Unprotected girls and teacher training in Portugal in the second half of the nineteenth century

Abstract

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, the cultural panorama in Portugal was largely dominated by education issues. The awareness of the weaknesses of the Portuguese education system was now based on a growing interest in statistics, which allowed the reinforcement of arguments regarding the country’s backwardness and the need to adopt measures that would put Portugal on the road to regeneration and progress. The debate regarding education was based on a wide range of subjects. However, two aspects are of particular interest to us: i) the need to provide the country with properly qualified teachers, creating establishments for this purpose, which would provide primary school teachers with a specific, specialised and relatively long training of a pedagogical and practical nature; ii) the attention focused on institutions for the protection of children and young people at risk in the context of the social protection policies of the time, which were based on the concept of social regeneration and on the role of education in the progress and development of the country. These two fields overlap when some pupils, who got their education in asylums, seek to construct a more dignified professional future through teacher training school.

Keywords:

• asylum
• boarding school regime
• domestic education
• teacher training school

Notes

¹ See António Costa, Instrucção nacional (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1870), 67–73; and see also Victor Ribeiro, História da beneficência pública em Portugal (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1970).

² António Alfredo Alves, “Asilos femininos I,” Anais da Academia de Estudos Livres nos 4–5 (1912): 143.

³ Fernando Emídio da Silva, História do Asilo de D. Pedro V. 1857–1957 (Lisbon: Emp. Tip. Casa Portuguesa, 1957), 143.

⁴ Location of Recolhimento do Santissimo Sacramento e Assumpção. In the first academic year of opened selection procedures for admission (1866–1867), it sent two pupils to the new Escola Normal – Carolina Adelaide Pereira de Lacerda, aged 23, and Maria Eduarda Vegia, aged 17.

⁵ See António Nóvoa, Le Temps des Professeurs – Analyse socio‐historique de la profession enseignante au Portugal (XVIIIe–XXe siécle) (Lisbon: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica, 1987), 447–449.

⁶ See Luiz Filipe Leite, Do ensino normal em Portugal (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1892), 19.

⁷ See António Nóvoa, ed., Dicionário de educadores portugueses (Porto: Asa, 2000), 627–628.

⁸ Mariano Ghira, Relatório sobre a visita de inspecção extraordinária às escolas do districto de Lisboa feita no anno lectivo de 1863–1864 (Lisbon: Typographia da Gazeta de Portugal, 1866), 266.

⁹ See António Nóvoa, ed., Dicionário de educadores portugueses (Porto: Asa, 2003), 418–421.

¹⁰ António Costa, Instrucção nacional (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1870), 209.

¹¹ These boxes contain handwritten documents, which are fundamental to the study of the first students to attend teacher training schools. They focus mainly on the application process to become state‐supported students or tuition‐paying students in the Escola Normal do Calvário for girls. They provide detailed information on the profile of the students wishing to attend the teacher training course. In total, 225 applications were analysed, each of them containing a formal request to the king, in which the students asked to be accepted on the course. There were other documents, such as a statement of good moral and civic behaviour, a statement of compliance with Catholic norms, and also their grades transcript, medical statement and birth certificate. These documents were issued by the political, administrative and religious authorities and doctors. In this documental corpus we can still find similar applications by other students to the Escola Normal de Marvila; official documentation of the letters sent and received by both schools; lists of admitted and attending students; exams done by the students and their results; official notices of new admittance exams; students’ statements; students’ requests for funding, school and personal material or even for a new admission to the school; minutes of the exams’ juries. For historical reasons, these documents belong to the Portuguese national archive fund. However, they are very similar in nature and type to the documents found in the school’s archives, in the sense they give the same kind of information – for school’s archives see Mogarro, Maria João. “Archives and education: the construction of educational memory,” Sísifo. Educational Sciences Journal, 01 (2006): 73–84, http://sisifo.fpce.ul.pt

¹² See Luiz Filipe Leite, Do ensino normal em Portugal (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1892), 19.

¹³ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom. Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Maria da Conceição Martins, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Teacher Training Schools. Calvário and Marvila, Box 4221 (1880). At the time this student was 18 and had already spent 12 years in the Asylo D. Maria Pia.

¹⁴ Victor Ribeiro, História da beneficência pública em Portugal (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1970): 163.

¹⁵ Idem, 165.

¹⁶ Fernando Emídio da Silva, História do Asilo de D. Pedro V. 1857–1957 (Lisbon: Emp. Tip. Casa Portuguesa, 1957), 154.

¹⁷ Idem, 168.

¹⁸ Asilo da Ajuda sob a protecção de Sua Majestade a Senhora D. Maria Pia. Gerência de 29 de Março a 30 de Junho de 1896 e dos anos económicos de 1896 a 1897 e 1897 a 1898 (Lisbon: A Liberal), 15.

¹⁹ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Carolina Adelaide Pereira de Lacerda, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4212 (1867); see note 4 for more information on this student.

²⁰ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Maria da Glória Almada, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4213 (1869). This student was a single orphan (no father) and was 16 years and 8 months old when she applied to the Escola Normal. She requested that the minimum age criteria be disregarded.

²¹ See notes 4 and 20.

²² ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Maria Leopoldina Lamego, Maria José da Rocha e Maria Benedicta de Ascensão e Sousa, applications process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4212 (1867). Maria Leopoldina came from the Asylo da Ajuda aged 17, the same age as Maria José; the latter and Maria Benedicta, aged 20, were from Viana do Castelo (North of Portugal) and had been living with their families, respectively.

²³ See Luiz Filipe Leite, Do ensino normal em Portugal (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1892), 15–18.

²⁴ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Carolina da Conceição Garizo, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4219 (1878). Carolina C. Garizo was 17 years old.

²⁵ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Maria José de Aguilar, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4213 (1869).

²⁶ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Carolina de Assumpção Lima, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4221 (1880). Carolina A. Lima is referred to as a diligent student. After she was born, she was left at the Antiga Roda de Santarém (a place where it was typical for mothers to abandon babies they could not raise for various reasons). She was 18 years old in 1880.

²⁷ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Joana Angelica Pinheiro, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4212 (1867). Joana A. Pinheiro was 17 and an orphan living in Recolhimento da Senhora da Esperança. The Misericórdia do Porto (charity institution) was in charge of her.

²⁸ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Maria Jesuína de Oliveira, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4214 (1872).

²⁹ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Belmira da Conceição, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” idem.

³⁰ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Georgina da Assumpção Santos, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4216 (1875). Georgina A. Santos was 17 and considered a very good student.

³¹ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Amélia Augusta da Silva, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” idem.

³² ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Maria das Dores Lopes, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4214 (1873).

³³ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Philomena Geronyma de Freitas, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” idem.

³⁴ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Catarina Rita Guanilho Lopes e Maria Carlota Moura, applications process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” Box 4215 (1873).

³⁵ ANTT – Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of the Tower of the Tombo), Ministry of the Kingdom, Directorate‐General for Public Education, “Maria do Rosário e Aragão, application process for admission at the Escola Normal in Lisbon for girls,” idem.

³⁶ See Michel Foucault, Tecnologías del yo (Barcelona: Paidós, 1996).

³⁷ See Erving Goffman, Asiles. Études sur la condition sociale des malades mentaux et autres reclus (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1968).

³⁹ Mariano Ghira, Relatório sobre a visita de inspecção extraordinária às escolas do districto de Lisboa feita no anno lectivo de 1863–1864 (Lisbon: Typographia da Gazeta de Portugal, 1866), 259–261.

³⁸ António Costa, Instrucção nacional (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1870), 213.