The First Portuguese Republic and the Secularisation of the Primary School

Abstract

The cultural revolution subjacent to citizen's conversion to the republican ideology undertaken by the 1st Portuguese Republic (1910–1926) proposed, from its promoters point of view, to fight the institution that seemed at that time to hold the hegemony—the Catholic church. It is supposed that Catholicism carried a decisive influence in the people's culture and mentality as well as being part of a social control. As it was attempted to establish a new social agreement in the line of positive instruction, different from the one represented until then by Catholicism, it became necessary to promote the interiorization of secular values. The primary school is given the responsibility to promote the moral and spiritual unity of the nation, a unity set on new grounds independent from any religious reference and considered anachronistic and incompatible with progress. And that is the role of the moral and civic education.This will not be, much to the contrary, a peaceful matter in the heart of the Republic. Besides fighting against the confessional school must be added the confrontation with the defenders of the neutral school, which clearly separated the educational and the religious areas where religion was relegated to the private sphere and those of the secular school which was far more engaged in fighting the so called religious precepts and more directed to mould the children's conscience to more clearly defined values. This was the posture of the official republicanism.Through an informal curriculum, perhaps considered its main schooling manifestation, we witness the important gains obtained in the context of moral and civic instruction. The republican pedagogy was aware that the desired consensus could not be obtained merely through the rational discourse. This pretext forms the base of the development of rites, cults and secularly inspired symbols and which are introduced as alternatives to the exterior symbology of the Catholic cult. In this way it was intended to recreate popular imagery, encourage a new sociability and obtain the consensus.for an alternative multiple lift choice based on the values and symbolic practices if republican and secular life.