As proposições de Evaristo da Veiga no Brasil pós-independência: educação como forma de alterar os costumes, 1824-1837

Abstract

This study presents a doctoral research that aims to understand Evaristo da Veiga’s ideas about freedom, education and social and political organization in post-independence Brazil. The study focused on the conception of Veiga as a singular subject in the history of educational thinking in Brazil. This focus converges to this research aim: the educational thinking of Veiga and the debate on public education and training in useful professions as a possibility for the education of customs. Veiga, when discussing problems presented in the regency government, became a binder of ideas about the need for school training in useful professions (manuals). In the problematization of this subject matter, questions were asked about how instruction presented itself in Veiga’s worldview? How did he expose his thinking? What were his conceptions of education, school, function, teaching programs, learning, etc.? How was the reception for his educational ideas? As research aims, we defined the following: to construct a historical-systematic understanding of processes, movements, circumstances, means and modes indicative of a formation of educational thinking in post-independence Brazil; to understand systematically the historical figure of Evaristo da Veiga as a man, intellectual and agent of the production of ideas and reflections; to produce a historical-critical analysis of how Veiga materialized his thinking and his reception; to understand Veiga’s thinking for instruction in view of an ideal of national construction. From the methodological point of view, the research assumed a search in physical collections in Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, digital archives as well. The result was a list of inclusive historical sources of post mortem inventory, letters, books of tribute poetry, editions of the Aurora Fluminense newspaper, laws and ministerial reports. As historical research, it is tied to the research line “history and historiography of education” of the post graduation program in Education of the Federal University of Uberlândia. Results allow us to see Veiga as someone attentive to his time and interested in the political debate; as a prominent figure and someone whose life and work are opened to the observation of the constitution of a Brazilian educational thought. His propositions for a way of thinking about education and moral education were pinched with concerns that appeared to him in the foreground. When discussing political, economic and organizational interests of Brazil with its interlocutors, he pointed out a concern with the instruction to raise awareness of the political system. Veiga saw it as important to think about instructing women as a qualified vector for the education of offspring. Education and moral education could gradually constitute different conducts that would form the man who had as the Brazilian.