It is Impossible not to grasp the wisdom of
these thoughts. It was his pedagogy of freedom".
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