Title: Argentina's Escuela Normal de Paraná and its disciples: mergers of liberalism, Krausism, and Comtean positivism in Sarmiento's temple for civilizing the nation, 1870 to 1916
Abstract: Abstract Positivism, the predominant philosophy of Latin America's elites at the end of the nineteenth century, found its exemplary expression in Brazil's castilhismo and Mexico's porfiriato. Argentina, in contrast, seemed to have deviated from the norm of 'enlightened dictatorships'. After the end of the Rosas tyranny in 1852, authoritarianism had been discredited. Early positivism, as embodied by Teacher-President Sarmiento, could barely be distinguished from liberalism and no single political philosophy was able to exert hegemony. However, the significance of 'scientific politics' should not be downplayed. As this article argues, the merger, in the 1880s, of Comtean positivism and teacher training revolutionised education policies that aimed at erasing frontier backwardness and inserting future generations into an export-led economy, oligarchic polity, and homogenous national organism. Normal schools, especially Sarmiento's Escuela de Paraná, acted as laboratories for the assimilation, merger, and contestation of European, North American, and autochthonous scientific, philosophical, and pedagogical traditions. Keywords: Argentinaeducationliberalismkrausismpositivism Acknowledgements I wish to thank Norma Fernández Doux, Stella Maris Goudard, Mark McMeley, Graciela Minga de Bevilacqua, Beatriz Pachiotti, and Marcela Pelanda for their support of my research in Argentina; John Fisher and Natalia Priego for giving me the opportunity to present a draft paper at the 2009 Society of Latin American Studies Conference at Leeds, and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their comments. Notes 1. This and all following translations are my own. 2. For conflicting interpretations of positivism, see Martínez de Codes () and Terán (, p. 11). 3. For the exception in Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, see Corsetti (). Spencer, not Comte, had informed Uruguay's education reform under José Pedro Varela. 4. For the importance of Sarmiento's neglected Vida de Abran Lincoln, published in 1866, see Velleman (, p. 38). 5. Such a statement was made in the 1867 report by Superintendent of Public Instruction Newton Bateman. See Mary Mann's letter of 15 May 1867 and n. 235 in Velleman (, pp. 180–181). 6. Estimates for Entre Ríos are similar (Figueroa , p. 82). 7. Decreto Orgánico, 13 June 1870, [Argentina] (hereafter AGN), Sala X: Instrucción Pública, 44-10-9, folio 4. The original Escuela Normal existed until 1919 (Fernández Doux , p. 272). 8. 'Discurso pronunciado por Domingo Faustino Sarmiento al fundar la Escuela Normal de Paraná', enclosure to Rosa Gomes de Blanco to Gabriel Etchenique, San Juan, 15 Aug. 1938, 'José María Torres' Paraná (hereafter AENP), Serie 'Correspondencia', UC 1934–46, tomo 1937–43: Homenaje a Sarmiento en el cincuentenario de su fallecimiento. Sarmiento's grandniece, who copied this speech by hand, was wrong in assuming it had been delivered at the school's inauguration ceremony; indeed, there is no indication that Sarmiento attended. Textual analysis allows for the conclusion that the document dates to 1883. I am indebted to Norma Fernández Doux who brought this controversy to my attention. 9. 'Informe anual de la Escuela Normal de Paraná correspondiente al año de 1873', by George Stearns, Paraná, 4 Dec. 1873, AENP, Serie '"Libro copiador": correspondencia común', UC 1871-81, tomo 'Libro copiador: Correspondencia común, 1871–1872–1873', folios 376–377. 10. Regarding the suggestion of Stearns, see Mary Mann's letter of 1 Jan. 1869, in Velleman (, p. 273, n. 430); on Horace Mann's work, see Jesualdo (, pp. 9–35). 11. 'Informe anual', folio 379. 12. José María Torres to George A. Stearns, Buenos Aires, 11 July 1871, AENP, Serie 'Correspondencia', UC 1870-1877, tomo 'Notas a Dirección 1870–1874'. Torres's concept of 'seminario de maestros' is defended in Memoria (, pp. 278–281). 13. For the use of Norman A. Calkin's translated textbook on primary object lessons, see García (). Mary Mann, whose mother had founded the first kindergarten in the United States, repeatedly explained Froebel's didactics to Sarmiento. See her letter of 18 April 1869 [?], in Velleman (, p. 285). Torres relied on nine didactic principles that have often been attributed to either Pestalozzi or himself. However, as Gustavo F.J. Cirigliano uncovered, Ángel Bassi noted in 1927, and again in 1931, that these were actually taken from A Manual of Elementary Instruction, written by Edward E. Sheldon, the founder of the Normal School of Oswego, in collaboration with Miss M. E. M. Jones, teacher in the schools of the Home and Colonial Society in London, and Hermann Krüsi, son of an assistant to Pestalozzi. Reducing the pedagogy of the Swiss pioneer to a few theoretically underpinned approaches helped Oswego expand teachers' training and suited Torres and the positivists in their search for standardised methods. According to Bassi, Jones merged Pestalozzi's ideas with those of Johann Amos Comenius, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Spencer. Many of the US teachers who came to Argentina, including to Paraná, had been trained in Oswego or on the basis of its textbook (Cirigliano , pp. 13–19, 38). 14. Director Sarah Eccleston would become the founder of various kindergarten in Argentina, act as General Inspector for this branch of education, and translate Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Bülow's The Child and Child-Nature from English into Spanish. The Argentinean edition appeared in 1896 (Velleman , p. 35; Carli , p. 139). 15. In 1884, all Chairs, except for Music, were men. The practice school employed two female teachers. 'Escuela Normal Nacional del Paraná: Informe del Director, 1884', AENP, Serie 'Informes y memorias', UC 1884–1922. 16. For Comtean positivist and later school director Maximio S. Victoria, Torres's writings were little more than a 'good compilation of original concepts' (Roig , p. 12). 17. This republication of Scalabrini's text contains extensive annotations. The original monograph appeared in Paraná in 1889 as a reprint of an article Scalabrini had published in the local La Opinión one year previously, then responding to an anonymous critique of his 1887 Cartas científicas in Buenos Aires's El Fígaro. For the tensions between 'materialists' and evolutionists, see Montserrat (, pp. 93–94) and Soler (, pp. 67–74); for Darwinism and positivism, Glick (, pp. 53–57). 18. 'Escuela Normal Nacional del Paraná: Informe del Director, 1884'. The 1886 curricular reform further stressed these subjects (Figueroa , p. 106). 19. Mercante even dedicated a novel to his school (Scanavecchia ). 20. This applies especially to the Litoral (Carli , pp. 73–94). 21. Pedro Scalabrini to Governor of Entre Ríos, Paraná, 8 April 1884, , Paraná, División de Hacienda, Serie XI: Instrucción Pública, Departamento de Paraná, carpeta 6, legajo 2, folio 2048. 22. Scalabrini pioneered the production of such teaching aids (mass utilisation failed due to insufficient knowledge on the part of teachers), but the visualisation of natural and human evolution, conveying national being and justifying intervention, constituted public policy from the 1880s (Andermann ). 23. Victoria's script on his father Maximio Victoria was originally unpublished. Ferreira shared Scalabrini's admiration of San Martín and abhorrence of Francia but explained the anomalies in the calendar historically: Comte would have lacked information about Latin America and considered an enlightened 'republican dictatorship' to be the alternative to the parliamentarian anarchy he had observed in France. Ferreira himself refused to justify arbitrary regimes or caudillismo and distinguished two models: while Francia's regime had rested on the populace's ignorance, Buenos Aires's 'Athenians' had built schools. Apart from Sarmiento, Argentina's ideological and literary genius, five other apostles found themselves in Ferreira's pantheon and figure in textbooks: San Martín, the military genius; Mariano Moreno, the numen of the Revolution; Rivadavia, the civil genius; Mitre, the political genius; and Manuel Belgrano who excelled in sacrifice, rather than triumph, and in allegiance, rather than leadership (Bassi , pp. 231, 253–256, cited p. 254). 24. The positivist spirit that was to distinguish curriculum and methodology at La Plata (motto: 'For science and patria') from the classical-humanistic universities of Córdoba and Buenos Aires, a differentiation explained in terms of Spencerian integrated heterogeneity, transpired in the draft project and its contentious debates. Pedagogy played a vital part in this drive to create the 'Argentinean of the future' (Congreso Nacional , pp. 330–340, 948–957 – the citation, by Deputy Pinedo, is on p. 955). See also Rector Dardo Rocha's and alumnus Agustín Lantero's speeches in Universidad de La Plata, Colación de grados celebrada el día 9 de agosto de 1901 con motivo de la entrega de los primeros diplomas expedidos por la Universidad de La Plata, La Plata: Museo, 1902, AGN, Sala VII, Archivo y Colección Dardo Rocha, legajo 2962. 25. It is not clear to whom Vergara refers on p. 40 when talking about a distinguished, inspiring science teacher at Paraná who nonetheless made him, against his will, learn and repeat lessons from a textbook by Huxley: Scalabrini? See also Vergara (, pp. 48–51). 26. This pantheon also included Alberdi, Pestalozzi, and Ahrens (Vergara , pp. 4–6, 406, 409, 411). 27. On 1890, see Rock (, pp. 133–141). 28. For examples, see Puiggrós (, pp. 203–208, 293–294). 29. Vergara wrote his own Fundamentos de la moral, rejecting Spencer's mechanicist evolutionism and presenting morality and philosophy as biological sciences. He also distanced himself from the Englishman's 'soulless' Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical (Vergara , pp. 52–55, 406–407, 412–413). 30. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 8 Jan. 1914 [transl. into French], (hereafter ANF), 17 AS 8. 31. In his 1914 Paraná speech, Ferreira acknowledged some of Vergara's reforms but still refused the exaggerated, despotic libertarianism. Compare Vergara's account (1911, pp. 31, 41–42, 48) with Bassi's (, p. 224). 32. Ferreira's 1892 plan proposed following Sarmiento's example and introducing foreign teachers, this time Swedes with experience in the Slöjd system (Bassi , p. 36). 33. Vergara refuted Immanuel Kant's theory as 'absurd' but, like Ferreira, argued that the philosopher from Königsberg would have done science a favour by demonstrating what needed to be avoided. In this sense, 'everything that exists is good, and has to be respected' (Vergara , p. 415). 34. For the Comtean double meaning of religion, see Ferreira (, p. 38). Chilean orthodox Comtist Juan Enrique Lagarrigue congratulated Ferreira; his speech would have done justice to the difficult matter of fetishism and rightly defended the historical significance of Catholicism (Ferreira , [p. 3]). Regarding the 'positivisation' of religion, Ferreira referred to Comte, while he considered Spencer's thesis of the 'incognoscible' a metaphysical relic (Bassi , p. 244). 35. In 1923, Ferreira advised Corrientes's government in a dispute between a group of ladies who demanded the reintroduction of Catholic instruction in schools and the Asociación Provincial de Maestros: such a politically motivated step would lead to 'spiritual despotism' at a time when the positive school had long triumphed over Catholic theology and Krausist metaphysics (Ferreira , citation on p. 6, also 11). See also Ferreira (, pp. 20–23). 36. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 3 Dec. 1932, ANF, 17 AS 8. 37. This thesis was defended by Luis Romero (, p. 74). 38. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 31 Oct. 1904 [transl. into French], ANF, 17 AS 8. Jorge Lagarrigue's testament can be found in Annex B to L'Apostolat Positive du Brésil, Quatorzième Circulaire Annuelle, Rio de Janeiro: Siège Centrale de L'Eglise Positiviste, 1894, ANF, 17 AS 3. 39. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 18 Feb. 1914, ANF, 17 AS 8. 40. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 8 Oct. 1932, ANF, 17 AS 8. 41. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 8 Nov. 1933, ANF, 17 AS 8. The renewal of positivism in Brazil followed the death of Raimundo Teixeira Mendes in 1927 which ended what Ferreira called the religious fanaticism of the Apostolate. For orthodox Brazilian positivists, Ferreira's synthesis of Comte amounted to blasphemy. Dolores C. F. de Oliveira to Émile Corra, n. p. [Rio de Janeiro?], 28 Oct. 1929, ANF, 17 AS 9. 42. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 8 Nov. 1933, ANF, 17 AS 8. 43. The Société Positiviste Internationale had offered Ferreira the presidency; health reasons forced him to decline. 44. This and previous quotations are from J. Alfredo Ferreira to Maurice Ajam, Buenos Aires, 2 Feb. 1933, ANF, 17 AS 8. 45. J. Alfredo Ferreira to Émile Corra, Buenos Aires, 8 Nov. 1933, ANF, 17 AS 8. 46. J. Alfredo Ferreira, Ensayos de ética, Buenos Aires: Ferrari, 1944, pp. 90–91, cited in: Soler (, p. 206). 47. 'Discurso pronunciado por Domingo Faustino Sarmiento al fundar la Escuela Normal de Paraná' (see note 8). 48. 'Escuela Normal Nacional del Paraná: Informe del Director, 1884'. 49. Carlos Rojo's El noventa: Sociología argentina, published in 1893, claimed the 1853 Constitution would have been imposed on an Argentina that had not yet left behind the theological stage of historical evolution (Roig , p. 250). 50. The influence of krausismo on Irigoyen, Chair of Argentine History, Philosophy, and Political Economy at the Escuela Normal in Buenos Aires from 1881–1905, is well known, and the translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason into Spanish in 1883 helped spread the Marburg School of Neo-Kantian thought (Stoetzer , pp. 339–340, 349–350, 360–373; Roig , pp. 18, 124–130).
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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