We may look upon the preceding chapters as a kind of general examination to which we submitted our consciences, by reflecting on the way we have always performed our duty as teachers, by considering our purposes, and by scrutinising the internal logic of our task. And our investigation has been eminently human, since indeed man's essence, we have now come to understand, is to acquire self-consciousness. The patriotic character of the event which was the immediate cause of this work induced me to show that the common spirit which brought us together was not a mere political sentiment, of which we should rid ourselves in crossing the threshold of the school. For we could not but bring into the classroom our own humanity and our living personality, in which the content of our teaching and of all education must live. This personality, however it may be considered, from whatever point of view it may be regarded, has no particular substance which is not also at the same time universal,--domestic as the case may be, or social, political, or whatever may be the phase in which it is determined in its historical development. And since, in this historical development of our universal personality, there is Italy with her memories perpetuated by our immanent sentiment, by our immanent consciousness and by our immanent will, we could not possibly be ourselves were we not at the same time Italian educators. And looking attentively at this universal foundation on which our own human value is supported--call it language, logic, law,--we were led to study the relationship existing between individuality, which is the aim of all forms of education, and this universal spirit which here intervenes as it does in every moment of the human life. It intervenes in education, as the science and the conscience and the entire personality of the teacher. This personality seems to be violently imposed upon the pupil in such a way as to check or hinder his spontaneous development; but we saw that the immediate logical opposition between teacher and learner gradually resolves itself into the unity of the spiritual process in which education becomes actual.