Abstract

BASTOS, Maria Helena Câmara. Beloved and idolized motherland: studying the book why I am proud of my country, by Affonso Celso (1900). Educ. Rev. [online]. 2002, n.20, pp.01-16. ISSN 0104-4060.

This study analyzes the book Why I am proud of my country, by Affonso Celso which was a compulsory reading for high school students for many years. This book had many translations and editions and was considered a guide to patriotism for its moralizing function and educative, civic, patriotic, and social intentions. It establishes a discursive unity that “produces order, asserts distances and divisions” (CHARTIER, 1990, p. 28), which represented the values of the Brazilian intelligentsia concerning to the republican pedagogic project of building a new man for a new regime. During the First Republic, such beliefs were represented by the virtues of moral and civic instruction as a means of keeping the social order and fortifying the national character. At that period, moral, civic and religious education became the main concern for those who wanted to control social relations and structures thus regenerating the Nation. This book is inserted in an extensive list of “motherland history” manuals which were available during the first decades of the XX Century and had the objective of strengthening the national identity.

Keywords : Brazilian Education; First Republic; Readings for Formation.

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