O projeto educacional idealizado por Estevam de Oliveira em defesa das escolas graduadas (1900-1908)

Abstract

The Objective of the research is to analyze Estevam de Oliveira’s educational project and to understand the peculiarities that distinguishes it from the one done in the reform of 1906, when the state president João Pinheiro transformed into public politic the proposal about creating the graduate schools. The schools were considered, by the end of the XIX century and beginning of the XX century, the most adequate model for the dissemination of the primary education in Europe and in the United States. In Brazil, they were initially created in São Paulo (1893) and posteriorly in other states of the federation, especially the ones that had good economic conditions. In Minas Gerais, they were created officially by the educational reform promoted by João Pinheiros government, in 1906. Estevam de Oliveira was one of the greatest supporter of the creation of these institutions in Minas Gerais, as from his point of view they would rebuild its elementary education. Estevam de Oliveira propounded a reform of the primary education that was outlined in the pages of the Jornal do Commercio, newspaper from the city of Juiz de Fora and compiled in the report delivered to the Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1902, after his trip to the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, influenced by the reform of 1906. Although the reform had incorporated a part of his proposals, the inspector was unsatisfied with it, expressing his criticisms and suggestions of changing in the articles published by the newspaper Correio de Minas. To understand the educational project of Estevam de Oliveira, the research was supported by the contributions of the historical hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur (2010), mainly exploring the relation between experience space and horizon of expectation.