São Paulo landowners and their projects for agricultural education: “Luiz de Queiroz” (ESALQ / USP) in Piracicaba (1881 – 1903)

Current paper analyzes the advent of early projects in agricultural education, conceived on a practical and secondary level, in the state of São Paulo, which resulted in the establishment of ESALQ. After the first attempts by private entrepreneurs and later by the state government, the ESALQ was inaugurated in 1901. The first part of the paper focuses on the 1881 – 1901 period when school construction projects were endeavored. The second part deals with the 1901 1903 period featuring the hasty inauguration of the school and its precarious conditions. Research demonstrated that at the national and local levels, there were numerous impairments for the deployment of the modernizing projects, such as those involving agricultural schools. These included local conservatism, under developmentment and a still ‘colonial’ Brazil.


Introduction
The School of Agriculture Luiz de Queiroz of the University of São Paulo (ESALQ/USP) comprises an area of 37,278,642.00 m², located in the municipalities of Piracicaba, Anhembi, Anhumas and Itatinga in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, an area 50.44% of the total area of USP (Molina, 2011).
ESALQ, conceived and designed in 1881 by the entrepreneur Luiz de Queiroz, was inaugurated in 1901 by the administration of the state of São Paulo. The farm-school was named The Practical Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz and was administered by the Secretary of Agriculture of the state of São Paulo as an agricultural secondary school featuring practical courses in agricuture. In the wake of the foundation of the University of São Paulo (USP) in 1934, ESALQ became one of campuses of USP offering higher education in Agronomy and is currently an international reference in education and research in agronomy, biology, food science, forest engineering, environmental management, nuclear energy for agriculture, business and economics in agribusiness.
Current paper 1 focuses on the institution´s early period, from 1881 to 1903, initially founded by private initiative and later by the government of the state of São Paulo. After several attempts by Luiz de Queiroz (1881 1 Current article derives from the Master´s dissertation defended on July 5, 2011 at School of Education of UNICAMP, under the title: Practical Agricultural School "Luiz De Queiroz" (ESALQ/USP): its genesis, projects and early experiences -1881-1903 (Molina, 2011). Research was conducted at the Department of Philosophy and History of Education under the supervision of Dr. Mara Regina Martins Jacomeli and funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES). Empirical research was based mainly on sources found in the "Luiz de Queiroz" museum collection and in the "Luiz de Queiroz" Agriculture School (ESALQ/USP) files which are reports, magazines, letters, photographies, maps and books from school congregation minutes. Other sources comprised a collection of Gazeta de Piracicaba, at the Historical and Geographical Institute of Piracicaba, a collection of laws and decrees of the state of São Paulo, at the Law School of the University of São Paulo, and documents from the Department of Public Archives of the state of São Paulo. For more information, the text is available at the Unicamp digital library website: http://www.bibliotecadigital.unicamp.br/document/?code=000839602. Accessed in: 27 sept. 2015.
São Paulo landowners and their projects for agricultural education: Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ / USP) in Piracicaba (1881Piracicaba ( -1903 and 1884), there were other collective attempts by the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association' with its aristocratic project 'Agricultural School of São Paulo' (1891)(1892). Works and projects for the building of the campus were deployed on the São João da Mountanha Farm, later incorporated by the Secretary of Agriculture of the state of São Paulo, inaugurated in 1901.

Luiz Vicente de Souza Queiroz and the agricultural school project, 1881 and 1884.
The name of the school reverences Luiz Vicente de Souza Queiroz (1849-1898), who, according to the Institution´s official history, was the only founder of the school established in 1901. Such reverence gave Luiz de Queiroz several honors. In fact, his name is blended with the institution itself, coupled to the 1964 construction of a large mausoleum in front of the central building of the school, where Queiroz and his wife would be interred. As a member of the ruling class of his time, Luiz de Queiroz was the grandson of Brigadier Luiz Antônio, the biggest landowner in the province of São Paulo, and son of Vincente de Souza Queiroz, Baron of Limeira, and Francisca de Paula Souza.
In 1857, when he was eight years old, his parents sent him and his brother to study in Europe where he remained for 16 years attending agronomy courses in France and Switzerland.
In 1873, at the age of 24, he returned to Brazil and inherited from his father the Engenho d'Água farm, in the old town of Vila da Constituição, currently Piracicaba. The power base of Luiz de Queiroz and his family was the control of the means of production, comprising plantations, slaves, free laborers and machinery. He was also a businessman in Piracicaba, dedicated to industrial activity, importing machinery from the USA. He inaugurated the Fábrica de Tecidos Santa Francisca (former Boyes) and a hydroelectric power plant (currently Museu da Água) due to the waterfall in the Piracicaba river. The hydroelectric plant provided the power required for his factory and also provided public illumination to parts of the town of Piracicaba, with enormous assets. His name is also linked to early experiments with telephony (1882) and tree-planting in the town.
Within the turbulent context caused by abolition of slavery and by the transition from Monarchy to Republic, Queiroz was city councilor in Piracicaba for the Partido Republicano Paulista (PRP), and together with his peers, he dictated the policies and the economy of the city. He was involved in several conflicts with the PRP of Piracicaba, especially against the group of Prudente de Moraes (the first civilian president of the First Republic). Queiroz chaired the abolitionist committee of the city and defended the legal end of slavery in the shortest term possible, unlike Moraes´s position characterized by gradual abolition with monetary compensation to slave owners.
One project that Queiroz tried to deploy in Piracicaba was the construction of an agricultural school. According to the minutes of the City Council of Piracicaba, in October 1881, Queiroz made his first attempt to install a practical school for landowners and farmers at the back of his home, between Rua do Porto and his textile factory, now abandoned. The land belonged to the municipality and his request was denied by the majority of the City Council. After this first unsuccessful attempt to build an agricultural educational institution at the back of his stately house, Queiroz wrote a booklet, published in 1884, entitled Small cotton planter's guide in the City of Piracicaba (Perecin, 2004) in which an important relationship between Queiroz's educational proposal and local economy may be perceived. In fact, the book, a sort of primer to 'educate' farmers with modern farming practices, sought the articulation of local cotton suppliers and his textile factory 'Santa Francisca', in Piracicaba 2 .

'Brazilian Gentleman Association': the collective project of São Paulo landowners for agricultural education (1891-1892).
After his attempt to build a school of agriculture on state land, at the back of his house, and after having his project vetoed by the City Council of Piracicaba, Luiz de Queiroz presided a collective project of elite people from São Paulo, who were trying to build the 'Agricultural School of São Paulo' in the last decade of the nineteenth century The initiative occurred 2 In 1902, during the second year of activities of the Practical Agricultural School of Piracicaba, the articulation between production and experiments with cotton in the farm-school and in the former textile factory of Luiz de Queiroz may be observed by documents on transactions between the two institutions (Letter of April 28, 1902, in the School correspondence book at ESALQ/USP Museum). through the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association', composed mainly of landowners, industry entrepreneurs and politicians. The Association´s power was not limited to the sphere of private property. It had great influence on political institutions of the fledging Republic. Among the most influential political members of the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association' were João Francisco de Paula Souza, Senator of the Republic for the state of São Paulo (1895)(1896)(1897)(1898)(1899)(1900)(1901)(1902), and Domingos Corrêa de Moraes, politician of Partido Republicano Paulista (PRP) who was Vice-President of the state of São Paulo in 1902.
The construction project of 'The Agricultural School of São Paulo' through the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association' began effectively in 1891 with the acquisition of São João da Montanha Farm. The property consisted of 131 acres (317 ha) and was located around Piracicaba, linked to São Paulo by railway and which, at the turn of the twentieth century, had approximately 20,000 inhabitants. The farm was the best available for constructing the school since it had sugarcane plantation, old mills and water connections with the Piracicamirim River, which passed through the farm and provided the required hydraulic and electric potential (Morimont, 1895, p. 35). Coffee had been introduced only recently and did not require the discarding of former sugarcane plantation.
In the same year, Luiz de Queiroz travelled to the US and to Europe to prepare an architectural design for the school and purchase essential equipments for the installation of a hydroelectric power plant and public illumination of the city. As some sources showed, while traveling in Europe in 1891, Luiz de Queiroz commissioned the architect Alfred Blandford Hutchings of London to prepare a plan for the building of the school in Piracicaba (Hutchings, 1891a(Hutchings, , 1891b. The English architect designed a headquarters for the farm-school and a boarding school with about 120 individual apartments, which actually seemed luxurious accommodation for the young people of the rural elite. Taking advantage of his tour abroad, in 1891 Queiroz hired Eugene Davenport, a professor of agriculture of Michigan Agricultural College (USA) to hold for one year the post of director of the School he expected to build. It was part of the director's functions to supervise the construction of the building, run the farm, provide guidance for studies and duties of students, and select teachers based on the American educational model.
However, administrative problems were on the increase for Luiz de Queiroz due to decrease in funds from the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association', whilst "[…] activity on São João da Montanha farm increased, with two hundred employees, two Spanish architects, and the US director" (Perecin, 2004, p. 117). He sought help from the government of the state of São Paulo in an attempt to save the private educational enterprise.
Since the Association was bankrupt, no official help was coming. He also realized that the legislature of the state of São Paulo was elaborating a project for agricultural education, Queiroz, as the Association´s coordinator, made a successful maneuver. To avoid losing money, the time invested in the educational enterprise and the ideological project, and in order not to suffer a competing institution with state money, Queiroz mobilized public opinion through the press and convinced the São Paulo Legislature to acquire the São João da Montanha farm, returning to the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association' the full value of the land and all invested infrastructure. According to Decree 130 (São Paulo, 1892), the legal proceeding was conducted through a 'donation', in which the state was forced to fully reimburse the 'donors'. The compensation, called 'indemnity', was secured by a legal device of the period called 'Bill of Indemnity' 3 , which gave any donor protection against liabilities.
Agreement between the private sector (Brazilian Gentleman Association) and the state of São Paulo involved the Government´s obligation to build the agricultural school within 10 years on the São João da Montanha Farm, otherwise the farm would return to the Association.
Governor Bernardino de Campos accepted the agreement and insisted he would assist the private sector´s initiative for the sake of agriculture, the state´s basis of wealth and prosperity. Thus, he granted Luiz Vicente de Queiroz, president of the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association', a loan of 50:774$000, obtained from the Secretary of Agriculture, Trade and Public Works for the acquisition of the bankruptcy in Piracicaba, and the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association' acquired, in 1891, the same property for 43:550$000 (Perecin, 2004).
After the bankruptcy of the private education enterprise of the Brazilian Gentleman Association and its project 'Agricultural School of São Paulo', Luiz de Queiroz sold most of his property in Piracicaba and moved to the city of São Paulo in 1894. 4 He monitored the agricultural school construction from afar and began working on the management of the Livestock and Agricultural Society and the publication of articles in the Revista Agrícola. These articles made public Queiroz´s opinions, making it clear he understood agricultural education as a renewal of agriculture in São Paulo, shaken by the worldwide economic crisis (1873-1890), whose effects were felt in the Brazilian agro-exporting activities. In his articles, Queiroz proposed economic development through scientific research and education, aiming to match Brazil to the contemporary European empires. He fought against traditional centuries-old agricultural practices and sought to promote capitalist rationalization by education and schools.

The Project of the State of São Paulo for Agricultural Education (1893-1899)
Within the historical context of the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, the state of São Paulo was conspicuous in infrastructure investment in rural education, agricultural research and dissemination of knowledge to the rural elite community. The establishment of three large Institutions in less than five years proves the above statement.
The first institution was the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) founded in 1887, with laboratories for higher education. The Higher Education Course in Agricultural Engineering at the Polytechnic School in São Paulo and the Secondary School in Technical Agriculture at the Agricultural School "Luiz de Queiroz" were established in 1901. These institutions served the interests of the São Paulo ruling class, enriched by agricultural export, especially coffee, labeled 'the green gold'.
After agreements between the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association' and the State Government of São Paulo, São João da Montanha farm and the agronomic professionalizing education project became the responsibility of the state of São Paulo. The Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) was responsible for the farm management after the transfer and Ernest Lehmann was appointed farm manager in November 1892. Lehmann was an Austrian agronomist who worked in Piracicaba for thirteen months. Since the state farm was under the tutelage of the Secretary of Agriculture, Trade and Public Works of São Paulo, investments undertaken by IAC were merely limited to the administration of the premises. Consequently, Lehmann's work was restricted to repairs, reconstructions and small jobs (Gazeta de Piracicaba, 1892). Despite limited funds, Lehmann´s biggest problem was the abandonment of the São João da Montanha Farm, recently acquired in the transaction made with the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association'. According to the Austrian agronomist in Piracicaba, the farm was: [...] in deplorable conditions, and after many vicissitudes it is easy to imagine the many difficulties I had to cope with the honorable mission the government had entrusted me, which was to adapt São João da Montanha farm into a Professional School of Agriculture (Morimont, 1895, p. 8) In December 1893, works for the construction of the farm-school were transferred to the Secretary of Agriculture, Trade and Public Works of São Paulo, under the management of the secretary Jorge Tibiriçá Piratininga. During this period, Lehmann was replaced by the Belgian agricultural engineer, Leon Alphonse Morimont, who became the school´s principal. Since the Brazilian government lacked a national technical agricultural project of education at secondary level, the state of São Paulo had to import a foreign paradigm and thus demonstrated Brazilian cultural dependence 5 . 5 Toledo Piza Jr., Emeritus Professor of the Department of Zoology of ESALQ/USP, wrote in 1975: "At first, despite the difficulties, the school was bright and weak". "The foreign teachers who started their courses gave it an aura of importance, which was not true. Due to our mentality by always giving excessive value to everything foreign, the European teachers were soon identified as real authorities […]", however, "[…] they knew nothing Cultural dependency boils down to the following: lack of creativity and constant delay in relation to the creative center that serves as a model. It also represents [...] a narrow, inoperative idealism, forming agents without theoretical instrumentation and incapable of transforming reality for the benefit of the population as a whole rather than in the interests of a small segment and foreign groups to the detriment of the majority, [...] problems worsened and, on a daily basis, professionals and students 'solved them as they could', that is, in an offhand way (Ribeiro, 2003, p. 81, author's emphasis).
Thus, the state of São Paulo, economically and culturally dependent, hired the Belgian engineer Leon Morimont for 700$000 a month. His function would be to work as state administrator for the physical recovery of the São João da Montanha farm and its suitability for professional agricultural education.
Foregrounded on the Belgian concept of state education in agricultural practice, Morimont legitimized his work and insisted, in articles and reports, that urgent educational development in scientific and practical agriculture was necessary for the progress of the state of São Paulo. He forwarded historical and contemporary examples, especially the experiences of the United States and France in agricultural education, a decisive factor for the great increase in productive forces and accumulation of capital in these countries.
Even though dealing with a public educational institution, the Morimont plan for the construction of the State School of Agriculture in Piracicaba required an annual fee of 450$000 and a registration charge of 50$000 from the students. Basic requirements of the future agronomists comprised a minimum age of 15 years and primary education. There was also an entrance exam and the payment of a boarding fee, except for grant students selected by exams and indicated by institutions for the poor (MORIMONT, 1895, p. 31).
The educational proposal that Leon Morimont developed consisted of a practical course in Agronomic Sciences, whilst the architectural plan of the school was linked to his theoretical and practical 'pedagogical' concepts.
Morimont´s discourse considered agronomy as a solution for the crisis that the country´s agriculture was facing due to international disorders (capitalism's first major crisis between 1873 and mid-1890). Therefore, the course in Agronomy in Piracicaba aimed at training young people concerned in transforming agriculture by management, that is, the school would train farm administrators, experts in accounting and controllers of field workers 6 .
Overall, the project proposed by the Secretary of Agriculture of São Paulo for School of Agronomy of Piracicaba was based on the intuitivedemonstrative method, probably derived from the agricultural schools in the United States and France. The educational idea involved that theoretical subjects should be a minority and emphasis should be given to practical exercises in experimental fields, that is, a sort of 'non-academic teaching' without shunning altogether theoretical and scientific learning. In everyday school life, there were three theoretical lessons so that practical work would not be jeopardized.
Time spent in practical classes should correspond to twice the time spent on theoretical learning in classrooms and laboratories (São Paulo, 1900, art. 17, art. 18 and art. 19, chap. III). The positivist neutrality in science was extremely relevant in the 1900 regulation and prescribed penalties for teachers who exposed any scientific doctrines, such as those by Spencer and Darwin (Perecin, 2004).
According to 1894 manuscripts, published in 1895 by Morimont, a disciplinary regime was planned for the boarding school included in the future practical school of agriculture in Piracicaba. The internal regime would be the same for all students, for whom there would be a 'familial discipline, without any soft antidemocratic attitudes'. The following quote illustrates the proposals on how the students´ daily life would be in the boarding school.
Getting up at 4:30 a.m. in summer and at 5:00 in winter, the future farm managers will, after a short study period until breakfast and the onset of the 6 According to historical documents of 1903, prepared by a French engineer on a work mission in Brazil, the usual organization hierarchy of work in sugar mills was: "[…] the general administrator had at his orders two or three auxiliaries (administrators), each of which conducted three to four foremen (overseers), who direct teams of 20 to 25 workers" (Picard, 1996, p. 31).
São Paulo landowners and their projects for agricultural education: Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ / USP) in Piracicaba (1881Piracicaba ( -1903 work periods, employ the morning, which is always cooler, almost exclusively in practical work in the fields, awns, stables and workshops. After lunch, classes will start, featuring questions and drawing exercises, laboratory lessons and others with their respective teachers; study periods are also allotted between dinner and bedtime (Morimont, 1895, p. 23).
Consequently, a section of the São Paulo rural elite started, through private enterprise and subsequently through the state, the construction of an agricultural school to end routine traditional production in agriculture. The institution would contribute towards the dissemination of technical and scientific knowledge among agricultural producers accustomed to archaic mentality conducted by agricultural 'modernizing' agents: specially trained agronomists. Professional technical agronomists trained in the practical agricultural school would be the disseminators of 'light' in the productive system still immersed in the 'obscurantism' of the colonial period.
Therefore, the agronomists would work as an organic intellectual 7 of 'modern' agriculture and would aim at forming the mentality of small and big farmers, and manual laborers; they would use the available means of communication, such as agricultural journals (newspapers and magazines); they would work as managers on their own farm or on private farms, they would be teachers in schools at all levels and as state officers who would periodically visit farms as consultants.
The great aim was to transfer to Brazil 'a new type of man', molded in the capitalist centers of the United States and Europe. At that time, the formation of a new worker, adapted to changes taking place in the production system, was on the agenda.
The contemplative intellectual among the elites or the mutilated industrial artificer are no longer important. Their attention concentrates on a new type of intellectual, directly or indirectly linked to the production of science-based processes. In this sense, one may say that the twentieth century started requiring the re-qualification of the workforce, specialized or not, since in 7 We used the term 'organic intellectual' following Gramsci (1989). Roughly speaking, the term intellectual is understood as an autonomous social group; however, with the social role of 'spokesmen' of groups connected to the production system, that is, to the 'production world'. scientific production the ability of the artificer-worker, incorporated to work, demands a new working capacity from urban-industrial workers (Neves, 1994, p. 18).
Even with such demands, in November 1896, the state of São Paulo interrupted the process of transforming the farm into a school and Leon Morimont was dismissed as director of São João da Montanha farm. The state alleged the need to reduce costs due to low tax collection in coffee exports (Perecin, 2004).

The 1899 Act of Agronomic Service
Consequently, works on the transformation of the state farm São João da Montanha into an agronomy education center were paralyzed, "[…] until the reform activity on agriculture came to fruition by the approval of the Agronomic Service Act by the São Paulo Legislative Assembly (Law 678), on September, 13, 1899" (Molina, 2011, p. 123).
Later that year, the Secretary of Agriculture, Alfredo Guedes, made public the implementation of Article 13 of Law 678, which established the first practical school of agriculture in Piracicaba.
Law 678 of September 13, 1899, organized the agronomy service of the state of São Paulo, attached to the third section of the State´s Agricultural Affairs, Trade and Public Works. Agronomy service consisted of professional practical agricultural education, without affecting higher education in Agronomy, already established in the Polytechnic School (Art. I, first paragraph, and Art. 3). The organizational bases of professional agricultural education to be taught in the agricultural practical schools and the pedagogical guidelines to be deployed in Piracicaba, may be found between articles 3 and 14 of the abovementioned law (Perecin, 2004, p. 271).
Thus, the law on agronomy service reorganized agricultural education and scientific agronomic research in the state of São Paulo by investing in public or private experimental stations, in laboratories of Higher Education (the Agronomic Institute of Campinas and Polytechnic School of São Paulo), in agricultural primary education (technical and basic), through the 'Agriculture School' of Iguape (Bernardino Campos), São Sebastião (João Tibiriçá), Batatais and Araras, and by itinerant education on railway wagons within the agronomy districts (Perecin, 2004, p. 299). Secondary education in agriculture was provided by the Practical Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz, in Piracicaba, and higher education with an Agronomy course at the Polytechnic School of São Paulo. Within this reorganization, it is worth mentioning the construction of zootechnic centers in "Luiz de Queiroz" in the city of São Paulo and in Nova Odessa. These schools would be responsible for the dissemination of learning in pastoral industry through the administration of courses.
When the Agronomy Service Law was published, the state of São Paulo went beyond the institutional limits of agricultural schools and established experience fields within agricultural districts to disseminate modern production methods to farmers and landowners. At the instigation of the state, the official agronomist would disseminate assays on new crops, new culture processes and new farming implements, with results 'guaranteed' by great research and education centers. The first positive results obtained by the Secretary of Agriculture comprised products from the experimental fields of Iguape, São Sebastião, Nova Odessa (connected to IAC), Botanic Garden (in Cantareira) and Cubatão Tropical Agrarian Garden (Congresso do Estado de São Paulo, 1899).
It may be perceived that within such a context and within the 1900 regulations, the Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz was planned to be run in an extremely vertical and undemocratic hierarchy scheme. All internal decisions required the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture. This fact caused recurring protests by teachers who demanded freedom on contents and didactic-pedagogical programming. The School Congregation (director and teachers) defined pedagogical didactic schedules, official and unofficial meetings, ordination of duties and definition of mandatory meetings, but was subordinated to the Secretary.
With regard to the professional trained in the Luiz de Queiroz School, the agronomist would enter the labor market as manager or administrator in agriculture, according to the 1900 regulation (article 3 of chapter I). He would be able to employ modern techniques on plantations and farms either as owner or as an employee. Under the aegis of the Agronomy Service Law of 1899, the same Regulation (article 115, chapter XII), stated that, due to its status as a state educational institution, the trained agronomist from the Luiz de Queiroz School would have preference to a public office, especially a job in the Secretary of Agriculture, which usually employed agronomists for crop management work in experimental fields scattered throughout the agronomic districts of the state of São Paulo.

The emergency inauguration of "Luiz de Queiroz" School and its uncertain future.
Although the first regulation was prepared in 1900, the school failed to be inaugurated due to physical and structural deficiencies. In fact, the Practical Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz in Piracicaba, only opened its doors at emergency levels in order to comply with contract terms to maintain the property in the hands of the state 8 . "The event was scheduled on Monday, June 3, 1901, at twelve o'clock, by decision of the Secretary of Agriculture, Trade and Public Works, Antônio Cândido Rodrigues" (Perecin, 2004, p. 211).
The makeshift school headquarters symbolized the precarious situation of the Luiz de Queiroz school facilities and its emergency opening. The building constructed during Morimont´s administration as the farm´s store house was adapted to be the first official headquarters of the institution where the lectures would be given.
There were neither desks in the classrooms, nor equipment for practical activities and seeds for experimental fields. The few employees could lose their jobs any time. According to the School Correspondence Book, the director Ricardo Ernesto Ferreira de Carvalho complained about these condition. Carvalho remarked that the school should have [...] at least one class decently furnished on the occasion of the official inauguration ceremony. In fact, our rough benches made of planks nailed in the floor of the lowest and darkest room, with neither drawers nor inkpots, do not correspond to the demands of modern education, even in primary schools (Ofícios da Escola Agrícola Prática "Luiz de Queiroz", 1901). 8 The State of São Paulo accelerated the inaugurated of the institution to meet the transfer contract of 1892 between the 'Brazilian Gentleman Association', a private initiative, and the state of São Paulo. As previously mentioned in 1.2, one of the contract clauses provided for the return of lands to the former owners if the state of São Paulo did not build the school within 10 years. With less than one year due, the state authorities decided to inaugurate it hastily, even though featuring precarious and poorly structured premises, in mid-1901. Due to the improvised inauguration, the school plan was simplified. The lack of physical structure involved changes in the conception of the school, or rather, from a boarding to a day school. "They insisted on the social and cultural premises of the city and its ability to accommodate the student population" (Perecin, 2004, p. 200-201). The first student houses and accommodations for students started at this period in Piracicaba.
In the midst of festivities and precariousness and on an emergency basis, the Practical Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz was inaugurated. Consequently, the agricultural course involving two semesters had its first year of existence reduced to one semester due to its late opening in June 1901.
The June 4, 1901, issue of the newspaper Correio Paulistano reports that during the school inaugural festivities, the road from downtown Piracicaba to the farm-school was decorated. Among several speeches, we would like to highlight the speech of the first principal of the school, zootecnist Ricardo Ernesto Ferreira de Carvalho. The basis of his speech, transcribed in the press, was the underscoring of progress by agriculture through scientific 'regeneration'. In Carvalho´s opinion, education and science should combat the traditional extensive monoculture farming, supposedly the true cause of Brazil's backwardness when compared to central countries.
Another aspect highlighted by Carvalho dealt with the institutional propaganda to convince the children of the dominant class to study in the Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz. Due to the landowners´ conservatism and traditionalism, the state of São Paulo had to conscience-raise plantation owners and their offspring through official propaganda so they would give up their pretentions of becoming lawyers rather than practical agronomists.
However, the agricultural school model, secondary, technical and practical, inspired by intuitive pedagogy was a novel experience in the state of São Paulo. The future of the institution was surrounded by uncertainty, skepticism and resistance, especially among hegemonic conservative segments of the elites. Even among optimists, the disposition was undermined by the clients´ lack of preparation. Children of landowners, born with a silver spoon in their mouths, although willing to enroll in Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz, seemed unprepared for secondary schooling due to their deep deficiency 9 at elementary and primary levels, indispensable for admittance and continuance of their studies in secondary education (Perecin, 2004).
The school´s first students were mainly from Piracicaba: or rather, young people 'related' to the Mello, Silveira and Sampaio families. The Sampaio family had the largest number of students, because this family attended "the former Sociedade Propagadora da Instrução where João Manuel de Moraes Sampaio was the largest shareholder and president" (Perecin, 2004, p. 232). The Sampaio family was a segment of the Piracicaba oligarchy who lived under the powerful command of Prudente de Moraes, who also insisted on the construction of city´s state school. However, the great number of young people from Piracicaba did not mean success. In fact, only two received the diploma of Agronomist in 1903 and most graduated students came from other towns and cities.
Besides structural precariousness and low performance in exams, the Institution had many other problems, such as richer students´ bias against practical field work in the model farm.
Students complained that the practical work was exhausting and requested its elimination from the curriculum. However, the director, José Amândio Sobral, did not submit to students´ pressure and kept the disciplinary rigidity determined by the school´s internal regulation, which stipulated that farm work and practical classes corresponded to twice the theoretical activities. Training, which implied practical study in the subject matters in experimental fields of the farm-school, would require changes in the still slaving mentality of young rural elites.
However, cultural changes of young people hailing from the slaveowning families were 'difficult' after only 10 years since the abolition of slavery in Brazil. For these 'young masters', exposure to the sun while conducting experiments on the field was sheer manual work proper to subaltern and 'degenerated' classes.
According to Costa and Schwarcz (2000, pp. 11-12), bias against manual work belongs to the "[…] ambiguities of progress […]". While institutionalizing a school for technical-scientific teaching in fields, at the same time, they were experiencing slavery features and, consequently, they shunned practical work. According to the above-mentioned authors, "[…] one must not forget that slavery left evident marks in day-to-day experience […]", since Brazil was the last nation to abolish slavery. This is the reason why it was so difficult to deploy a Republican project, supposedly 'modern': the scars of slavery were still open throughout the entire patriarchal society, "[…] marked by personal violent and biased relationships".
As bearers of a backward colonial mentality, the students at "Luiz de Queiroz" school sought privileges through the Partido Republicano Paulista and refused to receive orders and to maintain the discipline required for their studies.
Poor grades and low performance were synonymous of indiscipline. In March, Dr. Luciano de Almeida, professor of agriculture, quitted from office due to a second year student´s indiscipline. In June, the school secretary was attacked after communicating to a student that he was disqualified in the practical exam of the first subject. When punished, he disobeyed the director, claiming he would not be reprehended. According to their whims, students as a group failed to attend classes (Perecin, 2004, p. 245). Students' complaints to parents, relatives and friends belonging to the Partido Republicano Paulista made the Secretary of Agriculture reduce practical work in the field by half. Thus, the school schedule for classes in the field decreased from twelve to six hours per week. According to the official 1904 report written by the secretary Luiz de Toledo Piza, later on, practical classes were almost abolished, or rather, only 17% of the total number of classes were allotted for practical field work (Perecin, 2004 p. 255).
In short, one may perceive that, within the Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz, clashes existed between the state´s educational idea essentially aiming at a technical and practical content and the proposal of the school clientele refusing practical field work and insisting on the privilege of receiving theoretical content in agriculture.
According to Cunha (2000), bias against manual work worsened after the legal end of slave labor, since within such historical context, the social representations of free labor changed and manual work increasingly began to be identified with Afro-descendants and their descendants, while intellectual work was exclusively associated with white people. Thus, students of agricultural secondary schools, such as the Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz, resisted practical working disciplines on farm-school for racial and classist issues, as may be seen when very poor white Europeans crossed the Atlantic to perform manual work in the city and on Brazilian plantations 10 .
The persistence of out-dated sociability patterns associated to a slaving milieu and to Brazilian patriarchal may be noted. They continued within an expanding São Paulo. Alongside new technologies, economic activities and recent social occupationstruly urban areasthe marks of a past era were evident where social hierarchies were dictated by rigid patterns of birth and insertion. (Costa & Schwarcz, 2000, p. 38)

Twenty-two years later, the first class of practical agronomists of São Paulo (1903)
In the midst of bias, disagreements, strives and a precarious structure, the Practical Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz graduated its first class of Agronomists, at secondary level, on November 20, 1903. Only seven out of a total of 25 students enrolled in 1901, received their diploma. According to the School Congregation Minutes Book of November 23, 1903, the first graduates were: José Baptista de Carmo Lopes (Minas Gerais), Odilon Ribeiro Nogueira (São Paulo), Otaviano de Moraes Sampaio (São Paulo), Luiz Eugênio de Souza Nogueira (Rio de Janeiro), João do Amaral Mello (São Paulo), José Maria de Paula (São Paulo) and the son of professor Lacordaire Duarte, Carlos Tomás de 10 "Searching for reasons for not attending practical classes brought forward another serious difficulty faced by the school: students were not only unwilling towards field exercises due to prejudice against manual work in agriculture [...] but rebelled against daily 'monotonous' exercises, for being repetitive and exhausting, and asked for a reduction in working hours" (Perecin, 2004, p. 241).
Magalhães Duarte (Minas Gerais). Professor Aristóteles Pereira was the patron of the first class.
The festive graduation event was attended by Luiz de Toledo Piza e Almeida, Secretary of Agriculture of São Paulo, José Amândio Sobral, former director of the school and, in 1903, Inspector of the 6 th Agronomy District, and the General Director of the Secretariat of the state of São Paulo, Eugênio Lefevre, and by authorities from Piracicaba. The speaker who represented the students on graduation day was José Maria de Paula, whose speech was transcribed to the Minutes Book of the solemn school sessions, on November 23, 1903, reported 'São Paulo´s pride' because it was a pioneer state in technological, labor and educational innovations in agricultural production, and foreseeing that Piracicaba and the Practical School would have the lead role in Brazilian 'progress'. He also thanked the Paulista Republican Party and stressed the figure of the school founder, Luiz Vicente de Souza Queiroz (Perecin, 2004, p. 254-255).
Research on the life and the outcome of the first class of undergraduates shows that these young people held government posts, especially within the Secretary of Agriculture. Others returned to their farms to improve production through scientific and practical knowledge acquired in Piracicaba (Molina, 2011).
Twenty-two years of projects and delays passed between 1881 when Luiz de Queiroz tried to establish a school at the back of his residence; when the private 'Brazilian Gentleman Association' was established and projected the 'Agricultural School of São Paulo' in Piracicaba (1891); when the state of São Paulo became responsible for the Practical Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz (1892), inaugurated in 1901, and 1903 when the institution formed its first group of agronomists.
Due to the fact that the agrarian elite waited 22 years to form its first group of agronomists in 1903, it would be rather natural that the future of the institution was rather bleak. Further, the Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz started 1904 with a three-month delay in the payment of employees (professors and staff) and debts to suppliers. The model farm administrator, Milton Underdown, resigned and returned to the United States 11 in the same year. Owing to deep instability, the school became 11 The influence of the United States may be perceived in the Agricultural School of Lavras (ESAL-1908), "[…] with regard to organization, operation, curricula and teaching methods. In Piracicaba, in "Luiz de Queiroz" (1901), practically empty: the institution had only 3 teachers and one student enrollment for 1904 (Perecin, 2004). In the wake of such abandonment, the Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz seemed to have the same fate as other agricultural schools in Brazil, or rather, its closure.
In fact, twenty-eight higher education courses in agronomy were established in Brazil between 1877 and 1936. Seventeen ceased their activities and the other 10 schools were maintained precariously, plus the secondary and elementary schools which were also closed (Capdeville, 1991).
It may be said that constant delays in its inauguration and the degraded state of Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz in its early years of existence were the consequence of material aspects, which at that period molded the conservative and traditionalist practice of the hegemonic ruling class, at the local and national levels. It may be affirmed that due to the dynamics of domestic agriculture from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, based mainly on the great plantation, on monoculture for export, on predatory exploitation of workers (slaves, former slaves and poor immigrants), on plenty of new and fertile lands with an enormous disregard for management and soil conservation, investments in agricultural education that aimed at a national and autonomous capitalist modernization were not deemed necessary. Only routine, colonial, archaic methods were enough to enrich national ruralist classes and their international partners.
It cannot be denied that, within the historical context analyzed, as occurred with the Agricultural School Luiz de Queiroz case, there were proposals or attempts to modernize the Brazilian capitalist system, albeit by a small section of the ruling class. It is worth noting that in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Brazil experienced a change in its political regime, from an imperial-monarchic system into an oligarchic republic; changes in the labor system, from slavery to liberal; small increments in the production sector with machines for the processing of coffee and the opening of railways, in addition to establishing agricultural educational institutionsthese innovations, paradoxically, were foregrounded on colonial characteristics, such as access to the "United States influence was counterbalanced by European influence which, in Bahia (1887), in Pelotas (1891) and in polytechnic schools was almost exclusively" (Capdeville 1991, p. 58). landownership, due to the maintenance of large plantations, characterized by predatory exploitation, extensive and export-oriented monoculture, serving exclusively the interests of the national ruling class and, above all, the consuming centers, where Brazil´s role within the international capitalist system was to produce cheap coffee for the benefit of Europe and the United States.
In the 'Age of Empires', it was necessary and convenient for great landowners to maintain a submissive, undeveloped, peripheral Brazil as a provider of precarious manual work force, cheap raw materials and importer of expensive manufactured goods.