Um monumento para a educação: Escola do Povo, São Vicente/SP, 1893-1913

Abstract

This research investigates a period in the History of Brazilian Education from the implantation of the School of the People, created in the municipality of São Vicente, in 1893, and its transition to the First School Group of the city in 1913. The objectives are to present the agents who participated in this process and identify the actions developed in the construction and transformation of this school space. Created on the initiative of a group of Vincentian citizens, mostly from the Masonic Lodge of the Brotherhood of Santos, the school was installed in a dry and wet warehouse and was transferred in 1898 to a new building, built according to characteristics that could be classified as of a Republican School Architecture. In 1913, the school was administered by the State Government and denominated as ""First School Group of São Vicente"", called ""Grupão"" by residents of the city. The methodological procedure adopted qualifies the school building, its characteristics and analyzes the social relations, articulating the republican scenario to the specifics of the groups acting in the municipality. It also indicates aspects of the educational proposal implemented there. The research was developed in written and iconographic documents, found in archives existing in the municipality of São Vicente-SP, in the region of Baixada Santista, in articles published in the press and private documents, together with the study of bibliographic references on school architecture and the historiography of education. Analyzing the school and its building in a historical perspective as a monument and document, and a person who has witnessed events, demands that one look closely at something that is more than a building or an institution, because it will always be bearer of meanings and an agglutinating focus of human relations. Who built it? Why did you build it? What is the meaning of a School for the municipality? Also, why and how were the additions made? These inquiries guided the investigation into what the agents were, how the proposals for the ""new"" constructed spaces were developed, what their intentions were, the ramifications, and the consequences.