Mais do que ler mil livros: os significados da viagem à Europa na trajetória de Francisco Lins (1911-1917)

Abstract

The objective of this research is to understand the meanings of Francisco Lins' first trip (1866, Ubá/MG - 1933, Juiz de Fora/MG) to Europe in its trajectory. Although this intellectual has fallen by the wayside, during his life he occupied important spaces as a journalist, educator and writer. He used to collaborate with several newspapers of that time and he was a writer for Jornal do Comércio and O Pharol, in the city of Juiz de Fora. He participated in the founding of the Academia Mineira de Letras (AML), occupying chair number 19 as a member. He published the books: Canções da Aurora (1886), Harpas das Selvas (1887), Versos (1898), Borboletas Negras (1909), Uma Campanha para Hermes-Wenceslau (1910). On an official commission to travel to Europe, between 1911 and 1917, he was tasked by the Secretariat of Agriculture to represent Brazil at the International Exhibition in Turin (1911) and by Interior Secretariat to study the primary and professional educational institutes of Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, France and Germany. In addition to these tasks, between 1912 and 1915 he attended classes at the Institute Jean-Jacques Rousseau (IJJR). He was the only Brazilian enrolled among the representatives of fourteen nationalities that were part of the first IJJR class. The institute founded by Édouard Claparède in 1912 was run by Pierre Bovet and it had on his team other great educators like Adolphe Ferrière, Paul Godin, François Naville, Jules Bois, Alice Descoeudres, Mina Audemars. In the following years it would become the main international center for studies on childhood and dissemination of new teaching methods, attracting educators from different parts of the world. In this investigation I used a wide variety of sources, among them: news and published texts in the newspapers, official documents from the IJJR and letters. Thus, I sought to know the reasons, routes and developments of the trip, as well as his networks of sociability and intellectual thinking in the field of education. Investigating this journey contributes to the investigation of the ways in which educational ideas, methods and models circulated through the travels of educators in the early 20th century, as well as to understand a possible gateway for the ideas of New School Movement in Brazil, which influenced the educational reforms carried out between the 1920s and 1930s. It also shed light on an unexplored educator in the field of History of Education and to know its performance in the discussions on the Reform of Public Education of Minas Gerais during the management of Francisco Campos.