The article is dedicated to analysis of the content and the peculiarities of school education in Ukraine in view of disseminating the leading ideas of European humanistic pedagogy during the 16th-17th centuries. It has been noted that during the period of disseminating humanistic ideas the principles of Ukrainian education and Ukrainian school were forming in an active interaction with European culture and European education. Ukrainian school education is seen as a phenomenon that has accumulated the values of Western European humanistic culture, namely, respect for the individual, awareness of intellectual activity importance, the value of labour, understanding of the need for education and knowledge of languages. An active role in disseminating the pan-European models of education has been played by an intellectual environment, which was forming in the well known cultural and educational centers of Ukraine of the 16th-17th centuries, such as the Ostroh Culture and Education Center, the Lviv Brother School, the Kyiv Brother School, the Kyiv Collegium. Ukrainian intellectual elite, namely, university professors, teachers, students, have become the main carriers of education. The nature of the processes taking place in the educational space of Ukraine have been significantly influenced by the circumstances of religious life associated with the protection of the Orthodox Church before the onset of Catholicism. High standards of education, knowledge of the old classical and modern European languages were an important basis for the full-fledged spiritual development of the Ukrainian ethnic group. A retrospective consideration of the past reveals new meanings and imperatives in development of modern Ukrainian education, and the rich experience of Ukrainian teachers, collegium lecturers, professors of the first universities justify the necessary reasons for Ukrainian education entering into the European space.