©UNESCO:International Bureau of Education, 2000 This document may be reproduced free of charge as long as acknowledgement is made of the source

Giner’s education Francisco Giner was a lawyer by training and profession. He was well versed in a number of branches of knowledge, had a systematic grounding in philosophy, great artistic sensitivity, wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and high ethical standards which distinguished him as one of the great pedagogical innovators and as a national educator. He planned and implemented a remarkable programme of national education for Spain, of genuine paideia, as Werner Jaeger would say, which merged with politeia by virtue of its quality and its aims. He was born in Ronda (Málaga) in 1839 and died in Madrid in 1915. His early years were spent in Andalusia, but after the age of 24 he always lived in Madrid. He attended primary and secondary school in Cádiz and Alicante and began his university training in Barcelona, completing it in Granada where he obtained a law degree. While in Granada he also made a point of studying literature and aesthetics, German philosophy, painting and music, and continued to cultivate those subjects all his life, cogitating, writing, painting and playing the piano. All of these interests, taken together shed light on features of Giner’s personality and explain many characteristics of his educational theory