Introduction

The normalization devices, although possibly inconsistent for individuals, suit to certain time period and are produced by multiple knowledge targeted to individuals. Specifically in the childhood history, this authority power strategy was responsible for producing discourses and practices with certain groups categorized as the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, the underage offender, the idiot and the imbecile, for example.

Within the transformation background of the XIX century, characterized by the scientific rationality and the liberalism, the important was not only governing the individuals, but their collective - the population, comprising what ^{Foucault (1984}) called biopolitics. In this sense, the life taken as a part of the power field became a political concern, therefore, the biopower characterized a “wide social medicine”, which was connected to enforcement of order and discipline, aiming the growth of the State, which, in turn, begun to occupy the population life events as political concern, giving rise to a management of health, hygiene, nutrition, birthrate, among others.

Thinking in the light of Foucault on the logics of biopower is one of the possible ways to understand the practices and concerns from the beginning of republican period in Brazil - the construction of the new man. In the moment that the concern exceeded the interest of improving the skills and subjection of individuals and reached the mechanisms that turned them more useful and obedient, it required a disciplinary regime (^{FOUCAULT, 1999}), producing truth discourses, practices and policies that resignified the individuals and their culture, as it affected the bodies, gestures and behaviors. Investments were made in families, schools, hospitals over every space that enabled managing the individuals, controlling their behavior, intensifying their performance and utility.

Within the biopower ramifications, the biomedical knowledge characterized by Social Medicine, Hygienism, Psychiatry and Psychology were fields that produced normalization devices for population life through production of a knowledge, which constituted itself under the yoke of regeneration and panacea.

In Brazil, during the republican period, hygienist medical practicing took place in ordination of society, families and schools. The increasing urbanization, the new ways of life and family organization, little or no infrastructure at all, the poverty and a cultural mass considered as inferior became object of the medicine: the moral attitude, habits, culture, actions, bodies, knowledge and practices of individuals, and all these are subject of interventions supported by the sciences.

The modern pedagogy has been backed by hygienic ideas in arrangement of practices and formation of knowledge to be taught for reconstructing the healthy life habits and customary behaviors, predominantly, near the end of XIX century and in the first decades of XX century, having as purpose the “social regeneration”. In this sense, the hygienic medical knowledge and scientific pedagogy constituted discourses produced by certain power instances, which united, produced the normality in the childhood and, consequently, its abnormality, that is, who would be the learners in school and who would be ruled out of it.

In 1920 and 1930 decades, school innovation ideals gained strength in Brazil, implied with a renewed Pedagogy, scientifically driven by Biology and mainly by Psychology, with presumptions of efficiency, pragmatism and usefulness to both life and society intended to build, therefore, these were ideas that found space in a republican society eager for development. The strengthening of innovative practices and authoritarian aspect for determining the changes in the educational landscape took place mainly with the Coup in 1937, a prominent moment for invention of sciences that bring scientific elements to reflect the childhood.

During the first four decades of XX century, there was a triggering of practices, devices and institutions oriented to childhood normalization in Brazil. The school space was reserved for “hunting the abnormal beings” (^{LOBO, 2015}). Firstly with hygienic practices and then with intervention of Psychology in the core of the Brazilian New School (by means of tests and interventions in the experimental field, such as psychoanalysis, which defined those who are educable and those who are not educable) within the perspective of mental hygiene already diffused in all instances of the society.

At the same time, there was a significant increase in institutionalization of abnormality with foundation of institutions dedicated to that purpose, through ramifications in mental asylums for specific childhood caring and construction of special treatment, education and protection institutions as well, legitimated by the discourse produced about the ones “non-teachable” by school, and also through the society and mankind design consolidated from an efficient nation.

In such a setting, through the fabric of the power relationship between education and biomedical knowledge, the childhood normalization practices were ramified to the nation states. Similarly as in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and in other states, the abnormality capture, education normalization and childhood government devices were also applied in Sergipe.

The objective of this paper is discussing the relation between the biomedical knowledge and the education through creation of childhood normalization devices in public instruction in Brazil and Sergipe. For this purpose, some specific objectives were guiding principles: understand the process of approximating the biomedical knowledge (hygienism, psychiatry, psychology) to the education; discuss the influence of experimental psychology in the “Escolanovista” - hereinafter referred as “New School” - thought by means of the discourse produced by Lourenço Filho; and present some disciplinary devices employed for education and childhood normalization in Brazil and in Sergipe during the first decades of XX century.

This study was methodologically supported on the Cultural History, considering the evidential paradigm by ^{Ginzburg (2006}, 2011) as an analytic and investigative tool. The main theorist used to interact with the sources was Foucault, in addition to a constant dialog with the authors of Education History and Special Education fields.

The sources used were bibliographical and documentary. Among the bibliographic sources used, there were primary sources: ^{Lourenço Filho (1978}) work “Introdução ao estudo da escola nova: bases, sistemas e diretrizes da pedagogia contemporânea”; ^{Fontoura (1965}) work “Fundamentos de Educação - Uma Introdução Geral à Educação Renovada e À Escola Viva: Princípios Psicológicos e Sociais, Elementos de Didática, Administração Escolar”; and ^{Arruda (1991}) work “Os primórdios da psiquiatria em Sergipe”; and secondary sources: literature about History of Education in Brazil and about history of “abnormal” childhood institutionalization. As documentary sources, documents from Psychopatic Assistance Service in Sergipe (S.A.P.S.) were used, such as letters and records of patients from psychiatric hospitals located in Sergipe (SERGIPE, 2016)².

The Education and the Biomedical Knowledge

In order to understand the movement of the medical knowledge towards education, it is necessary to return to beginning of this approximation still in XIX century. Two aspects stood out in this configuration: the medicine should penetrate the society (incorporating the urban environment as target for knowledge and practice) and should support the exercise of power by the State (^{GONDRA, 2010}; ^{MACHADO, 1978}).

When penetrating the most diversified fields of society, the Hygienic Medicine affirmed what should be recognized as a problem in the medical science and the object of its knowledge, constructing discourses and prescribing practices, and the childhood was not left out from this gathering. To ^{Gondra (2002}), the childhood became an important issue to the medicine and object of a project for hygienizing subjects and society. Concerned since the parent’s union till the “college age”, there was a delimitation of its action between the private (the family) and the school (the public) (^{GONDRA, 2002}, 2015).

Within this hygienization project, the scope of action widened from the medicine to other areas, such as the Meteorology, the Architecture, the Geography, and among others, the Education. By means of education, the medical actions were able to reach the private space of the home (through education of parents, families³) and the school (through normalization of educational teaching space, the practices developed and educators’ formation).

The parents and teachers considered as improper, according to ^{Gondra (2010}), would have to be reinvented by the medicine. The hygienism and the medical practice served as normalization devices in cultural shaping of groups, both familiar and educational, modifying the representations and reinventing them in the society. The medicine as basis for social order of civilization defined its pedagogical role and grounded everyone’s actions, especially the educational organization:

the hygiene will provide an educational organization model based on the medical rationality that, when constituted, would remove from the private space - either religious or familiar - the monopoly over education of boys and girls. Therefore, it appeals to scientific arguments that reacquire a full spectrum of questions associated to the school, such as the problematics of school building location, the necessity of an owned and proper building to function as school, the admission of students, the time and educational knowledge, the feeding, the sleeping, the bathing, the clothing, the recreation, the physical activity, the perception, the moral intelligence, and also the bodily excretion (^{GONDRA, 2010}, p.527).

According to ^{Gondra (2010}), the adhesion to hygienism through educational knowledge developed the belief in an uncertain power in education, representing a “new era”, which would be means to instruct and moralize, aimed to support the order and the development of Brazilian civilization.

The union between the medical-pedagogical knowledge became possible given the modern scientific-like setting that assigns to science the character of progress and development, thus, the scientification of Pedagogy as a Human Sciences field, which has the childhood as its main object, was promoted and strengthened by the relationship with other truth discourses, such as Hygienism and Psychology, for example.

This pedagogical and biomedical knowledge power relation enabled composing a specific childhood government apparatus as far as it functioned according to norms and normalizations, tests and examinations that classified the children actions “[...] producing a student subject/object, transforming the child into student, whose behavioral conduct must be guided by the rules from this pedagogical government” (^{RESENDE, 2015}, p.134).

The disciplinary techniques of examination, hierarchy, surveillance and sanctions aimed to childhood normalization were what transformed the school into a laboratory of constant individualization and investigation, targeting the subjected child. This game resulted in a product, a reproduction of the normal and the abnormal children, from the childhood aspired for the nation.

These practices for capturing and identifying the abnormality within the educational context gained visibility with the education reforms to implementation of an education substantiated by the new school movement in the first decades of XX century.

According to ^{Lourenço Filho (1978}), the expression “new school” refers to a new treatment of education issues:

It not refers to a single type of school, or certain didactic system, but to a set of principles tending to review the traditional ways of education. Initially, these principles derived from a new understanding of the childhood necessities, inspired by outcomes from biology and psychology studies. Such principles extended thereafter, relating with other numerous principles relative to school functions in face of new requirements arising from changes in the social life (^{LOURENÇO FILHO, 1978}, p.17).

For ^{Lourenço Filho (1978}), the movement challenged the education normalization⁴, promoted by individualization and knowledge of each being’s nature; supported, predominantly, on Biology (with inputs on anthropometry, maturation, as well as other disciplines such as Childcare, hygiene and Medicine, among others) and on experimental Psychology.

In order to understand the usage of psychological knowledge in education by the New Schoolists, the following, based on Lourenço Filho work “Introdução ao estudo da escola nova...”⁵, it was intended to analyze this relationship by emphasizing the knowledges and devices appropriated by the teachers for producing their discourse.

Contributions of Psychology in Lourenço Filho’s Line of Thinking: Psychometry, Personality and Deviations from Normality

^{Lourenço Filho (1978}) presented three considerable contributions from psychology to school renovation: 1) description of psychological variations through ages; 2) objective characterization of human and individual similarities; 3) creation of a genetically-functional explanatory method.

In the first point, the author compared the physiological evolution of children with the physical development, and this should also follow a pattern. Similarly to anthropometry, the psychometry evolved primarily regulated by the knowledge developed by Alfred Binet and his collaborators in France, having as objective to relate the physical evolution with the intelligence development and the educational performance.

As for the second point, Lourenço Filho raised the comprehension of psychological variations through ages as a tool to delineate a normalization of children, that is, typical or demonstrative behavioral patterns in each age, enabling creation of homogeneous groups. However, the author makes a reservation that homogeneous groups must not be synonymous of a standardization among the students, as they are similar only by general expressions, and not when it comes to the particularities or characteristics, as everyone differs from the other, which legitimates and expands the use of mental, personality and behavior tests for individualization of children:

Today, the teachers know they are facing learners who are similar in groups, but individually different from each other, and consequently, they will have to adapt the teaching not only in relation to the evolution stages, but also to differences of each particular student. Upon relatively simple evidences, it is possible to obtain a diagnosis of the learner. It is also possible to prognosticate, or have idea of what should be expected from each child or young person by adopting, when required, special educative procedures indicated by the results of performance and personality exams (^{LOURENÇO FILHO, 1978}, p. 73-74, italicized in the original text).

The above transcribed section illustrates the appropriation of medical terminology (such as diagnosis and prognostic) by education and the importance of individualizing the subjects through specific tests revealing the power relationships reasoned by the truth discourses produced in the educational, medical instances and psychology in the subjectification of childhood and objectification of its normality. While discursive practices that produced representations and appropriations by the subjects enabled reproduction and identification of childhood deviations that could be “saved” by means of education, discipline through which everyone must pass (although only for classification and exclusion due to their “prognostic”).

^{Lourenço Filho (1978}) commended the works developed in Paris by Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon to identify “the less gifted” ones through statistical testing for characterization of children. Additionally to psychometric scales produced by these authors, other instrument, the intelligence Quotient index is also introduced by the professor:

A new concept was also created for comparing the level achieved by children and teenagers with the normal levels of successive ages. For this purpose, a simplified index named intelligence quotient, or I.Q. in short, envisaged by Wilhelm Stern (1871-1938), is used. To that end, the mental age, such as obtained in tests, shall be divided by the chronological age, then the result shall be multiplied by 100. Therefore, certain adjectives as normal, advanced, retarded, mentally limited, weak, talented, ingenious are also operationally used with more precision. (^{LOURENÇO FILHO, 1978}, p.73, italicized in the original text)

Other tests for diagnosing the specific capabilities, aptitudes, motor behavior level, maturity levels related to specific activities, emotional and social adaptation levels, etc. were also mentioned by Lourenço Filho, as well as the use of more complex techniques, which would fit in clinical psychology, by means of an in-depth study on the student: the behavior dynamics together with personality exams should be added to the performance exams. Such technique would be important in “problematic children” cases, for example.

With regard to contribution of psychology to offer a genetic-function explanatory model, Lourenço Filho highlights the importance of the heredity (genetic character) and the organism-environment interaction (functional) for characterizing and determining the human behavior.

In addition to aforementioned general contributions, Lourenço Filho wrote about “the great constructs” of psychology, considering them as decisive in the educational process. These are: motivation, learning and personality. According to the professor, motivation and learning lead to the individual adjustment, a state of balance between the individual and the environment. However, even if the motivation and learning level of the child is known, merely understanding the learner personality would provide data about what he/she should be able to perform. Therefore, the personality assumes a prominent place, being defined as the “quality of the person”.

The description of the personality should be made by listing the attributes of a person. The subjective observation should be replaced by operational data, based on performance exams, scales, questionnaires or special personality tests, underlining the quantitative character rather than the qualitative character.

Based on this quantitative description of personality, Lourenço Filho, advises that the educators should be attentive to their functional structuring originated from interaction of the general components such as physical constitution, temper, intelligence, aptitudes and the culture acquired, as such interaction used to constitute the personality, thus allowing a dynamic, non-static organization, consequently, the teacher intervention point. “[...] the main objective of education is forming personalities, develop them and improve them.” (^{LOURENÇO FILHO, 1978}, p. 106).

Considering that the constitution of personality starts in the family and evolves during interaction with the learning groups and institutions, Lourenço Filho reinforced the role of adults and the means in this construction. He affirms that there is no consensus in literature, as for some authors it is defined at the age two, and for others at age five and yet for others up to the adolescence, being the latter a special phase, inundated by reasons that lead to emotional disturbance, influencing the way of life to this person, which leads the professor to conclude that a good personality assessment must be longitudinal. This means that, personality constitution must never be definitive, but constant during the educational period.

Concepts developed in theories about the personality development are evoked to justify the behaviors in the educational field, as well as the “inadequacies” of students in face of what is expected from them, such as the defense mechanisms, for example. Grounded by theories about the “normal” adult, Lourenço Filho says that the defense mechanisms may be grouped according to the social effects they produce, namely: socially convenient mechanisms (compensation, rationalization and substitution); socially tolerated mechanisms (identification, prediction and egocentricity); socially criticizable mechanisms (regression and dissociation); and socially disapproved mechanisms (repression, negativism and autism).

This adjustment of the individual facing the reality reveals the author’s understanding as normal and abnormal adjustment. For him, the normality limit of the mechanisms is thin, and it may characterize pathological reactions resulting in mental disorders. With respect to this group of individuals, he professes the hard task to classify them, and the specialists prefer to divide such mental disorders into neurosis and psychosis.

The neurotics in general have adjustment difficulties, however, this is not a cause for isolating them from social interaction. They express inquietude, unfounded fears, vacillation and constant fatigue sensation, however, maintaining their intelligence faculties and orientation in environment, thus not differing from normal persons as for the general behavior aspects, although they suffer and, therefore, reclaim treatment. In psychosis, the situation is more serious. The patient loses contact with ambient environment, reason for the name alienated, that is, unaware, apart from the world. The behavior of these patients becomes dangerous for themselves and for the others, thus requiring their internment in appropriate hospitals. There are psychoses whose causes are clearly imputed to deterioration of the nervous system, therefore, being qualitatively named as organic. There are some other psychoses in which this not occurs, called as functional psychosis. A belief is that these come from adjustment difficulties, mainly acquired during childhood period. (^{LOURENÇO FILHO, 1978}, p.113, italicized in the original text)

The approach to mental disorders in a book aimed to educators brings important questions on use of this knowledge. The differentiation of pathological conditions (of mental illness) justifies the subject removal from the educational environment and internment in appropriate clinics, thus exempting the school from any responsibility for providing adaptations to accommodate these subjects. It is a medical power-knowledge that stands out to the detriment of pedagogical proposals for learning of this population. Remains to the teachers the exhaustive task to avoid such illnesses by means of the education, which will “model” the personality.

In this sense, Lourenço Filho argued for the idea that, besides the conditions of the hereditary structure, the social life activities greatly influence the dominant expressions of personality and, consequently, the normal and abnormal adjustment manners. By understanding that neurosis and psychosis are hereditary-predisposed normality deviations, not discarding the environmental and social influence in face of conflict and frustration, the resistance or tolerance levels facing these situations would be personality predictors, so one of the education functions is creating conditions for each person alone to be able to elevate such levels.

Still considering the cultural, collective character in constitution of the individuals and their personalities, Lourenço Filho affirms that the biological differences stand out: “[...] whichever are the environment conditions, the oligophrenic or mentally retarded ones will not be capable to express themselves as a biologically well-gifted person.” (^{LOURENÇO FILHO, 1978}, p. 114). So, the teacher’s “power” to model the students is limited by biological variables, justified as the child’s “faults”.

Lourenço Filho observes the appropriation of a truth discourse produced in the scientific bases of experimental psychology within the national context. As an enthusiast of work from Alfred Binet and his collaborators, such theories are suitable to the renovation of Brazilian education without social or cultural filters. ^{Ferreira (2016}) emphasizes this idea when he reveals that Binet’s works did not have the same reach and acceptance in Paris as they had in Brazil, considering that his propositions responded to the scientific ambition of some Brazilian intellectuals, respecting an elitist and evolutionist character that was hidden behind their principles.

The proposal advocated by Lourenço Filho clarifies the importance given to the scientifically quantifiable character of the learner’s individuality. As the personality is a variable manipulable and moldable by means of education, the assignment of a longitudinal assessment resumes the perspective of childhood inherent risk presented by ^{Foucault (2001}, 2006). The appropriation of psychological theories by education would constitute representations on the regular and irregular development and would provide elements for teachers to “fix” the behavioral problems originating from the school context and thus, it would reduce the school failure, whereas classifying, separating, homogenizing, it would be possible to withdraw those that, scientifically, are clearly known that would have no usefulness in this space - the worst cases of mental illness and idiots, for example.

Accordingly, in Binet’s work, those considered as imbeciles and idiots are excluded from the special learning. For him, idiots would be those that are not capable to communicate through words, even without demonstrating problems in the organs related to speech and hearing - the insane asylum would be the only destination to them. Imbeciles would be those that, even without demonstrating any organic problems, are not capable to communicate through writing - the ateliers would be their only destination. Only in minor cases, these people should receive school education, in special classrooms (^{FERREIRA, 2016}).

According to ^{Ferreira (2016}), Binet’s theories that provided grounds to “individual pedagogy” derived from eugenic principles, which were put into practice by hygienist measures adopted in public instruction. Disciplinary measures of constant evaluation and surveillance transformed the students into “suspects” of irregularities in the development.

Notwithstanding, Lourenço Filho’s approach to the normality deviations, such as the psychosis and neurosis, conform to Binet’s preposition presented by ^{Ferreira (2016}) that the “intellectually retarded” classified by his methods should be included in the Mental Pathology study. Perhaps it explains the introduction of this content in a book directed to teachers.

From the abnormal person that never entered the school and remained away from it due to scientific explanations still in the first half of XX century, the school, by means of disciplinary devices and appropriation of a power knowledge over the life, had built representations of what is normal or abnormal within this space, what must be intended to special learning, to other assistance institutions or to the special class⁶.

Hereinafter, through contextualization of process for implementing New School ideas in Brazil and Sergipe, this paper sought to present what the history is unveiling about these childhood normalization practices and discourses.

The New School and the Childhood Normalization Devices in Brazil and in Sergipe

The growing urbanization and industrialization, immigration and migration processes, the culture shock between the literate elite, and the poor people increasingly arriving to strive for employment opportunities are important characteristics of the Brazilian picture in the 1920s, thus driving the civic campaigns and the perspective that through everyone education, a new man and a new society would be formed, so the idea was modernizing the society by means of the school (^{CARVALHO, 2010}; ^{CUNHA, 2010}; ^{NUNES, 2010}). According to ^{Carvalho (2010}), it is due to the perspective of “social regeneration” through education that the Brazilian Education Association was established in 1924, in Rio de Janeiro.

Since the public instruction reforms developed by Lourenço Filho, in 1922, in State of Ceará, then later in 1926, in State of Bahia, by Anísio Teixeira, an approximation to ideas generated abroad to support the innovations conceived by the reformists was set in motion. The literature that backed up the Brazilian new school movement sourced its reasoning from the international discussion: in Lister, Freeman, Dotrens, Dewey, Ferrière e Decroly (VIDAL, 2010).

According to Vidal, the innovations of the New School brought appropriations from traditional models refuted through resignification of its materials and methods, such as the:

centrality of the children in the learning relations, the compliance with hygienic norms in regulation of student body and their gestures, the scientification of schooling knowledge and social practices, and the exaltation of observation action, perceiving in the student knowledge construction. (VIDAL, 2010, p. 497).

The scientific bases of the proposal emerged as innovative to Brazilian educational system had as main cornerstone the experimental Psychology knowledge, providing elements for the scientific understanding on the humans in their individual dimension (^{CUNHA, 2010}; ^{LOURENÇO FILHO, 1978}; ^{NUNES, 2010}; VIDAL, 2010).

Both the 1930s Revolution and the 1937s Coup, imposing the Brazilian New State by Getúlio Vargas, resulted in distinct appropriations of the reformist proposals from the pioneers of the New School, also known as Progressive Education. According to ^{Carvalho (2002}), in the Transitional Government, core topics from the new school program were incorporated for educational actions, and, as a configuration and technical and ideological control strategy, the Ministry of Education and Health was created. Already in the New State, the rhetoric stemming from the New School was adopted by the government: “new man for the New State”.

In the State of Sergipe, one of the education modernization exponents was Helvécio de Andrade, three times as the Public Instruction Director: the first from 1913 to 1918; the second from 1926 to 1927; and the third from 1930 to 1935 (^{NASCIMENTO, 2003}; ^{VALENÇA, 2006}). In his third administration, Helvécio, worried about the administrative and pedagogical changes being triggered in the national background, sent the Professor José Augusto Rocha Lima to São Paulo with the purpose of studying the new methods (^{FREITAS, 2011}; ^{SILVA, 2002}).

In the report submitted by Rocha Lima, describing his visit, he stresses the materials from Froebel, Montessori and Decroly in the preschool activities. Nonetheless, the professor, not deceived by the enthusiasm on the new practices, proposed adaptations to the regional culture of Sergipe based on the methods he observed in São Paulo and recommended that anything should be made without planning (^{SILVA, 2002}).

Rocha Lima stayed as the general technical assistant of the Public Instruction Administration since his return from São Paulo in 1931 until 1942, being a key figure in dissemination of the new school ideology (mainly the Decroly’s ideas) in the public instruction of Sergipe (^{SILVA, 2002}).

^{Freitas (2011}) presents, in addition to Helvécio de Andrade and José Augusto da Rocha Lima, other names as representatives for implementation of New School proposals in Sergipe territory: Acrísio Cruz and José Antônio Nunes Mendonça. According to the author, the appropriation of the new school movement in Sergipe was adequate to the local necessities and possibilities, facing the enthusiasm of Sergipe’s intellectual citizens and the resistance encountered. The role of the Education Association of Sergipe (founded in 1934 and supported by the Brazilian Education Association) and the school inspection strategy with pedagogic meetings were important propagators of the New School Pedagogy and key to modernization of the pedagogical methods in the State (^{FREITAS, 2011}).

It is worth to emphasize that, according to ^{Nascimento (2003}), the reforms in Sergipe not granted advantage to the entire State, being limited to Aracaju and other urban centers - Capela, Estância, Lagarto and São Cristóvão.

In the effervescence background of the New School and the quest for educational scientificity, especially in close relationship between health and education, various devices for controlling and governing the childhood and identifying its abnormality were established in the national context and also in Sergipe.

Even before the 1920s, the task of classification and search for the abnormal persons was increasing, having as a major milestone the deployment of Experimental Pedagogy Laboratory in the Pedagogical Anthropology and Psychology Office, annexed to the Normal Secundária school in São Paulo in 1914. According to ^{Carvalho (2006}), the purpose of the laboratory was conducting the scientific study on childhood. Therefore, the director of the Normal School, Oscar Thompson, brought the Italian Ugo Pizzoli to offer courses and implement the function of the Lab, which consisted in stacking the Normal School with measurement and inquiry instruments in formulation of a scientific knowledge on the individual.

For ^{Carvalho (2006}), the Experimental Pedagogy Laboratory was a knowledge and power device that divided the men into classes of beings converted into unequal by nature (scientific explanations of anthropometry, anamnesis data, antecedent history records, heredity, among other topics analyzed in the childhood inquiry).

With the approximation of the Psychology to the classification tools, the scientific Pedagogy become to have as function: to discriminate the normal children from the abnormal or degenerated children, implying separation of the simple anomaly cases from the severe anomaly cases, because the first ones could be rectified and modified using special methods, and the latter ones should be absolutely excluded from normal schools, according to the discourse produced by Thompson (^{CARVALHO, 2006}; ^{FERREIRA, 2016}).

According to ^{Ferreira (2016}), Binet’s theories influenced the discourses and practices developed by Thompson, both in the comprehension on exclusion of degenerated people, and the insistence in “training” the teachers to use tests and measurements for a careful and scientific observation of their students. With the New School movement, the utilization of psychologic tests was incorporated to the educational reforms (^{CARVALHO, 2006}; ^{LOBO, 2015}; VEIGA, 2004).

From the first decades of XX century, the medical inspection introduced in schools was a disciplinary device that gained power in selection of students and prevention of contaminations from physical or mental diseases.

According to ^{Lobo (2015}), the new school movement was embodied by the educators from Brazilian Education Association, aligned with Brazilian Mental Hygiene League (LBHM), founded in 1927 by Reidel, to organization of the elementary education system in Brazil, introducing the Psychology instrument in the school and in the normal courses. The author understands this system rationalization strategy as a “hunting to abnormal ones”, quoting a circular letter distributed in 1927 by LBHM to teachers of nursery and kindergarten schools, which urged them to make an early identification of the abnormal ones.

In the same direction, ^{Lourenço Filho (1978}) works exposed the psychological intelligence-indicator tests, contributing to the rational organization of homogeneous classes, classifying the children into abnormal, normal and supernormal, thus composing a discourse about the scientifically framed as abnormal ones, besides establishing categories based on the intelligence tests.

Veiga (2004), besides presenting the classifications included in Lourenço Filho’s work, presents the classifications defined by Binet⁷ as for the abnormal ones: “[...] idiots, stupids and mentally retarded, and the imbecile” (p.77). Additionally, he exposes that the authors also consider the physical and emotional health of the child, thus producing other categories: “[...] steady, unsteady, immature, mature, with sensory and motor disabilities, also including the codification of social adjustment degree: shy, timid, fearful, edgy” (p.77). He finalizes naming the “problematic child” who, for Lourenço Filho, are those with difficulties to fit in the family circle and adjust to school, and therefore, in the society.

According to ^{Lopes (2002}), the “problematic child” concept was created by the doctor and psychoanalyst Arthur Ramos. His contribution to the Pedagogy, according to the author, rests on this new classification, as when observing the abnormal ones, he redefines such classification beyond the psycho-technical tests, which he criticized for their determinism and simplicity:

the review on cases of children enrolled in schools as abnormals removed 90% of children from this condition and especially from the treatment imposed to them. The children with unsatisfactory educational performance, uneasy, delusive, would be “problematic children” and the attention they needed was other, very different from the care they received (or not received) when considered as abnormal. (^{LOPES, 2002}, p.334)

In 1933, the Orthophrenia and Mental Hygiene Section of Institute for Educational Research was founded, as a result from the reform made by Anísio Teixeira, with Arthur Ramos as director. Despite of being close-related, they disagreed about the organization of homogeneous classrooms based on tests, therefore, Arthur developed a complementary job focused on the children and their family, as a reflex of his concern on mental hygiene. From 1934 on, “orthophrenic clinics” had been gradually established in experimental schools and, in 1936, a first “behavioral clinic” aimed to preschool was founded (^{LOPES, 2002}).

The orthophrenic clinics in schools come from the childhood understanding by Arthur Ramos as the “golden age for mental hygiene”. In such clinics, the following professionals should work cooperatively: the teacher, the clinical physician, the psychologist-educator and the psychiatrist, whose objective was maintaining the normal child normalized (prevention) and, in case of any serious issues, these would be analyzed by this team (^{LOPES, 2002}).

The “problematic child” was present in the books published to teachers regarding the new educational prism. It was the case of work by professor Afro do Amaral ^{Fontoura (1965}) in Rio de Janeiro - in addition to exalting the contribution of psychology for both the characterization of individual distinctions and the classification principles of mental level (I.Q., psychometric scales), the professor dedicated one chapter to address the problematic child and the importance of education discipline.

Defined as “the one that, for any reason, not adjusts to the school education standards or children code of conduct, so he/she represents a problem for his/her parents or educators” (^{FONTOURA, 1965}, p.105), the problematic child would not be an abnormal child, but the child who not fits in the conventional social standards without having any physical, intellectual or moral anomaly.

For these “abnormal” children, according to ^{Fontoura (1965}), there should be appropriate institutions, pedagogical establishments for internment and, in the most severe cases, the Neuropsychiatric Hospitals for children.

As able to be corrected by means of education, ^{Fontoura (1965}) advocated that the problematic child was a mere “misadjusted child”, whose “misadjusting” was due to physical health (including nutrition), mental health, emotional life, family life, economical life, social life (places attended by the child). Still, he characterized the possible noticeable behaviors in this group: rebelliousness, whim, suspiciousness, lack of interest in studying, fear, antipathy towards school, or against teachers or colleagues, anger, frequent quarrels, indolence, evasion, instability, lying, inability to learn, attention deficit, theft, hysteria, enuresis (urinary incontinence), sexual disorders, anxiety, etc. and the medical therapy should be applied based on research of the misadjustment causes, referencing Arthur Ramos in the relevance of comprehending each case specifically.

Other normalization device was the creation, in 1937, of the Laboratory of Children’s Biology in Rio de Janeiro (^{CORRÊA, 2006}; ^{LOBO, 2015}), which in order to justify its requirement and excellence, the lab owners were proudly announcing that not even a single child assessed through psychological and medical examinations was “sane” (LOBO, 2015, p.369). This data emphasizes the force of childhood capturing in its abnormality, which for being so fragile in its definitions and causes, everything could be included, and it was true indeed, thus highlighting the power-knowledge while being a truth discourse produced by the medicine-pedagogy pair in the social control.

The purpose of the Laboratory was studying the abandoned and delinquent minors, aiming to discover the physical and psychical causes for such children conditions, especially in relation with criminality (^{CORRÊA, 2006}).

The close relationship between the medical, legal and educational instances for determination and destination of the abnormal ones was present in the discourse of nation administrators. In 1937, Getúlio Vargas stipulated that for education of the “intelligence abnormal” ones, the public authority actions would be linked to National Institute of Pedagogy, in association with Psychopatic Assistance Service, and the “morally inept” ones would be at disposal of Justice (^{JANNUZZI, 2006}).

There is a paradox in terms of the assistance offered to the “intelligence abnormal” persons, as even though they should be connected to the National Institute of Pedagogy, assisted by the Psychopatic Assistance Service, the history reveals that the intelligence abnormal - idiots, imbeciles, oligophrenic - ones received the assistance of psychiatric hospital only (^{JANNUZZI, 2006}; ^{LOBO, 2015}; VIANA, 2014).

In the records of psychiatric hospitals in Sergipe, during decades of 1940 through 1970 (Hospital Colônia Eronides de Carvalho, Hospital Clinic Adauto Botelho and Hospital Garcia Moreno), a total of 7,522 hospitalization medical records were identified, 184 hospitalizations of people considered as oligophrenic idiots, oligophrenic imbeciles or mentally disordered without any other comorbidities, and from these, 62 had up to 18 years of age - there was no educational character in their treatment, instead, they had been treated with electroshock therapy, medication and seclusion (SERGIPE, 2016).

In the study conducted by Viana (2014) on diagnostics of children and juveniles hospitalized during 1942-1944 in Hospital Colônia Sant’Ana in Santa Catarina, the author rises questions regarding the hospitalization of oligophrenic persons in the psychiatric hospital, since they should receive educational treatments as prescribed in the scientific literature.

The author concludes stating that the literature used, since 1914, claimed the treatment of oligophrenic idiots and imbeciles through physical and moral education in special establishments for such purpose, however, the institution, object of her study, the psychiatric hospital, not served for that function, which reveals how much the historical process of valuating the labor and education not allowed the abnormal ones to be framed in, just giving them no other choice but the increasing advance of psychiatric power as a corrective and normality standardization rule⁸ (VIANA, 2014).

In Sergipe, in addition to the hygienic school inspection practices, important devices for identifying childhood abnormalities and deviations were implemented during the New State period: the S.A.P.S. (Psychopatic Assistance Service of Sergipe) and the Office of Criminal Biology.

The inauguration of S.A.P.S., under direction of Dr. Garcia Moreno, took place in the 2nd Congress of Neurology, Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene of Brazilian Northeast Region, held in the History and Geography Institute of Sergipe in 1940.

According to ^{Arruda (1991}), the feature sessions covered the works developed in the Neurology, Psychiatry, Sociology fields for treatments used (such as convulsive therapy) and mental hygiene themes and topics. This theme highlighted the knowledge produced the approximation with education, as the author emphasizes the reading of Official Report by Miss “Senhorinha” Anita Paes Barreto⁹, under the title “Organização de classes homogêneas nas escolas primárias” (^{ARRUDA, 1991}, p. 12); and the conference conducted by Professor Acrísio Cruz under the title “A personalidade infantil e a escola”, and other delivered by Dr. Leite Neto, under the title “Repressão e Profilaxia do Crime”.

The contents present in the Congress themes evidenced the proximity of mental hygiene, psychiatry to education environment. The approximation at appropriated knowledge level, once the use of intelligence and personality psychometric practices was identified in psychiatric hospitals (pertaining to S.A.P.S.) and in state primary schools (in education of special classes in middle of 1975).

The S.A.P.S. was initially planned by means of three devices: Hospital Colônia Eronides de Carvalho¹⁰, Neuro-Psychiatric Clinic and Mental Hygiene Office, and the Clinical Analysis Laboratory of S.A.P.S; and it was regulated by means of Decree no. 63, dated 10/12/1940, published in Government Gazette of Sergipe as of 11/12/1940:

Sole article: The Psychopatic Assistance Service of Sergipe shall be governed by the applicable Regulation, being therefore revoked any contrary provisions.

Regulation of Psychopatic Assistance Service of Sergipe

Chapter I Assistance, purpose, maintenance and financial turnover.

Article 1. Psychopatic Assistance Service of Sergipe is directly subordinated to Secretariat of Justice and Interior Affairs.

Article 2. The Psychopatic Assistance Service of Sergipe mission is:

1) to assist the psychopaths or not;

2) to assess, for forensic purposes, the criminals and the accused suspects of mental alienation.

3) to conduct etiological studies of psychopaths, get to know from a broad inquiry in every sense, the mentality of the people born in Sergipe. The reasons for their psychical disorders, aiming to dictate advice on mental hygiene and prophylaxis (SERGIPE, 1940, apud ^{ARRUDA, 1991}).

The regulation evidences its character for treatment of mental ill ones as well as identification and prevention of deviations. In the preventive sphere, there is the strategical presence of two monitors belonging to the Mental Hygiene Office, whose function, according to Dr. Garcia Moreno was:

the Mental Hygiene Monitor must find the abnormal, retarded, predisposed and supernormal ones, in the educational means, in order to provide them with the necessary guidance in each case; then catch the industry workers, psychopathic personalities to forward them to assistance services, protect and oversee the egresses from mental hospital, promote psychical hygiene habits to them, and by studying the social usefulness capability, follow in the family means, the advices and surveillance, of the former internals of Hospital-Colônia, providing guidance on their life habits and their professional aptitude or their treatment. Finally, exercise in society a productive action of mental hygiene, by studying the typical general and local causes of the Psychopaths and the means to counteract such causes, spreading verbal advice in the various places attended by them (^{ARRUDA, 1991}).

Although the function of the mental hygiene monitors should go beyond the monitoring and surveillance of egresses from mental hospital, this was the only function found to them in the S.A.P.S. records available. No other reports regarding any other actions, neither any close relationships of such monitors with the schools (SERGIPE, 2016).

Another device found in the literature as the Office of Criminal Biology, which operated in annex of the Model Prison and was distinctive under administration of Dr. Garcia Moreno in the 1940s decade (^{FERREIRA, 2004}).

Both devices - S.A.P.S. And Office of Criminal Biology - had as function identifying the traces of abnormality in Sergipe population and also in childhood, as disclosed in the Sergipe historiography (^{COSTA; MENDES; FARIAS, 2014}; COSTA; MENDES, 2015; MENDES, 2014).

The institutional paths of Sergipe for capturing the abnormality in childhood progressed in conformity with the devices instituted in other locations of Brazil. The scientific discourses that justified and grounded the creation of the devices, such as S.A.P.S and the Office of Criminal Biology, sustained that the abnormality problem in the individual, that is, in the own child, and in what he/she inherited from family, even though supposed to start a new discourse directed to the environment and the context this child grew, it was not that what essentially filled the pages of the reports aimed to the childhood in such devices.

This power knowledge grounded on theories about heredity and abnormality, predominantly stemming from Europe, produced childhood-aimed discourses and practices in several institutions, such as those connected to the psychiatric power, characterizing the S.A.P.S. and Office of Criminal Biology, as power devices on behalf of the “abnormal people hunting” in Sergipe lands.

Final considerations

The union of biomedical and education knowledges resulted in the emergency of biopower in Education, thus producing childhood normalization devices identified in the discourses, practices and institutions in Brazil and other States, such as Sergipe.

The microphysics of power represented by the combination of biomedical powers with education produced practices, discourses, representations and institutionalization of childhood in its normality and abnormality, reaching bodies, behaviors, habits, manners of children and their families, including the teachers. From the hygienist medicine to psychology, the appropriation of such knowledge was determinant to the process of pedagogy scientification and production of normalization devices, configuring specialized institutions and strategies of this biopower, such as the tests, exams and assessments in large-scale on the childhood.

The urgency of educational reforms by means of new school presumptions supplement this and characterize its peak. The discourse produced by Lourenço Filho, disseminating this new comprehension of education and learning process, was loaded of grounds stemming from the experimental psychology, which having the French productions, mainly by Alfred Binet and his collaborators, as exponent, brought up the hygienist disciplinary principles of eugenic character, and that in certain way elected those who would have access or not to the school environment, by means of psychometry and the appropriate representation of the mental hygiene regarding the deviations from the childhood normality. It configured a power knowledge that served to a ruling elite that conducted the democratization of Brazilian education and had to deal with the students coming from popular cultures, low-income classes and who had not responded to the social and economic project of Brazil.

Therefore, childhood normalizing and governing devices were created in the national context and in Sergipe during the first decades of XX century. In accordance with the policies and practices that had been developed in Brazil, the children and adolescents of Sergipe also had their life scrutinized and subjected through normalization devices, herein highlighted as the Psychopathic Assistance Service and the Office of Criminal Biology, which determined the possibilities of education as well as social coexistence for many people of Sergipe.