Public schools for negroes and the poor in Brazil: An imperical invention

Abstract

This paper presents the final research data on the schooling of poor, negro and mixed-race children in Brazil, particularly in the province of Minas Gerais during the constitutionalist Monarchy (1824-1889). The main objective of this dissertation which analysed diverse documents on public education is to demonstrate the popular character of the school in the Empire and argument that its failure in the function of educating and civilizing poor, negro and mixed-race children is exactly in the characterization of the clientele at whom the public school was aimed in the XIX century as non-educable. The importance of the theme for deepening the debate on the history of the school in Brazil is also highlighted.