The aim of the nationalisms of the nineteenth century to form a homogeneous people, made up of citizens, became a goal of the so-called Brazilian Generation of 1870, which fought hard to adapt the European civilization to the Brazilian reality. Olavo Bilac and Manoel Bomfim, inheritors of those worries but active in public life only after the Primeira Republica (1889-1930), considered public education the ideal means (1) to achieve an image of a unified Brazilian people, with the given varieties, (2) to present a big national territory, (3) to establish certain basic moral concepts and (4) to further patriotism. This article is about the book, written by the two authors mentioned above, Atravez do Brasil. Livro de leitura para o curso medio das Escolas Primarias (1910), a story which condenses a nationalist effort still based on European models, but already adapted to the young Republica do Brasil .