Ideal fundaments of the history of education as teaching disciplines in Serbia in the 19th century

The subject of this article is the ideological basis on which the study of the history of pedagogy in Serbia in the 19th century was based. The aim of the paper was to analyze the scientific and socio-ideological starting points in the conception of the history of pedagogy in Serbia. As a teaching discipline, the history of pedagogy in the research period was placed within the framework of professional education of primary school teachers and pedagogues. Therefore, the goals and tasks of the history of pedagogy were adjusted not only to the achievements of this scientific discipline in Europe at the time, but also to the projected goal of the overall education in Serbia. Textbooks on the history of pedagogy published in this period (until 1902) represent the basic source for the anal?ysis of the ideological foundations on which teaching in the field of the history of education was based. This analysis shows that the history of pedagogy was understood as a suitable means of harmonizing the spread of Christian principles with a ?rational educational approach?, so that over time there was an increasingly professional reflection on the possibilities of using educational theories in pedagogical practice. At the same time, there was a growing awareness of the influence of general cultural history on the development of pedagogical theories, as well as the importance of the national pedagogical heritage.