INTRODUCTION

Anísio Spínola Teixeira (1900-1971), for his work as a manager, writer, and translator, is one of the most important names of the brazilian education. According to Geribello (1977), Anísio Teixeira’s bibliography is composed of 268 publications, including books, magazine and news articles, interviews, speeches, conferences, administrative reports, foreign papers and translations.

This very condition turns the legacy of Anísio Teixeira (his writings, projects and educational interventions) subject of several research and elaborations such as dissertations, theses and books. His first biography was published in 1960 to honor his sixtieth birthday. The book entitled Anísio Teixeira: Pensamento e Ação (Anísio Teixeira: Thought and Action) was organized by Fernando de ^{Azevedo (1960}) and consists of a collection written by thirteen eminent Brazilian intellectuals: Gilberto Freyre, Afrânio Coutinho, Fernando de Azevedo, Darcy Ribeiro, Hermes Lima, Jaime de Abreu, Carneiro Lion, Juracy Silveira, Lourenço Filho, Gustavo Lessa, Luiz Henrique Dias Tavares, Delgado de Carvalho, and Péricles Madureira de Pinho. In 1973, two years after Anísio Teixeira’s death, Hermano Gouveia Neto published the book Anísio Teixeira: um educador singular (Anísio Teixeira: a singular educator). The book spawned from an exhaustive study on the life and work of Teixeira, as well as containing records of his tribute to Bahia, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Wanda Pompéu Geribello (1977) published the book titled Anísio Teixeira: análise e sistematização de sua obra (Anísio Teixeira: analysis and systematization of his work). The author intertwined Teixeira's biographical data with her writings, projects, and other contributions to education. In 1978, Hermes Lima published Anísio Teixeira: estadista da educação (Anísio Teixeira: statesman of education) (^{LIMA, 1978}). The book describes the educator's life story from his birth in Caetité (BA) to his last projects. Perhaps due to the close connection that the author had with Anísio Teixeira, the work is more than just a life account, as it contemplates very particular aspects of Anísio Teixeira, never disclosed before. Maria Lúcia Garcia Palhares ^{Schaeffer (1988}) published the book Anísio Teixeira: formação e primeiras realizações (Anísio Teixeira: Formation and First Achievements), emphasizing Anísio Teixeira’s educational thinking progress in the first eleven years of his public life - from 1924 to 1935. In 1990, Luís Viana Filho (2008) published the book Anísio Teixeira: a polêmica da educação (Anísio Teixeira: the controversy of education). The author wrote about Anísio Teixeira’s since the beginning of his public performance in the 1920s, highlighting details of documents, letters and reports of his first educational experiences. Clarice Nunes has long dedicated to the study of Anísio Teixeira’s life and work. Among Nunes’ publications, the most complete is Anísio Teixeira: poesia da ação (Anísio Teixeira: poetry of action) (^{NUNES, 2000}). This book was published in cooperation with the Center for Documentation and Research Support in the History of Education (CDAPH), on the occasion of Anísio Teixeira’s birthday centenary. The author investigated Anísio Teixeira’s life, based on the perspective of a historian, recovering primary sources of personal archives and establishing dialogue with authors of other biographies. Clarice Nunes also published the book Anísio Teixeira in the Educators Collection, edited by the Ministry of Education, in 2010, which briefly describes her passage through education.

Concerning thesis and dissertations on Anísio Teixeira, Darlene Olinda de Carvalho carried out a survey in the database of the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes), in 2012. The report concluded by the author is present in the chapter three of the master's thesis entitled Educação escolar e americanismo em escritos de 1927 e 1934 de Anísio Teixeira (School Education and Americanism in writings of 1927 and 1934 by Anísio Teixeira). The analyzed data goes from 1987 to 2011, having as reference the keyword Anísio Teixeira. The author found 52 theses, 164 academic master’s dissertations and 12 professional master’s products, totaling 228 products. Among them, there were 133 searches in which appeared his name; however, that did not refer to the Brazilian educator and his work, but to the National Institute of Education Anísio Teixeira (Inep). These products on the Inep were excluded by Carvalho (2014) for not adopting the work of Anísio Teixeira as object of study or as theoretical reference. After this first filter, there were 32 theses and 63 dissertations, totaling 95 products. Carvalho classified them into two large groups, one of which Anísio Teixeira appears as an object of study (49 products) and another as a theoretical reference (46 products)².

Nonetheless, the privileged place of Anísio Teixeira in the history of Brazilian education and the reach and depth of his work and his writings still inspire many questions. One of these questions is related to what would have led Anísio Teixeira to definitively prefer the public education, since the first 25 years of his existence tended to lead him to other activities: priest, jurist, politician or land manager in Bahia. In 1911 Anísio Teixeira joined the São Luiz Gonzaga College, in Salvador, run by Jesuit priests. In 1914 he studied at the Antônio Vieira College, of the same Jesuit order. From the experience of Jesuit colleges, the desire to pursue a religious career was born, and from the age of nineteen to twenty-two, Anísio Teixeira oscillated between a sacred life and a secular life. During this time he studied the second year of law, but soon realized that he was not identified with that field. On the other hand, he felt a strong family influence leading him towards political action. This influence came from his father, Deocleciano, who had a permanent ambition for his son to become “(...) his natural successor, future family patriarch” (^{NUNES, 2010}, p.14).

Anísio Teixeira’s definitive inclination for public education matured between 1924 and 1929, when a series of experiences occurred: he takes the chair of General Inspector of Education in Bahia (1924), he travels with Jesuit priests to Europe (1925) (1926-1927), he travels alone to the United States of America (1927), he resumes the management of Bahian education (1928) and, in 1928-29, he returns to the USA to study at the University of Columbia. After this intense set of experiences and returning to Brazil in 1929, Anísio Teixeira, now 29, is already inclined to public education to become one of the articulators of the new school movement.

It is in this territory that this article is situated. The broad question is to identify, in this set of experiments carried out between 1924 and 1929, what would have motivated the young Anísio Teixeira to lean towards public education. The particular question on which the article is devoted is to identify the importance, weight or influence that the four-month trip to Europe would have had on the definite inclination of Anísio Teixeira for public education. After all, this is one of the questions about him that still remains open.

The empirical material of the research that originated the article was composed by personal reports produced by the young Anísio during the trip to Europe in 1925 and on. These reports appear in three texts. One of them is an interview that he granted to the Bahian newspaper “A Tarde”, on November 30, 1925, shortly after returning from Europe. The second is a six-page handwritten document containing notes on his visits to schools in Belgium on the occasion of the same voyage of 1925. The third and most important document of the European voyage is a set of handwritten and personal notes produced aboard of a ship, while traveling to and from Europe. This last set of annotations constitutes the main document because in it Anísio Teixeira described the daily life of the voyage and the scenery and scenes that he recorded in his mind to form representations of the Old World. The writings accumulate 54 pages, being the original under guard of the CPDOC.

Social representation was the conceptual and method reference that guided the research. The studies on social representation of ^{Moscovici (2007}) and ^{Jodelet (2001}) sought to identify the representation of the subject over something, in a given circumstance or context. It was concerned, therefore, to define what the object of a possible representation was and, also, in what social and cultural circumstances this representation was constructed. In this sense, it was always tried to consider that the subject and young traveler Anísio Teixeira, besides being a Brazilian of the early twentieth century, was a Northeasterner, son of a landowner colonel and with a strong Catholic Jesuit formation. This means that the image or representation about Europe and its schools was certainly conditioned by the very representation that Anísio Teixeira had of Brazil, a country predominantly agrarian, colonelist, economically late and still marked by the slave heritage.

1 The Circumstances of Anisio Teixeiras’ First International Trip

In 1925, Anísio Teixeira was only 25 years old, had just graduated in legal sciences and was appointed Teaching General-Inspector in Bahia. From this context, the first question arises: why and for what the young educational inspector is going to travel to Europe for four months? For this question the documents investigated indicate a combination of personal reasons, political and religious justifications.

To understand the subjective order of the reasons for the trip, it is convenient to anticipate something that only appeared in the report of the trip to the USA, held one year and five months later. When traveling to the USA in 1927, the young man Anísio Teixeira stated that he traveled in search of youth and rejuvenation. When traveling to Europe in 1925, the young Anísio Teixeira claimed that he needed to rest. It seems that the young Teixeira, aged 25, was feeling tired and old, needing new sources of energy and inspiration. Was he feeling the burden of the patriarchal Jesuit and the family background? It could be. It is worth remembering that the Jesuits invested in the recruitment of Anísio Teixeira, that is, they had expectations that he would consecrate himself to religious life. At the same time, Deocleciano, Teixeira’s father, put many expectations in his political performance. All this certainly was a burden for young man. That is why in another passage of this article it is stated that, at 25, Anísio Teixeira lived in a personal state of tensions, dissatisfaction and contradictions. In addition, he had just been appointed to a public office out of a pure political prestige of his father. Prestige that can be relativized to the extent that Colonel Deocleciano’s plea was to see Anísio Teixeira, recently graduated in legal sciences, occupying the portifolio of legal affairs.

To the surprise of Deocleciano and Anísio Teixeira, Governor Góes Calmon, newly elected, appointed the young jurist to the public education portfolio, that is, to take care of schools, teachers, and students. Then came the anguish that the young inspector must have felt: what to do? The young Anísio Teixeira did not have answers to that question, although he knew the precariousness of his situation. He had no answers and nowhere to look up for them. For the immense task that was put on his plate, it was necessary to rest. But it was not resting in the sense of neglecting; it was resting in the sense of renewing oneself, invigorating oneself, filling oneself with inspiration. This was the personal motive of the journey: resting, new vibrations, inspiration. If Europe gave Teixeira everything that he wanted that is what will be thought throughout the article.

The political justification for the trip was less relevant in 1925. By this time Brazil had been a republic for 36 years, and the governor certainly did not have to give much explanation on absence of four months from his education inspector. In addition, Góes Calmon had high expectations on the performance of Anísio Teixeira in the Teaching Inspectorate and was aware of his inexperience: he must receive the necessary training. So, the trip, had a school alibi: Anísio Teixeira would travel to visit schools.

Finally, the religious justification, which in Catholic Brazil in 1925 was certainly more relevant than the technical or political justification. 1925 was the Holy Year summoned by Pope Pius XI to invite Catholics around the world to go on a pilgrimage to the Vatican. Anísio Teixeira traveled together with a party of Brazilian ecclesial authorities. In the only interview that Anísio Teixeira gave to the Bahian daily “A Tarde”, the main reason that he stated was one of a religious nature, highlighting the Holy Year and the pilgrimage to the Vatican.

The young Anísio Teixeira seems to have been in Europe three times: visiting churches and monasteries (including the Vatican), visiting schools (only in Belgium and Paris) and walking around a few cities (by car and on foot). The novice educational inspector was going through a personal time troubled by his age, the challenges he faced and the existential conflicts of a political and religious nature. In these reflections, which will be brought to light on a later topic, the young lawyer manifested his cultural background and typical concerns of a person who showed awareness and responsibility for the Brazilian social problems and the tasks that awaited him throughout the twentieth century.

His traditional intellectual and religious background guaranteed him remarkable traits as the organization and method in conducting his things. Therefore, if Anísio Teixeira had the intention of sharing ideas and experiences of his Euro trip, he would have certainly taken the tools and the available materials of that time, including sheets of paper. The set of notes that constitute the 54-page manuscript is in an informal and fragmented writing, requiring the reader's patience to decipher them. There are in the document many erasures, some abbreviations and words written in French, English, German, and Spanish.

It is a common feature of those diaries the chronological sequence of facts. In reading this set of personal reports of Anísio Teixeira, however, it is noticed that there is no daily record of events. There are few dates indicated for the authorship of the writing. Strictly speaking, the association of the report with the dates is only made for the events of July 17, reported by Anísio Teixeira as the first day inside the ship, and for November 11, 15, 16, 24, 28 and 29, when he reported his passages through Portugal, Spain and France and, conversely, on the way back.

Failure to indicate the dates makes it difficult to understand the facts sequentially. However, there are records that the trip lasted about four months. An alternative would be to paginate the document, facilitating consultations or verifications of the citations. However, due to the lack of chronological sequence of the personal report, it was decided not to number the pages, an attitude that could translate the idea that the writings were made in tune with the succession of events and dates.

Some details of the text contribute to a reconstruction of the geographical route carried out by Anísio Teixeira. In addition, when returned to Brazil, on November 30, 1925, Anísio Teixeira granted the aforementioned interview to the Bahian newspaper “A Tarde”, describing the impressions of the trip to Europe and systematizing some representations about the Old World and its schools. In this interview he mentioned the length of the trip, his visits to Italy, France, Belgium and Pope Pius XI, who had called Catholics on a pilgrimage of the Holy Year to Rome:

(...) I must tell you that my four months of absence were an uninterrupted round by the most deliriously consecrated places of intelligence and literature. (...) we stopped at Rome, in this holy year of 1925. (...) When everyone preached interest, Rome preached disinterest. And to set an example, the halls of the Vatican were opened for an exhibition that put tears in the eyes of the most disbelieved. (...) We went through dozens of rooms in the Vatican ... In France, I only worked to fortify my spirit’s old admirations for the French civilization and culture. In Belgium, the teaching subjects absorbed me for more than twenty days, in compelling visitations to schools and pedagogical institutes³. (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.)

It is worth noting, during the interview, that Anísio Teixeira mentioned once only the Belgian schools, but he did not refer to French schools, even though there was a record of him visiting them. This testimony may be evidence of Omer Buyse’s influence, a Belgian educator, and his book Méthodes américaines d’éducation, which Anísio Teixeira had read before his trip to Europe. The young Teaching Inspector certainly wanted to see closely the school systems in Buyse’s country. This, apart from the beginning of the changes in his educational thinking and intellectual revision produced from this reading, as Shaeffer (1988) states. For this author, the dualistic thinking that Anísio Teixeira possessed until then began to be diluted, even before his stay in the USA. Shaeffer defends the idea that the reading of Buyse’s book, between 1924-1925, had already produced in Anísio Teixeira the first changes about his conceptions on education and society. Buyse “(...) revealed to him a society that was economically and socially victorious and, more importantly, with a grandeur that threatened the economic preponderance of the old European world” (SHAFFER, 1988, p.15). The author bases her assertion by comparing two reports written by Teixeira before and after reading such book. The report produced by the educator and addressed to Governor Goés Calmon in April 1925, before his trip to Europe, is much different from the first and immature report produced by him in 1924 entitled “On the subject of the single school,” when Anísio Teixeira argued that the single school would be simple, unenforceable and incapable of developing itself equally for everyone, given the unequal nature of man. In the report of 1925, Anísio Teixeira already proposes the reform of education in Bahia, which would be approved a few months later, making clear his concern with illiteracy and criticizing the merely bookish education. According to him, education should provide students with an integral education, developing their civic, moral, intellectual and active skills. Another measure aimed at promoting and modernizing education, according to Shaeffer (1988), was the translation and distribution of Buyse’s book to Bahian teachers in 1927.

Anísio Teixeira addressed several subjects in this longer travel manuscript. In the first seven pages he was concerned with describing the ship, the daily life on board, the people who traveled, and the different treatment that was guaranteed to him in the Sierra Morena, mainly because of the people who accompanied him, that is, some bigwigs of the Catholic clergy.

When we woke up on July 17 we sailed on open sea, resisting the Sierra Morena in an admirable way to the inclemency of the waves (...). In this trip I could cite a whole series of facts that confirm this assertion: from the gentle solicitude of all the ship's personnel, the simplicity of the commander to arrange and personally collaborate to all the games and celebrations of board, to the attention of ornament the salons with South American paintings, and (...) of the Spanish language (...). A large part of the on-board staff spoke of the translation of meals in every language of the passengers and a thousand other small things with which the company sought to make the journey of each of the passengers without incident and without any setbacks. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

Afterwards, Teixeira describes his onboard fellows and the first days of his trip.

On the first Sunday we went on board, the Mass was solemnly celebrated, officiating S.Ex. Dom Mauvel - Bishop of Ilhéus - and preaching in German and Spanish. Dom Miguel Keuse, illustrious abbot of St. Paul. Several photographs have been taken of S.Ex. Dom Augusto already in a group with the officers of command of the steamy, already isolated, portraits that were insistently sought by the passengers. (...) The onboard games - observation on the simplicity of the race - The onboard parties - Singing - Dancing - The board life. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

The text goes on with narratives about natural and urban landscapes, observations about European culture and society and ruminations about the meaning of life, others about politics and others about the European people. One can see in the poetic writing of Anísio Teixeira an enchantment by the city of Vigo, in Spain, its culture, nature, and beautiful women:

But from Vigo the really healthy and strong impression we brought, and since we were in the land of Spain, a remarkable trait was that of its wives ... the cleanliness of their showy robes, the insolence of their elegance, their eyes and their blood, the vigor of their work, all for the sake of a foreigner, a salubrious and rich charm. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

Influenced by the aristocratic socio-cultural background that he had received in an environment still influenced by the times of the Empire, Anísio Teixeira demonstrated his longing and affection for the monarchical regime in some parts of his writings, especially in an account of a visit to the Count of Mafra in Portugal. Teixeira also reserved some pages to reflect on the city of Paris, its modernity, charms and disenchantment. Paris, in 1925, was certainly a scenario of contradictions. On one hand it still had vestiges of the second half of the XIX, but the general consequences of the First War also constituted its scenery. Despite that, the description of Paris is emblematic to understand the representation that the young Anísio Teixeira brought from Europe, its people and its culture.

Besides his political motives, resting and pilgrimage, Teixeira had a pedagogical purpose, for he would visit some schools. In the aforementioned six-page personal report on European schools there is also an improvisation and lack of chronological sequence of accounts, which requires the reader to make the same effort to set the order of facts or to understand the sequence of events. Part of the personal report on his visits to schools was written in paper with the initials of the hotel in which Anísio Teixeira had possibly stayed: Hot 200 Chambers et appartements avec eau courante et salles de baim eletricite - Chuffage Central Ascenseur Lift Confort Moderne. Anisio’s visitation to schools comprehended all the school grades and levels:

Last visits - At 8 o'clock at Charles Buls School. Immediately with Mr. Draps I went to the experimental psychology laboratory. (...) I went after the normal maternal school - école normal egardienne - of the State to continue my visit from the previous day. (...) I visited the kindergarten. Very Interesting. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

In the last pages of his main travelogue, Anísio Teixeira produced a brief reflection on his stay in Europe, his learning and his experiences. He said that the learning was short, but important from a technical perspective. He also mentioned his faith and the slight detachment from the religious camp to which he had been attached until then. Finally, he ended the note, saying that there was a lot of work in Bahia Teaching Province and that, despite the months of elegant roaming around Europe, there was much to be done, however, “the lovely and wandering life cycle is coming to an end” (TEIXEIRA, 1925).

2. Impressions on the European people, culture and natural landscapes: conflicts between the old and the new

Throughout his voyage, Anísio Teixeira wrote several depictions about the people, culture, and natural landscapes of Europe. Seven times the adjective velho(as) to refers to the boats, the city of Lisbon, Portugal and other landscapes or scenarios appear in the full text. The word novo(a) appears six times to refer to the German Merchant Marine, the landscapes and the acquired knowledge. The term moderno(a) was mentioned eight times to describe the ship, the cities or the lifestyle. In short, the word velho(a) was referenced four times to describe pathways, a school, and other casual descriptions. The noun antiguidade was used once to describe a monument visited in Portugal.

Another highlighted aspect by Anísio Teixeira on the Spanish people, more precisely on the women of Vigo, are the colors and the beauty that remind a feeling of familiarity and enchantment, different from what he described about other places that he visited in Europe.

Anísio Teixeira showed some dissatisfaction with having passed so quickly through the lands of Spain and also vestiges of proximity to the women of Vigo, since he says that he was recognized by them with a healthy impression of spirituality. Later, he mentions the loud laughter and the healthy beauty of the Spaniards. That is why, despite Anísio Teixeira’s description of the experience of a hurried traveler's eyes, one can note intimacy and closeness to Spanish women by the details.

About the people of Lisbon, the first impressions of Anísio Teixeira were not the best. When commenting on the employees of the monastery he visited, there was a perception of Anísio Teixeira’s rudeness and estrangement with the culture of the place. The technique, the impersonality and the formality of Europeans sounded like a lack of politeness. This is the typical representation of a Brazilian landowning colonel’s son, accustomed to the cordiality and the differential treatment given to his own. So much so that, in his personal account, Anísio Teixeira (1925) underlined the word funcionários and disqualified them as: “(...) coarse and irritating officials - all that aspect of public distribution in concerts has left us the material conviction of how the Portuguese work is being undone.” It is noticed that, when demonstrating dissatisfaction with the Portuguese work, Anísio Teixeira again presents symptoms of attachment to conservatism.

On the way back, the beauties of the landscape of northern Portugal and Minho attracted him. Surely feeling the fatigue coming from the trip, Anísio Teixeira found in Minho’s landscape a break for his body and mind fatigued:

(...) my tiring crossing of France, Spain, and Portugal found in Porto and Minho a pause of luminous serenity. (...) the traditionally simple and good people of this Portugal region filled my heart with freshness ... I disembarked from Porto, still with eyes full of affectionate delicacy of Minho’s landscape, a place of gold and blue that enchanted me like a rare page of literature, in the old Lisbon, was a sad rainy morning. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

Surrounded by Minho’s landscape, Teixeira (1925) once again referred to Lisbon negatively, saying that the “(...) old Portuguese city did not say anything to me, after Minho had presented me with all the freshness and blue of the country.” Nor did he see anything new in Porto, for it was a “commercially seemingly uninteresting” city. In this moment of personal tension in the life of Anísio Teixeira (1925), conservatism and stability attracted his attention more than dynamism, so he represented the Minho’s landscape so well, for it transmitted him the tranquility and foundation that his spirit and mind needed. “Everything is so rooted, people, and things, in this land of Minho that emanates a healthy impression of stability, security, and taste.”

Another event reported by him was about a visit to a friend in Portugal: “A visit to a friend would populate this day in Lisbon and make it one of the most unforgettable of my trip.”, But did not reveal who this friend was. A considerable fact is that, at one point in the narrative, he dedicates around seven pages to describe a visit to the Count of Mafra. The visit seems to have been held on his last day in Portugal.

Back to Brazil! My last day in Europe passed in the shadow of a winter day in Lisbon. After enduring the impositions of two or three chauffeurs, I took a car, looking like a limousine for weddings, that took me to the palace of the Count of Mafra, for 30$00. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

Resistance to republican ideals is evident in the writing of Anísio Teixeira (1925) when he refers to the Count of Mafra, saying that he was “(...) an individual of incomparable simplicity and distinction. A man of intelligence and heart, his life today is a cult interrupted of the old and good Portuguese things banished by the republic.”

In describing the palace of the Count of Mafra, Anísio Teixeira was enchanted with the memories of the periods of his reign and compared him to a servant of the court, just like the religious servants:

His mansion populated with memories of all the kings of Europe and especially of this Portuguese court of which he was one of the great servants is the depiction of his life. Nostalgia impregnates everything, but nothing saddens. His pious worship for all that his intellect truly appreciates and his heart truly esteems does not sadden his life, nor does it stifle him in repressed inactivity. Happy and jovial, he courageously lives his pain, which appears here and there, in the conversations, in the look, in the gestures, but soon erased by a smile, by a kindly disguise which highlighted the dignified and superior modesty of his soul. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

3 In the style of Paris

Anísio Teixeira’s last day in Paris was November 11, 1925. However, his account of his representations on the French capital dates from November 24, when he was already inside the ship and back to Brazil. In this sense, the report has a particularity when associated with other notes from the trip. In general, the observations are almost face-to-face, that is, the registers have a very momentary sense and were made during the occurrence or at latest a few hours after, but at moments close to the observed events. In the case of Paris, the report and the record of the representations that were stuck in the mind of the young Anísio Teixeira were made thirteen days after the events, meaning that the notes were not only meant to record the remarkable fact, but, also to reflect on the experience.

In the record of his representations about Paris, Anísio Teixeira does much more than describing and producing reflective notes. Throughout the text, the author uses metaphors to describe Paris, one of the icons of the New World and European modernity. Paris was an emblematic locus of the bourgeois revolution in the eighteenth century, of the proletarian insurrections of the nineteenth century, synonymous with the avant-garde, reference to belle époque and to the Enlightenment and Positivist optimisms. But in 1925, Paris already accumulated other contradictions, different from those of the nineteenth century. By 1925 only seven years had passed since the end of the First World War and the evidence of destruction were still in the urban landscape, as well as in the soul of the Parisians. All this was reflected in the young Teixeira’s reports and thoughts.

In the beginning, the Anísio Teixeira’s inflection was about the European culture, his disheartening view of the human beings to the point of comparing them to ones condemned to the drama of his days:

The state of mind of mankind today in the great cities is similar to the state of mind that usually reigns in war. A man who is condemned to formidable drama and who makes war with this instinctive persuasion, which is the last card he throws, systematically loses hope. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

Teixeira expresses a grim idea about modern humanity, with no future prospects. All this seems symptomatic of exhaustion and inability to renew itself; he perceived an old, decadent Paris, far from what it had been until the nineteenth century, exuberant and triumphant. The figure of the European man also does not differ in the writing of the author.

In describing Paris, Anísio Teixeira compared life in the French capital to a theatrical play, using metaphors and words of the French language, such as metteur en scène, to describe his impressions of the city. The description is sober and without news, especially when it compares the city to:

(...) a singularly confusing film [...]. The real and the imaginary make a singularly affectionate couple, as in the real life. The fantastic, the artificial fits the trivial beings of the daily life, raising them, consecrating them. The little wonders of the thousand and one nights have the appearance of a child's toy in view of the realities of the great cities of 1925. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.) (our emphasis)

Regarding the mapping of representation, the words that the young Anísio Teixeira chose to narrate and reflect on Paris are meaningful. In his description, Paris was a film; therefore, it was something from the realm of image and not of reality; it was an unimaginable picture. A film is a form of representation of reality and the young Anísio Teixeira referred to Paris as a representation. But Paris was a confused film, scattered, without order, without direction, without direction. Paris was not a dream; it was a nightmare.

Anísio Teixeira (1925) compared Paris to a cosmopolitan Babel and, in the midst of the confusion of voices, “the naturality with which the light is extinguished in a cinema, it is when the city takes all its prestige.” In another passage the author mentioned the Parisian night, but not the night of the nightclubs or the houses of spectacle, but rather the night of the city or night in the city. In addition, in the Parisian night represented by Anísio Teixeira (1925) “(...) the floor is a movable surface of wheels and feet, that come and go, go up and down, laugh, play, scream in a supremely original presentation of the characters”. Paris is an “(...) exquisitely artificial environment ... a gigantic studio, in which there was no longer a childish concern to hide the scaffolding, the holophotes for the illumination of the scenes, and all the small miseries behind the scenes and coulisses” (TEIXEIRA, 1925) (emphasis by the author).

In the language of Anísio Teixeira (1925), the night of Paris is a delirium, an unimaginable picture of modern life and it frightened him. Around Paris “(...) walks the decapitated and blind soul. No lucid force guides it. No fortress guides it.” Paris is restless, seductive, dangerous. There, “(...) the pack of all weaknesses and all miseries involves, bites, intimidates (...). Within the dantesque picture of civilization, man is a puppet, grotesque like all puppets. Have fun. Enjoy the others. Cry. Commit all the dramas.” In this fantastic environment “(...) most of mankind calmly sleeps next to the hallucination. Curiosity, desire, boredom, the attraction of misery weave the unbelievable and luminously panting web of the spectacle of Paris” (TEIXEIRA, 1925).

Anísio Teixeira’s (1925) criticism of modernity represented by Paris is due to its confusion, lack of lucidity, lack of support. The “Paris” represented by him is contradictory: it combines hallucination and boredom. All this brought consequences that turns man into a puppet before the inexorable events of the metropolis. But this is not all that Anísio Teixeira (1925) wrote about his representation of Paris. There, in 1925, life was a theater, but “(...) the number of actors is always tiny and the theater, of course, is empty. The actors represent for themselves.” In this reflection of an existential nature, Anísio Teixeira stated that the man went through existence acting in a play and carrying masks, simulating the events of life for himself, in a play in where he is only a supporting actor, a puppet who has no control and courage in the face of events.

After night comes the day, and “(...) when the day is reborn moralizing, honest, natural, we shake our heads suffocated as if we remembered a dream of opium” (TEIXEIRA, 1925). But euphoria and delirium do not cease in Paris. Night after day and day after night, the “(...) spectacle (...) is repeated in one act, and thousands of pictures for the tenth-thousandth time. Success is such that one does not expect a change of poster” (TEIXEIRA, 1925).

4. Visit to the European schools

It has already been mentioned that Anísio Teixeira did not describe his visits to the European schools in his main personal travel account, nor did he make any considerations about school systems. The exhibitions on education, school and the school system are in another six-page handwritten document, four of which are in stamped sheets and two in letterhead of the hotel where Anísio Teixeira probably stayed. There are writings on the back of the paper that are unintelligible. As a result of the discontinuities, parts of this manuscript were certainly lost.

In this document Anísio Teixeira highlighted a few of the classes that he observed, the curriculum, the teaching method and the school organization; inflected on some positive and negative points about the schools, without much enthusiasm or admiration. It seems that Anísio Teixeira did not see much news in relation to what he had already read in Buyse’s book.

Teixeira observed the experimental psychology laboratory during a visit to Charles Buls School for two and a half hours and analyzed activities developed by the senior class. From this observation, Anísio Teixeira (1924/1927) emphasized that the experiments carried out aimed at developing the senses, the attention and the memory, providing the student with “a spirit of precision and consciousness proper to these subtle pedagogical investigations. In addition to these experiences, it is an eye opener to the comprehension of pedagogy and its current scientific concern.” In this passage, Anísio Teixeira already anticipates the future propositions he would make about the active school education, the confluence between science, culture, and practice.

Soon after, Anísio Teixeira (1924/1927) reported an analysis that he made on “(...) the papers that the students wrote in the enjoyment of the senior year”. The following aspect stands out: “The theses or rather the assumptions are preferably of pedagogical science and treated with the method, the clarity and the experimentation of a clearly scientific work.”

Still at the Charles Buls School, Anísio Teixeira also observed an elementary class studying geometry. It is worth noting how the remarks by the young Teixeira were guided by a practical sense, that is, they were observations coming from a mind aware of the problems which an Inspector of the public education in Bahia had to deal with. Its objective was to identify experiences that could be appropriate in its interventions in Brazil. From this observation about the geometry class, Anísio Teixeira (1924/1927) highlighted the students who studied the surface of a hexagon: “(...) they did the geometric drawing manually, (cutting papers) and observed the whole lesson, which was frighteningly concrete”. It is important to emphasize the words and expressions that are employed in the observation record: activities, manually, observation, concrete. Thus, in the activity observed, what attracted his attention (1924/1927) was the practical way in which the lesson was conducted and “(...) the concrete, intuitive and safe process with which the primary teacher led his class in order to make those children understand the notion of surface and how to measure it”. It is meaningful in the sense of pragmatism expressed in this passage, allowing us to think how the young Jesuit formation already had a sensitivity to pragmatism, even before knowing the pedagogy of Dewey, something that would happen later during the trip to the USA. But all of this seems to reveal how much the Teixeira’s observations were also guided by the book Méthodes américaines d’éducation. When mentioning the student’s importance to understand that concept and, afterwards, practice it when measuring the surface of the geometric figure, Teixeira gave indications of his concern with the practicality of education and with the strength of experience and the use of the senses in learning.

At the Charles Buls School, Anísio Teixeira also attended a pedagogy class for a freshman group in a teacher training course. Once again, it becomes evident the relevance that young Anísio Teixeira gave to the practical nature of teaching activities.

Also in Belgium, after a visit to the École Normale Gardienne, the young Anísio Teixeira mentioned the recent separation between normal school and kindergarten, saying that there were problems and inadequacies in this model of teaching and much to be done. In the same school, Anísio Teixeira mentioned positively the conduction of children teaching, highlighting the didactic resources such as music and drawing, employed in order to attract and keep students’ attention. He (1924/1927) emphasized the word “discipline”, revealing the method and organization with which he was educated in the Jesuit colleges and the serious education that he believed.

On the management of the school system, Anísio Teixeira (1924/1927) referred to the bureaucratic difficulties resulting from centralized management: "The minister decides everything. [...] The director distributes delegates the tasks, hired by the State and by the minister, who always has the last word "(TEIXEIRA, 1924/1927).

Still at the École Normale Gardienne, Anísio Teixeira (1924/1927) attended two lessons on which he did not highlight any particular aspect, but registered interest in keeping exchange of educational experiences between Belgium and Brazil, in order to implement transformations in the Brazilian education: "I also attended a physics class and another one of (...)⁴ and then we talked about Brazilian values ​​and themes, our politics, our social guidelines, and so on. I committed myself in sending to them the Brazilian school legislation. ".

In this six-page report there is no mention of Anísio Teixeira visiting schools in France. However, some correspondence was found on the FGV's CPDOC website, containing permissions for the young inspector to visit French schools: such as E. Orgeolet's letter to Anísio Teixeira, for which he made himself available for his visit to the École de le Dunoubs in Paris. Such letter was written on a paper with the stamp of the department of primary education: Préfecture Du Departament De La Seine. Direction de L'Enseignement Primaire Inspection (AT c 1925.10.05 Row 36 photo 565).

There is also a second letter from the director of primary education of France to Anísio Teixeira, by which he sends him the list of primary schools that could be visited in Paris. (AT c 1925.10.06 Roll 36 photo 565).

A final letter came from the Belgian Minister of Science and Arts, authorizing Anísio Teixeira to visit primary and maternal schools in Brussels in Belgium (AT c 1925.10.21 Roll 36 photo 569).

5. Considerations of the young Anísio Teixeira about his trip to Europe: illuminating the spirit

In the main personal account of the voyage to Europe, Anísio Teixeira wrote five pages in which he pondered on the contributions that his first international experience had given him, both personally, intellectually and professionally. The first page of his thoughts on the trip is dated November 16, 1925; the other sheets are not dated. Also, in the interview with the Bahian daily “A Tarde”, November 30, 1925, Teixeira made thought about the trip and took advantage of the opportunity to ratify his position as an eager catholic and a monarchy supporter.

The article published in the newspaper begins with the interviewer asking Anísio Teixeira to summarize in only two columns his impressions about the trip. The reaction to the limit suggested by the interviewer reveals the importance that Anísio Teixeira (1925b) attributed to the trip and its formative aspect: “(...) summarize in two columns of newspaper, if my head sounds like a bee hive, it is far from giving him the necessary tranquility to write, much less to summarize.” He also writes that the concerns about the teaching problems worried him in the last days of travel would not be very interesting to be discussed in a newspaper “(...) if we do not want to fall into the imprecise of some general considerations, we must, by discussing pedagogical problems, deeply hurt the technical aspects that take charge of such questions everyday” (TEIXEIRA, 1925b). He also claimed that the “(…) four months of absence were an uninterrupted trip by the most deliriously consecrated sites of intelligence and literature” (TEIXEIRA, 1925b).

The impression one has is that the journalist asked questions to Anísio Teixeira, who in his turn wrote them in the form of a dissertation; This legitimizes the personal character of the interview, since the material was not conveyed in the form of news, but rather, in the form of stories, columns of the newspaper, approximating to the same language used by Anísio Teixeira when drafting his other writings on Europe.

In the introduction of the news, the journalist mentions Anísio Teixeira in a particular way. He uses the adjectives young and intelligent Inspector of Teaching to explain his pilgrimage trip of the Holy Year and his return to the province for implementation of the education reform that had been assigned in Bahia. It emphasizes with vehemence the religious image that Anísio Teixeira possessed. This image is proven in the course of the interview, as the young man provides many details about Rome and religious and monarchical affairs. Anísio Teixeira did not detail at all his visits to Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, or even about the Belgian schools he had visited at the end of the trip.

The expression pilgrimage of the Holy Year, used by the journalist, deserves attention. Anísio Teixeira, as a young man associated to the Catholic Church, had on his journey the company of Catholic ecclesial authorities, so one has the impression that this pilgrimage was something of an alibi for the journey. The war had left Europe devastated physically and desolated in the soul, and the Holy Year of 1925 seems to have been an initiative of the Vatican, in order to cherish and shed a light on people's minds. But there was also an effort to bring the spotlight to Rome: “(…) the Catholic Church had in 1925 its most formidable demonstration of strength” (TEIXEIRA, 1925b). Another fact is that Italy went through political problems in 1925, such as the second phase of Mussolini's rule and the beginning of the fascist dictatorship. “And let us stop in Rome in this holy year of 1925. The jubilee and the missionary exposition dominate with such light the life of the city whose spiritual grandeur has called eternal, that all other problems of Italy immerse themselves in the shadow” (TEIXEIRA, 1925b).

In another section of the interview, Anísio Teixeira explained in a few keywords how desolated the post-war Europe seemed to him in 1925. He compared the European situation similar to a social cataclysm, a catastrophe in which there are no exits, unless people turn to the Holy Year and surrender to the faith:

In closing the first quarter of a century that prolonged the mental restlessness of a disjointed humanity in its moral and spiritual life, by the most powerful chains of error and by the deepest social cataclysm of all time, in which all the reserves of balance, order and the supernatural meaning of life seemed to have failed, the Pope made a paternal gesture of invitation: All those who put their hopes above their miseries, come to Rome in a manifestation of faith and a manifestation of humility, to pay the homage of his heart and his intelligence to the saving truth of Christianity. (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.) (our emphasis).

The Holy year of 1925 and the believers’ motivation to start a pilgrimage to Rome expressed an effort of the Catholic Church in strengthening the Pope’s authority and solidify him as a reference:

When the march of civilization happens, in a material sense, at a time when all culture turns to things and abandons man in his specific spiritual sense; that superb and consoling affirmation of humanism made the spiritual head of the Church! The Pope, for a whole year, raised his hand in a sign of blessing, attended the parade of that impressive crowd of faithful whose demonstration appeared to me, in the midst of our mechanical and economic civilization, as one of these great restorative gestures of humanity, one of those deeply lyrical and touching moments that we think can no longer flourish in our time, in which a whole life of errors is dissolved in an instant of glint. (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.)

In an excerpt from the same interview, Anísio Teixeira (1925b) stated that: “There is still everything to be felt in an Italy, but there is almost nothing left to say.” This statement is emblematic, because on one hand he affirms that he had not yet assimilated the trip, that is, he had not elaborated in his mind a clear representation of what he had experience; but as if Europe was being felt by him. Anísio Teixeira uses the word to feel, since it is related to the senses and it is by the senses that the subject captures the tangible world and transforms it in the form of mental image. Therefore, in affirming that “(...) there is still everything to be felt in an Italy” Anísio Teixeira certifies that the object of the experiment had not yet been fully assimilated. This shows a certain astonishment at European innovation. On the other hand, "there is almost nothing to say”; does it mean a revitalization of the first astonishment or an expression of disenchantment? The European novelty seems to have astonished the young Anísio Teixeira, not charmed him.

Even though he had destined in his main travel account six expressive pages to refer to Paris, Anísio Teixeira (1925b) introduces other impressions on Paris very differently from those used to mention Rome: "From Rome to Paris, because we do not want to stop in the great intellectual cities of the world, I dare to say, without paradox, that it is not so great as one can imagine the distance transposed. " The modernity of the nineteenth century had been very Parisian and the entrance of Paris was an affront to religious moralism, so the young man, supporter of the monarchy, felt discomfort in Paris. In those writings sent to the same newspaper, Anísio Teixeira represented Paris as a counterpoint to what happened in Rome in the Holy Year of 1925. In this statement, the young Anísio Teixeira (1925b) extols the avant-garde character of Paris: “Paris is the city of innumerable seductions, but it will take the deep intellectual insanity of certain travelers to judge it only as the city of easy pleasures. My personal impression today is that, Paris is a brilliant son of Rome.” And what was the umbilical relationship between Paris and Rome? The young Anísio Teixeira (1925b) saw in Paris “(...) the greatest contemporary philosophical event”. And what was the event referred to by Anísio Teixeira? The resurgence of a monarchist thought:

If the philosophical thought is today, with the sensitive decline of Bergson, led by his former disciple Maritain, the political thought in France has its strongest claim in Maurras. Maurras, whose battle cry - Polityque d'abord - makes him, apart from one of the greatest political thinkers in the world, the man of daily combat, the journalist who daily distributes to countless of his readers and disciples a strong political doctrine, full of reason, logic, and salubrious. (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.)

And Anísio Teixeira (1925b) foresaw the resurgence of the monarchy with enthusiasm: “Paris moves an intellectual youth deeply thirsty to be freed from the powerful currents of skepticism, philosophical or political rationalism.” It also emphasizes that:

(...) a recent reissue, when he was in Paris, of his formidable Enquête sur la Monarchie, had a success that compared to that of the Social Contract of Rousseau. Thirty thousand copies sold out in two weeks. And the Enquête sur la Monarchie is an inflated volume of 20 francs and that is far from being a work of popular reading. (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.)

It is visible in Teixeira, through his quoted philosophers and celebrities, that he was at that time a monarchy supporter.

If the generation of the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century attempted and concluded the intellectual process of the eighteenth century, whose influence still lingers on us, the task and responsibility of the generation today is to rework the doctrinal work undone in 89. (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.)

By the way, the expressions used by the young Teixeira (1925) allows to identify him, stricto sensu, as a reactionary: “(...) the work of reaction is increasingly powerful and brighter in France.” Anísio Teixeira (1925b) was so enthusiastic about the incapacity “of the parliamentary state to govern France” and with the signs of “the fall of the regime itself, whose agony is sensitive.” Greater enthusiasm was still with the restorative mobilizations:

The day I left Paris, November 11, the date of the armistice, Philipe Barrès, Jacques d'Arthnis and Georges Vallois had invited the French to a large meeting, where the bases of the Faisceau were to be laid. (...) The French Faisceau, like the Italian fascio, is a call to all the old traditional forces of race and country and their mobilization in a war party for the conquest of the essential truths that no society can do without for living . (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.)

Race, war, and truths: the language of Teixeira was inarguably politically motivated:

These essential truths, do not think that I avoid my thinking, these essential truths of authority, order, balance and hierarchy are bound indissolubly with religious truths and Catholic truths and welcome the Church as the most beneficial of social forces. The idea of France and the idea of Catholicism are ideas that cannot be separated in the intelligence of a large part of the French youth and its most authoritative contemporary thinkers. (TEIXEIRA, 1925b.)

At the end of the story, Anísio Teixeira (1925b) returns to his Bahian reality, claiming that all of the discussion presented to the newspaper would take them very far, but “my responsibilities about the teaching in Bahia huge, so that I do not concentrate all the attention of my spirit and all my energies in the solution of your problems.”

It is worth emphasizing that in the main report of the trip, Anísio Teixeira had already revealed that the experience in European territory was a way to know the world and thus to be able to insert himself in that world. In different passages of the story, Anísio Teixeira was still very much rooted in his conceptions of life, and for that reason, the trip had given him the beginning of a liberation that culminated in the renewal of his thoughts, and in inspiration to face the reality that was waiting for him in the teaching inspectorate of Bahia. The following passage is an indicative of Anísio Teixeira (1925) seeking through a self-knowledge journey and enrichment of the meaning of life: “I travel, more to discover and know the other lands where my intelligence and my heart, to know and discover the unexplored territories of my spirit. I travel to enrich my sense of life.” For Anísio Teixeira (1925) traveling was similar to “(...) a spiritual exercise”. It is possible that this analogy is due to the influence of St. Ignatius of Loyola, patron of the Jesuit colleges where he studied. In the book left by the Catholic saint, entitled Spiritual Exercises, the spiritual exercise is a mode of examination of consciousness, meditation, contemplation. It is a means of spiritual development. Certainly, Anísio Teixeira longed for the development of his spirit on this voyage: the formative and discovering character of the voyage was evident for the young Anísio Teixeira. In another passage Anísio Teixeira manifests the expectations that he had of the trip.

(...) that I go through will be only the stimuli of my intimate discoveries. Overlooking the nations of the world, full of solicitude, sympathy and benevolent presence, I will extract the deviations of my spirit, accepting the teachings that come from each land and each people. A foreigner so surprised is a teacher and a master, whose shadow we have once transformed. A new knowledge, a new affirmative spiritual discovery and nourishment is an exciting one for those mysterious explorers in our inner world. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

When Anísio Teixeira mentions the expressions inner world and intimate discoveries, it conveys the idea of searching for self-knowledge and identity maturity. He compares himself to a student willing to learn. Another meaningful expression is, once again, the sense of spiritual maturity that Anísio Teixeira confers to the trip when he says he will extract the deviations of his spirit. Was Teixeira's spirit and intellectuals changing direction? Was the young Anísio Teixeira in conflicts with his Jesuit formation and his sympathy with the monarchy?

The verbal tense used by the author brings a question mark. In the quoted parts, Anísio Teixeira seems to write before the trip happens, because he mentions more expectations. In the following text, however, Anísio Teixeira expresses a feeling of gratitude for what the trip has given to his sense of life.

On this album page in which Ms. asks me to leave my autograph, I also leave the expression the gratefulness consumed by what has gone on in order to enrich my sense of life, I also want to express how much I am recognized for the fact that the Miss has competed to enrich my spiritual sense of life. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

Note that the word enrich is repeated twice in this short stretch. The verb seems to manifest the intellectual movement made by Anísio Teixeira through the trip, which took place in the sense of seeking solutions to his vocational, professional tensions and inspiration for the new challenges in the Teaching Inspectorate. Also, to provide him answers to the “(...) crisis of conscience between the duties towards God and the duties towards man" by which he passed before going to Europe in 1925” (^{LIMA, 1978}, p. 60). However, more than answers, the trip seems to have brought questions that served as propulsive springs for his new experiences and new readings that culminate in his first trip to the United States.

On the gains from the technical point of view that the trip to Europe had given him, Anísio Teixeira (1925) asked: “To what extent have my wishes and my predictions been fulfilled? From "(...) in general I must say that the learning was very short and that it is very difficult to draw conclusions.” The expressions are significant and antagonistic: for what reason was learning short? Was it because of his long and intermittent desire to learn? Or had not Europe brought him great inspiration? Or would Anísio Teixeira have made hasty appropriations on the trip to the point of not having elaborated everything he would like to record in this manuscript? This last possibility does not seem to hold, since if the voyage had an extraordinary character for Anísio Teixeira, he would certainly manifest it later, as he did in his writings in the United States. It may be that it was still early to draw conclusions, but the expressions also indicate that Europe may have seemed too old in the eyes of the young Anísio Teixeira and therefore not so uninspiring, not so motivational, not so charming. By affirming that the journey was long and the learning short, the idea that the European countries did not have much to offer young Anísio Teixeira from the point of view of his spiritual renewal is strengthened. Hoping for new knowledge, Anísio Teixeira emphasized that the trip to Europe had not reached all his expectations and, in the matter of faith, his expression seemed to be more and more distant from his old ideas of an avid Catholic. For this reason, he affirmed that the certainty and the “metaphysical understanding of life” is not also increasingly distant from me, as an object that I keep the cult but which I no longer use? It was not this voyage, perhaps, another thing like a dissipation of the spirit and of the intelligence "(TEIXEIRA, 1925).

Anísio Teixeira repeated three times throughout this part of the account, the word spiritual and eight times the word spirit, this reveals how much the voyage had shaken its certainties about existence, as well as its old religious conceptions.

On the tech side, I obviously gained some new knowledge. But my response to the influence of this journey on the quality of my spirit will be so positive? If I may say that I have gained more ease in the face of life, I do not should I say that I gained more banality in the face of existence? (TEIXEIRA, 1925) (our emphasis).

The word quality is highlighted by Anísio Teixeira, who questions the state of his spirit, which seems to be weakened and disinterested in dogmatic questions, thus gaining more materiality, a characteristic that already formed his personality, but which was overshadowed by his idealism. For him, his “(…) spirit has dissipated in his faith. The intelligence has further diluted his own culture.” (TEIXEIRA, 1925). New knowledge illuminated his reason, but on the other hand he was reluctant to remain rooted in his truths and beliefs. “Ah! How could it be better than this vanity to enrich the spirit with travels and with dazzling and new spectacles, to have a quiet love and some certain things deeply rooted.” (TEIXEIRA, 1925).

Certainly, Anísio Teixeira (1925) was uncomfortable with the course his thoughts had taken and, faced with the tasks that awaited him in the Teaching Inspectorate, reflected that his passage through Europe was “(...) four months of elegant vagabondage,” later in his account, admitted, nonetheless, that there was much to take advantage of:

From these four months much will be seized. But the cycle of wandering and loving life is over. Let's work and think. And in the wanderings of our pauses let us hear, as an old man hears a careless young man, the adventures of our journey, to draw from them practical and strong conclusions. (TEIXEIRA, 1925.)

The lack of innovation in the face of European culture and schools had in no way weakened Anísio Teixeira's desire to bring educational solutions to Brazil that gave an account of the problems faced at the time, as well as concrete answers to his work in the Teaching Inspectorate.

Final considerations

Accustomed to the Bahian scene - hot and dry climate, poorly lit cities, lacking infrastructure and services and much social poverty - it is evident that young Anísio Teixeira felt impacted by Europe, where he felt a cold that he had never experienced, where he came across the snow, watched Paris and its bright night, talked with people and visited places representative of the European civilization.

Nevertheless, in spite of the cultural and civilizational shock, Anísio Teixeira saw little, if any, unprecedented or charming in Europe. Europe did not excite or inspire Anísio Teixeira, who belonged to a rancher and influent family and lived with educated people of European origin, mainly figures linked to the clergy. Although he had never been to Europe, young Anísio Teixeira certainly had access to personal accounts of what European landscapes and people were like. That is, Anísio Teixeira had a prior representation of Europe and it is in relation to this representation that the concrete experience seems not to have sounded like unpublished.

But to have an already elaborated representation in Brazil about Europe does not mean that young Anísio Teixeira had many high expectations for Europe. The proof of this lack of high expectations is that Anísio Teixeira had not prepared himself for the trip. For school education the only guide that he had taken was the Buyse’s book on Belgian schools that used American methods. Beyond this, Anísio Teixeira had not brought with him a set of well-defined issues to be observed and reported. Perhaps even the travel itinerary, with the exception of Belgium, was not defined by him, but rather by the clerical companies, which even circled him for much of the trip. The feeling is that the representation after trip was nothing new in relation to the representation that Anísio Teixeira already had on Europe and that was elaborated in conversations with figures of the clergy who knew Europe.

Besides, when Anísio Teixeira used expressions that designate a spiritual state of surprise in relation to what he saw in Europe, such expressions designate negative surprises. In different ways, Europe appears in its representation as an old world with no future. In no way does it mention political and social democracy, the movement and dynamism of everyday life or mobility and equality in social relations. In addition to being old, Europe did not stimulate or inspire the young Anísio Teixeira, newly installed inspector of public education in Bahia. The description of Anísio Teixeira's negative portrayal of Paris is emblematic. The Parisian scene represented by Anísio Teixeira is that of a spectacularly superficial and inconsistent world.

If the old Europe did not appear as unprecedented, nor charmed, inspired or enthused the young Bahian, the same can be said about the European schools. The young inspector was in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. But strictly school-directed visits were recorded only in Belgium, where Teixeira wanted to see American methods in practice. In the Belgian schools Anísio Teixeira saw nothing beyond what was already in the book of Omer Buyse, given to him by Carneiro Leão, when he was appointed to the Inspectorate of Public Instruction. It has already been mentioned that the visit to Belgian schools resulted in a handwritten report of only six pages, which means that Anísio Teixeira did not write well beyond what was already contained in the book on American methods of education.

This little or nothing inspired representation that Anísio Teixeira elaborated on Europe and its schools seems to have different meanings or motives. On one hand, Europe of 1925 still had in its physiognomy exposed marks of the First World War, ended six years before its trip. These exposed marks of World War I were in urban landscapes and social life: wars destroy and reconstructions generate social sacrifices.

Regarding education and the European schools, something conditioning the representation that was not inspired or lacking in charms came from the still incipient involvement of young Anísio Teixeira with educational issues. Surely, it was not in 1924 when Governor Góes Calmon appointed him to the portfolio of public education that Anísio Teixeira had decided launch himself definitively to education, just as he did not have such a deep elaboration of the public school problems he faced. Freshly educated in juridical and social sciences, incipient and abruptly arrived at education, the subject who had traveled to Europe was not yet a person determined to be inclined to education. If Anísio Teixeira did not go to Europe already decided to dedicate himself to education, the same can be said of the individual who returns from Europe. It was not Europe and its schools that aroused in Teixeira the inclination for education. In spite of the cultural and civilizational impact of the trip, Anísio Teixeira saw little, if anything, new, enthusiastic or charming in the old Europe.