The idea of extending education and setting up schools in the country and reviving the citizen status of its inhabitants, even if only in an embryonic form, was promoted in 1904 by the Rome Women's Union ( belonging to the wider association in Lombardy). This was founded in Trastevere, by the president Anna Fraetzel, a young arisocrat from Berlin, daughter and grand-daughter of illustrious doctors.
After different ventures with her husband, the well-known mariologist Angelo Celli, on different estates in the Campagna, Celli herself testified to the abandoned condition of these people, deprived of all forms of human comfort.
From this came the inspiration to provide also for the spiritual life of these boys and girls and young people, utilizing the few places where there was at least a Red Cross or Rome Comune first aid centre.
The committee was composed of a group of literary artists (Marcucci, Cambellotti, Cena, Balla and the writer Sibilla Aleramo). With the help of some families of the Roman middle class they took the first laborious steps, in order at least to open the first schools.
In 1905 a Sunday and evening school was opened in the Castello di Lunghezza, on the ground floor premises of a palace belonging to the Dukes Grazioli. Here also the Comune had attempted to run a village school, without great success.
This did not deter the initiative of the Committee which as early as 1906 opened new schools or, rather, hut-schools, such as in the vicinity of the Via Prenestina and Casilina, at Granaraccio on the Via Polense (in an old castle), at Colle di Fuori (Rocca Priora) after a first experiment at Carchitti, and, if only briefly, at the Marcigliana on the Via Salaria.
The following year it was the turn of Corcolle on an estate of the Barberini family, and other localities such as Due Case, Capobianco on the Via Tiburtina, Procoio Nuovo, etc.
"Here the school had to cater for the ignorant and rejected, without land, without birth certificates, or human and civil citizenship. It was taken for granted that they should at least be able to do addition sums!
As it developed, the school became a means not only of material assistance , but also an affirmation of social rights. It denounced to the world a feudal framework particularly iniquitous as it operated as a form of commerce, purporting to be faithful to some articles of the law"(Marcucci).
There was a crisis in 1908 due to payments not made, but fortunately a provisionary commission was set up, and many teachers voluntarily worked unpaid. Then, the Comune of Rome (the Nathan administration) intervened directly increasing the subsidy already discussed from 2000 to 5000 lire and the Minister of Education Luigi Rava unblocked and increased the funds previously allocated by the Same Commission for the south (mezzogiorno).
Different friends and personalities of the time offered their services to the association, including Enrichetta Hertz, Cesare Pacarella, Andrea Costa, Benedetto Croce, Annie Nathan, Leonardo Bistolfi, to mention just a few.
After this small victory it was decided to organise the first of a series of days called Festa della
Scuola to promote the exhibiting of different works done in the past scholastic year by students.
The first meeting was held on the second Sunday in June, on the estate of the Borghese di Pantano.
Here all the schools met in a festive mood, including those of Osa, Lunghezza, Pallavvicina, Laghetto, Colle di Fuori, Torrenuova, Castiglione with more than 400 families and more than a hundred personalities invited from Rome.
At the same time, new evening schools were opened also on the Salaria, Tiburtina and in the large hut village Marcelli on the estate of San Cesareo (inside an old granary). There followed visits by the minister himself Rava and by the Commissione per il Mezzogiorno, who expressed their satisfaction.
The administrative direction passed to Marcucci, while Cena up to his death (1917) took
care of diplomatic relations with the Comune and friends for obtaining donations and subsidies.
The teachers, in a humanitarian spirit, resorted to all expedients in order to give brief lessons in out of the way places. They got to school by train, bicycle, or on foot, leaping over ditches, and fences, receiving only re-embursement of travelling expenses.
The works of Cambellotti were exhibited freely to embellish ambiences and as scholastic illustrations for boys and girls (books, grammars).
Marcucci himself turned these into marvellous
didactic material in the finest hour of the avante guarde.
In 1911, on occasion of the great Exhibition at Prati di Castello for the Five Hundredth Anniversary
of the Unification of Italy, the King and Queen watched with wonder the activities of the schools, in a special pavilion provided for the make-shift school.
Giacomo Balla offered his services free, painting a portrait of Leo Tolstoy and twelve views of the Campagna Romana which were bought by the Comune of Rome.
In the same year of the Roman exhibition, thanks to the tenacity of Cena and to the voluntary collection of 400 lire by each of the 40 families of farm workers in the village of Colle di Fuori (a sum then increased to 2000 lire), the first school in brick came into existence, decorated with paintings and majolica of Cambellotti. This was visited by the Minister of Education and Eleonora Duse amid great excitement, in a renovated place with the auspicious name of Concord.
From the 90 schools of 1917, the Associatioin, officially recognised in 1924, increased the number to almost 2000 schools and nursary schools for central Italy. But it was too good to last we are close to the advent of Fascism and the progressive swallowing up and suppression of this human and spiritual activity. First the association was superceded by the Opera Nazionale Balilla and in the end by "Italian Youth" of Littorio.
In 1926 at Scauri (near Formia) a new nursary school was opened, named after the mother of the the Minister Pietro Fedele, Angiolella di Luigia. This inspired local architectural motifs,
while the interiors as in so many other cases were adorned by the artistic bravura of Cambellotti.
Dott.ssa Maria Montessori made a handsome donation towards the construction. She described it as "one of the most beautiful and complete houses for children "among the many she had promoted and visited in the world. In 1927 it was the turn of the school closest to Rome, at Torrespaccata on the Via Casalina (now Torre Maura) described as a model of rural building by Marcucci who wished to erect beside it his villino-residence, which was opened in 1937 as a nursary school named Manno Manni.
Also on this occasion, on the same day in the presence of different authorities, including Fedele himself, the next school of Borghesiana (now Finocchio)was officially opened.
At the beginning of 1936 however, a good part of the schools once officially connected with the Association were "fascistised" while there still remained 42 sections of Nursary schools which were just wiped off the slate with a provision declaring them "illegal and unjust" by the Director of Schools (June 1942).
Straightaway the Directing Committee nominated an Inspector general as Commissioner.
At the beginning of March 1943 the history of this great epoch, we might say, was over, but a few months of war brought the collapse of the regime that had thwarted every kind of initiative which was not somehow controlled .The war itself was to involve in partial or total destruction most of the works that had adorned for years the modest village schools of the poor but honest country people.
