“Civilizar pelas letras”: o projeto educacional do alagoano Thomaz do Bomfim Espindola para o Império brasileiro (1853-1885)

Abstract

This work presents a study on the educational project of physician Thomaz do Bomfim Espindola (1832-1889) in Imperial Brazil. This intellectual, among those who were interested in educational issues, acted intensely in the institutionalization of the school from the discourse of a civilized and modern society. As a politician and member of the Liberal Party of Alagoas, he held the positions of provincial deputy between the years 1868 and 1884, deputy general in the legislatures from 1878 to 1881 and 1881 to 1884, and as interim president of the same province, in the mandates of 1867 and 1878. He contributed to education as Director General of Studies and teacher in the Alagoas High School and the High School of Arts and Crafts, teaching the disciplines of Geography, Chronology, History and Hygiene. He participated in the preparation of the opinions of the Reform of Secondary and Higher Education (1882) and the Reform of Primary Education and several complementary institutions of public education (1883), together with Rui Barbosa and Ulysses Vianna. In this research, we privilege the productions of this author concerning Education, the periodical The Academic of 1853; the doctoral thesis Inaugural dissertation on the progressive influence of civilization on man of 1853; the reports of the Public and Private Instruction of the Province of Alagoas from 1866 to 1868; the reports of the presidency of the province from 1867 and 1878; the works Alagoas Geography or Physical, Political and Historical Description of the Province of Alagoas of 1871 and Elements of Geography and Cosmography offered to the Youth of Alagoas of 1885; the proceedings of the sessions of the chamber of deputies general from 1878 to 1882; the opinions of the reform of primary, secondary and higher education from 1882 and 1883 and various newspaper reports. The analysis of this documental set helped in the understanding of Espindola’s propositions that circulated in the Alagoas school institutions in the second half of the imperial period. From a theoretical-methodological point of view, this work has dialogued with studies aligned with the renewal of general historiography, Bloch (2001), Le Goff (2013), Chartier (2002), for example, and the history of education in the Brazilian Empire, Gondra; Schueler (2008), Faria Filho (2000), among others. Thus, this research contributes to analyze the process of the constitution of Brazilian schooling, articulated with certain conceptions of civilization assumed and defended by Thomaz do Bomfim Espindola in the second half of the 19th century.