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Repression to Reform: Education in the Republic of Paraguay, 1811–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Jerry W. Cooney
Jerry W. Cooney*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Louisville
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Extract

The independence of Spanish America presented new problems to the republics created out of the wreckage of Spain's American Empire. Economic restructuring, political organization, relations with neighbors and Europe, and the rise of new political groups all occupied the attention of young governments. One of the many social questions that had to be faced was that of education. Was it to be elitist and traditional as in the colonial era? Would the Church still be the primary agency for education? And how should formal learning be utilized for the good of the new societies?

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , Winter 1983 , pp. 413 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1. Spell, Jefferson Rea, Rousseau in the Spanish World before 1833: A Study in Franco-Spanish Literary Relations (New York, 1969). Also see Whitaker, Arthur P. (ed.), Latin America and the Enlightenment, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, New York, 1961).Google Scholar

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6. “Spanish” in this sense solely signifies someone who was not legally an Indian or Black. By 1800, through race mixing and a common culture, it is probable that a “Guaraní” Paraguayan and a “Spanish” Paraguayan were not that different.Google Scholar

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20. Ibid., pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

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24. Acota, Pérez, Carlos Antonio López, pp. 494–495. For a discussion of the interesting catechism of San Alberto see Massare, , La instrucción pública, pp. 90–95.Google Scholar

25. Rengger, , The Reign, p. 136.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., pp. 186–187; and Acosta, Pérez, Carlos Antonio Lopez, pp. 503–505.Google Scholar

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29. The plight of the clergy in the early 1840s was such that in 1843 there existed in all of Paraguay but forty-three elderly priests. Padre Marco Antonio Maíz to Bisop Ambrosio Camodonico, Internuncio and Extraordinary Apostolic Legate in the Empire of Brazil, Asunción, August 20, 1843 in Archivo Segreto Vaticano, Processus Datariae, Proc. Dat. 206, ff. 397–398.Google Scholar

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33. Consular Decree, Asunción, November 30, 1841 in ANA-SH 245; Moreno, Fulgencio R., La ciudad de la Asunción, 2nd ed. (Asunción, 1968), p. 252; and “Juramento” of Marco Antonio Maíz, Asunción, July 28, 1843 in Archivio Segreto Vaticano. Processus Datariae, Proc. Dat. 206, ff. 488–490.Google Scholar

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36. José Joaquin Palacios to Consuls, Asunción, April 23, 1842; and Decree, Consular, Asunción, April 25, 1842 both in ANA-SH 254.Google Scholar

37. Decree of President López, Asunción, August 16, 1844 in Colecão Visconde Rio Branco, Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janerio, I-29, 24, 8 #9.Google Scholar

38. “Mensaje de 1842,” Consul López, Asunción, November 24, 1842 in López, , Mensajes, p. 10.Google Scholar

39. Consular Decree, Asunción, October 23, 1843 in ANA-SH 246.Google Scholar

40. Consular Decree, Asunción, October 28, 1843 in ANA-SH 257.Google Scholar

41. “Mensaje de 1844,” President López, Asunción, March 12, 1844 in López, , Mensajes, p. 26.Google Scholar

42. Ignacio, José Eyzaguirre, Victor, Los intereses católicos en América (Paris, 1859), I, pp. 214–215; and Anon., Breve reseña histórica de la Iglesia de la Santísima Asunción del Paraguay (Asunción, 1906), p. 30.Google Scholar

43. Acosta, Pérez, Carlos Antonio López, pp. 494–495.Google Scholar

44. “Capellanía,” Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana (Madrid, n.d.), XI, pp. 429–434. Capellanías could also be found for religious education or other pious purposes but in Paraguay masses for the dead were most common.Google Scholar

45. Consular Decree, Asunción, October 27, 1842 in Archivo Nacional de Asunción, Colección Juan Natalicio González, Carlos Antonio López II, p. 376.Google Scholar

46. Consular Decrees, Asunción, May 25 & 27, 1842, both in ANA-SH 253.Google Scholar

47. Consular Decree, Asunción, June 20, 1842 in ANA-SH 251.Google Scholar

48. For the process of the dissolution of the capellanias see ANA-NE 3091, 3139, & 3150.Google Scholar

49. “Mensaje de 1844” President López, Asunción, March 12, 1844, in López, , Mensajes, p. 26.Google Scholar

50. Article 27 of Título VII of the March 16, 1844, Paraguayan Constitution in Mendonca, Juan Carlos, Constitución de la República del Paraguay y sus Antecedentes. Constituciones de 1844, 1870, y 1940. (Asunción, 1967), p. 22.Google Scholar

51. Williams, , Rise and Fall, p. 125.Google Scholar

52. Presidential Decree, Asunción, March 12, 1845 in ANA-SH 272. For the disparity of teachers' salaries in rural Paraguay in the López era see Acosta, Pérez, Carlos Antonio López, pp. 497–500; and Massare Isasí, Olinda M., “La enseñanza en la época de Carlos A. López,” La Tribuna (Asunción), August 18, 1963.Google Scholar

53. Presidential Decree, Asunción, March 12, 1845 in ANA-SH 272.Google Scholar

54. “Mensaje de 1849,” President López, Asunción, May 30, 1849 in López, , Mensajes, p. 58; and Acosta, Pérez, Carlos Antonio López, p. 496.Google Scholar

55. Comandante of the Villa de San Pedro de Ycuamandiyú Pedro Ignacio Rosas to President López, San Pedro, June 8, 1849 in ANA-SH 284.Google Scholar

56. Ibid.Google Scholar

57. Gelly, Juan Andres, El Paraguay: Lo que fué, lo que es, y lo que será (Paris, 1926; originally published at Rio de Janeiro, 1848), pp. 80–82.Google Scholar

58. By 1857 there existed in the republic 408 public schools with 16,755 students—a three-fold increase from the Francia era. In addition, the 1850s witnessed a rapid increase in private schools. The next year the long-awaited Colegio Nacional replaced the Academia Literaria. Acosta, Pérez, Carlos Antonio López, pp. 495 & 521.Google Scholar

59. For the educational reforms of the 1850s and the importation of foreign specialists see Pérez-Acosta, , Carlo Antonio López, passim; Plá, Josefina, The British in Paraguay, 1850–1870 (Richmond, United Kingdom 1976), passim; Williams, , Rise and Fall, pp. 177–189; and Williams, John Hoyt, “Foreign Técnicos and th Modernization of Paraguay, 1840–1870,” Journal of Inter-American Studies, 19:2 (May 1977): passim. Google Scholar

60. For an account of that disastrous war see Kolinski, Charles J., Independence or Death! The Story of the Paraguayan War (Gainesville, Florida, 1965).Google Scholar

61. Warren, Harris Gaylord, Paraguay and the Triple Alliance: The Postwar Decade, 1869–1978 (Austin, Texas, 1978), pp. 166–169.Google Scholar