Pires de Almeida and Primitivo Moacyr: a analysis of the writing of the history of education

Abstract

 The purpose of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis of of two classical works of Brazilian historiography. The first is the book published by José Ricardo Pires de Almeida, entitled L'instruction publique au Brésil (1500-1889): histoire et legislation and published in 1889; the second refers to the book The Instruction and the Provinces - 1st Volume From Amazonas to Alagoas by Primitivo Moacyr, published in 1939. In this analysis, we will try to explain the characteristics and understand the theoretical and methodological conceptions that guided the construction of writing of the authors. For the analysis, we focus on public education in the period of the Empire in the Province of Rio Grande do Norte, after the Additional Act of 1834. The deliberations of Michel de Certeau (1982) about the relations between history and writing grounded our research on the making of the authors' history. This study emphasized the importance of the works for the field of History of Education and showed that the writings were permeated by the political and cultural relations of the time, associated with the practices of registration and compilation of information, primarily official, defended by the Historical and Geographical Institute Brazilian (IHGB) and having as central focus the state actions in the scope of education.