This book does not look at the teachers' drive towards their aspirations solely through a historical or chronological recounting of the stages leading to 1919. The teachers' occupation is examined through an analysis of the conditions of work, the methods of recruitment, appointment and classification, teacher training and the development of salaries, all of which help the reader to conceive a clearer picture of what teachers went through while at their daily work within schools. It may also be surprising to note that certain problems concerning teachers evident in the past, are still with us, to some extent or other, even today. The study also entails a detailed enquiry of 19th and early 20th century educational thought about the teachers' role and duties in schools. It is revealing how adjourned Maltese thinkers were with regards to the scope and objectives of education in general and the function of the teacher in particular.

Oliver Friggieri is Professor of Maltese Literature at the University of Malta, and he is the foremost Maltese literary critic and a national author. He has published extensively and in his creative writing he attempts to intepret the sentiments and attitudes of a people living in the Central Mediterranean. The Essential Oliver Friggieri includes some translated works and implies that the selection is representative of Friggieri’s feelings, thoughts, and mind style in the source culture. It projects a compact, coherent image of him as a relevant contemporary national author: that is, as it embodies an image of some of his most characteristic works, the selection, with no particular arrangement in mind, tends to stabilise the sense among non-Maltese receptor readers of what constitutes the relevant literary output of Friggieri in a modern environment. Through the medium of literature Friggieri assumes the role of the conscience of a nation. He proclaims in traditional positive elements in his longer poetic works, but expresses present negative qualities in his ficton. His prose is not a weapon for war but a cry for justice and honesty. It is simple enough to retain the common readers’ attention and intriguing enough to involve their thinking.