A “natural e primeira educação”? Educação physica e formação do Brasil (1823-1854)

Abstract

Physical Education’s historiography has hardly approached initiatives that aimed physicist’s formation in Brazil in the first half of the 19th century. Although there are efforts within the field to understand the systematized bodily practices such as gymnastics, dance and games, there were few initiatives about facing physical education on its larger concept. The central concern of this thesis was to investigate the process of configuring physical education and its relations with the construction of the Brazilian nation process between 1823 and 1854, focusing on those that occurred in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The historical delimitation had occurred through the analyzed documentation, initially corresponding to the year in which physical education occurs for the first time in the researched documentation, linked to the repercussions of the first constituent; ended with Couto Ferraz Reform (1854), in which gymnastics and dance became mandatory practices. For this study we chose a set of documents, which includes several periodicals in circulation in Rio de Janeiro’s city, Minister of the Empire reports, different types of legislation, institutions’ statutes, manuals and books about physical education. The thesis is organized into three chapters. In chapter 1 – “Em movimento”, we analyze the various uses for the concept of physical education. We seek to demonstrate the amplitude and circularity that this formation strategy has achieved and how it could be used as a sign of distinction between historical agents. In chapter 2 – “Em impressão”, we presented and discussed doctrinal aspects related to physical education. We focus a special attention to the manuals and books dedicated to this theme, in circulation in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It was possible to notice that nature was considered as the north of physical education prescriptions, however, a nature controlled by science and medical knowledge. We also discussed how the standardization of a Brazilian physical education was seen as one of the keys to forming Brazil and its population, being often seen as the first education. In chapter 3 – “Em prática”, we described and discussed some experiences and institutional propositions for physical education, demonstrating that it has been the object of concern in a set of different institutions with formative characteristics. In schools, nursing homes and entertainment spaces, physical education would act as a way to build more robust and productive bodies, being seen as a useful and pleasant strategy to forge necessary bodies for the Brazilian nation in formation. As final words we defend that physical education was circulating in Brazil and, especially, in Rio de Janeiro. It was a distinctive and modernizing element articulated in the construction of a nation in dialogue with the precepts of science and hygiene, elements considered relevant to form its population and create Brazil.