Assistência e profissionalização no Exército: elementos para uma história do Imperial Colégio Militar

Abstract

This research aims to understand the creation process of the Imperial Colégio Militar, by the late years of the 19th century, as well as the barely known connections between the School, the Asylo dos Inválidos da Pátria and the Associação Comercial do Rio de Janeiro. Before searching the original goal for the School creation, I tried to identify the forces that determined its functioning and existence, according to its specificity as a military secondary school. These conditions of existence are related to the emergence of the militaries as new political actors, by the end of the imperial era, attending the Army s professionalization, which happened since the mid 19th century, especially after the Paraguai War. Therefore, I understood as factors of the referred Army s professionalization, the improvement of the military formation and the role performed by the Army, as part of a project to reorganize and solidify the Imperial State. In this research, I tried to historicize the educational practices undertaken by the Army, especially over the welfare prism, which featured the Asylo s conception. Due to the difficulties found during the School s creation process I sought to comprehend the political discussion regarding this subject and where it occurred. Finally, I looked into the presence of the preparatory nature in the Imperial Colégio Militar, which could possibly be justified by the need to form better personnel to the Army, since there was a professionalizing longing to be fulfilled. These were some of the issues put during this research, enabling to realize in what conditions emerged the idea, faced at once like object and purpose, of a school destined, preferably, to militaries sons. Besides the historiographical survey, this research was based upon sources such as: the legislation in force during the imperial period, War Ministerial reports and other documents, Annals of the Senate and the Chamber, Imperial Colégio Militar rules and journals, part of the Army s official records, newspapers from back then, among other sources.