Education as priesthood: teacher training in Republican Pará state (1891-1904)

Abstract

The article examines the educational policies for training
teachers in Pará State, during the First Republic, through the
concept that guided political and educational reform of
Normal Schools during the first administration of Governor
Lauro Sodré (1891-1897); and based on the model of the
‘good teacher’ found in pedagogical magazine A Escola
(1900-1904). In this context, teacher training was a strategic
occurrence seeking to legitimize the new regime by organizing
an institutional arrangement: Normal School reform and the
educational recommendations of A Escola magazine. In this
arrangement, the schoolmaster was the ‘priest’ of the
Republican cause, with a ‘mission’ to ensure the legitimacy of
institutions and the civic and political formation of future
citizens.