Instruction of child unavailable in the oitocentist Maranhão

Abstract

The growing increase in poverty in the Province of Maranhao in the 1980s, after the Balaiada Revolt, contributed to the creation of the Casa dos Educandos Artifices in 1841, which collects underprivileged children. Those admitted were taught the first letters, the Christian doctrine, and received a mechanical instruction that was acquired in the Arsenal de Guerra, the public works of the government and in private workshops. Teaching divided into theoretical and literary lessons is organized like the other classes of primary education; learners who learned to read, write and count; received notions of national grammar and vocal and instrumental music classes. The professional modality consisted of learning a mechanical art: mason, tailor, carpenter, locksmith and cooper. The objective is to rescue the life cycle of this Institution that culminates with the Proclamation of the Republic, resorting to the crossing of several sources: handwritten; offices of the directors to the presidents of the Province; reports of the provincial presidents themselves; regulations; laws and the newspapers that circulated in São Luís in the period of 1841 to 1889, in the light of the theoretical contributions of Norbert Elias. The categories of analysis adopted were: institution creation and installation processes; characterization and use of physical space, power relations (between director, clerk and teachers); flow of disciplines and organization of school time; teachers, legislation, standards and administration. We contributed to this research to understand the nature of the professional education and the characteristics of the school institutions destined to the reception of underprivileged children in Maranhão of century XIX.