From a spiritualistic point of view, this discussion offers a vision of education for the 1980s focusing on the restoration of formal teaching and the revaluation of the school. Emphasis is given to exploration of relationships between personal autonomy, intelligence, teaching, learning, and an epistemologically based curriculum. It is argued that views suggesting the uselessness of formal instruction and the death of the school are being overthrown in current educational thought. In particular, it is asserted that all over the world the restoration of formal teaching in the humble and traditional school can be seen. Concluding remarks focus on the mathetic process and mathetics, a special science of scientific teaching centered on the operational processes of the pupil and dealing in particular with the principal aspects of conceptualization and cognitive organization. Didactics, defined as the strict scientific core of pedagogy, are thought of as inconceivable from any viewpoint other than a mathetic one. (RH)