Revista Exitus
On-line version ISSN 2237-9460
Abstract
LIMA, Maria do Carmo Gonçalves da Silva; COSTA, Célio Juvenal and MENEZES, Sezinando Luiz. ANTÓNIO NUNES RIBEIRO SANCHES AND HIS PROPOSALS ON EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN 18th CENTURY PORTUGAL: analysis of the Cartas sobre a Educação da Mocidade (1760). Rev. Exitus [online]. 2019, vol.9, n.1, pp.286-314. Epub July 16, 2019. ISSN 2237-9460. https://doi.org/10.24065/2237-9460.2019v9n1id724.
The purpose of this article is to present an analysis of the reform proposals for education in Portugal in the XVII century, contained in the Cartas sobre a Educação da Mocidade (1760) (Letters on the Education of Younth) by António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches (1699-1783). The Cartas (Letters) were written in 1759 and published the next year, precisely during the effervescent period of the Enlightenment in Europe. The Portuguese intellectual elite, who had access to the ideas of the Enlightenment, were convinced that teaching in Portugal was backward when compared to that in other European countries. When Joseph I became king in 1750, he appointed Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo as his Foreign and War Minister, the future Marquis of Pombal. In 1759, Pombal, already as Prime Minister, expelled the Jesuits from the kingdom since he was convinced that they had the educational monopoly in their hands and they impaired the kingdom´s modernization and progress. Subsequently, Pombal restructured the studies in Portugal. The Portuguese physician Ribeiro Sanches suggested a reform project for the Portuguese kingdom and wrote his Cartas sobre a Educação da Mocidade. Sanches recommended reform for Basic Studies, for University Studies and suggested the establishment of the Royal Noble College. Moreover, he insisted on the secularization of studies. The Cartas targeted the pedagogical guidelines that would foreground Pombal’s teaching reforms.
Keywords : António Nunes Ribeiro Sanches; Education of Protugal; Pombal´s reform.