A. Maceina reveals fundamental educational ideas related to the object of education and development, peculiarities of pedagogical interaction and functions of education and prolific moments in education.
On the basis of neothomistic philosophy, the author differentiates physical, psychical and spiritual spheres in the human structure. The latter is considered to be the core of the human entity rising from the Creator, which ensures auto-creation and subordination of all the powers with the help of an educator.
A. Maceina substantiates the pedagogical interaction on ontological, psychological and pedagogical foundations and emphasises the purposiveness, consciousness, mutual activeness, appeal to values of educator-learner interaction without giving prominence to separate components of the education process.
According to the author, the key functions of education, that is, development and upbringing differ in the nature of pedagogical assistance to a learner. In the development process an educator acts as a mediator between the content and the learner: s/he finds the most appropriate form of the material, spiritualises and presents to the learners to enable the latter to format them. The plane of the development comprises all the powers of personality with their own individual formatting. In the process of upbringing, an educator uncloses himself/herself, stimulating their learners to unclose and to turn to the highest values, whose origin is hidden in their nature, and to format the own self. Upbringing finalises education.
The prolific moment occurs while developing and educating when the pedagogical effect reaches the core of personality, the own self and evokes the individual search for the true, the moral and the beautiful in certain situations.
The pedagogical problems raised by A. Maceina in the 4th decade of the last century do not lose their topicality in modern times, especially, when ontological fundamentals of educations are eliminated and too much prominence is given to fragment components of education process.