In connection with the implementation of modern reforms on decentralization and transformation in the first-tier schools, the analysis of the genesis of the educational sector in individual administrative-territorial units is becoming increasingly relevant, since the results of such explorations provide the definition of an objective basis for the construction of the education system in modern territorial communities. Our attention is paid to the study of the organization of education in general and the primary in particular in the Kherson province - the largest territorially and diverse in national composition of the European part of the Russian Empire - in the period XIX - beginning. Of the twentieth century, where at this time valuable experience of realization of content, forms, methods, means of primary education, functioning of schools of national minorities, etc. was accumulated.
The constructive ideas of scholars and practitioners in the functioning of elementary education during 1803–1917 are outlined and the perspectives of their use in first-grade Ukrainian schools are outlined.
The object of the research is the formation of Kherson province XIX - beginning XX century.
The subject of the research is the genesis of the initial education of Kherson province in 1803 - 1917.
The aim of the research is to carry out a retrospective analysis of the formation and development of primary education in Kherson province (1803 - 1917) and to substantiate the prospects for the use of constructive ideas of historical and pedagogical experience of this contemporary period Ukrainian elementary school.
The scientific novelty of the obtained results is that for the first time:
- comprehensive study of the formation and development of primary education in the educational and cultural space of Kherson province during 1803 - 1917;
- the periodization of the development of primary education in Kherson province in 1803 - 1917 is substantiated. The peculiarities of each period are defined: First period - formation of the state system of education (1803 - 1832) - gradual formation of a network of institutions of primary education (public and private, mixed, for boys and girls, national); II period - accumulation (1832 - 1864) - enrichment of experience of functioning of educational institutions of primary education of different types; The Third Period - Reformation (1864 - 1896) - Reformation of Primary Education on the New Normative Base; IV period - transformative (1896 - 1917) - planting in the southern lands of the "Russian People's School";
- determined factors (external: socio-political situation, state educational policy, financial; internal: organizational and pedagogical conditions, personification of influences, support of local communities) reforming the content and organization of primary education in Kherson province within certain chronological limits;
- genesis of structure, content, forms and methods of elementary education in Kherson province in 1803 - 1917 was revealed: a network of elementary education institutions (literacy, garrison, Sunday, Zemsky, repetitive, national, parochial, district) schools was characterized , organizational and administrative differences in their functioning; peculiarities of primary education of national schools (teaching in the native language, taking into account the national component in the content of textbooks and organizing the experience of teachers);
- revealed constructive opinions of teachers-practitioners (competitive recruitment of teachers, organization of school performances on social topics, the creation of repetitive schools, the introduction of the practice of honorary trustees of institutions) and administrators of educational institutions (creation of school boards of territorial communities - educational and community organizations primary school trustees, arranging family-school holidays, arranging in schools of labor museums), outlining ways to use them in reforming modern Ukrainian school.
The practical significance is that the formulated conclusions and factual material enriched the historical and pedagogical knowledge of the history of the organization of elementary education in Kherson province in the period 1803 - 1917.
