Legislation as a research document for the History of education

Educational legislation is a primary source in this work, since educational reforms were the main resource used by the government to implement changes that they considered decisive in the process of genesis of new socio-political-economic conditions of society, in particular for an idea of education if it constituted as socially accepted. On the other hand, laws can also be “seen as a form of mediation and solution of conflicts already materialized in daily life” (^{Ferreira, 2015}, p. 26). In this way, we take legislation as a space for conflict, social pressure and disputes between different groups and ideas.

The set of legal rules that make up what we call Education Reforms in the State of Bahia corresponds to several legal instruments that, in general, aimed to standardize Bahia’s education in its various and different aspects. In the case of the legislation in question, we find the following legal manifestations:

In 20 years, five legal interventions have implemented changes in Bahia’s education. Of this set, the Act of 1891, the Regulation of 1895, Law 1,006 of 1913 and Decree no. 1,354 of 1914 legislated on Primary Education. The remainder dealt with, in addition to primary education, secondary education, professional education, normal education and higher education. Each government, when assuming the executive, submitted new changes to society regarding Education. In fact, for most politicians in the Bahia’s republic, education was the liberating force of society, from its action emanated the progress and greatness of the nation (^{Tavares, 1968}; ^{Luz, 2013}), at least in the speeches that accompanied the speeches of the governors and parliamentarians. For a large part of society, however, this statement represented the possibility of achieving a concrete improvement in their living conditions, in addition to being a requirement for access to political citizenship by allowing them to compose a very restricted list of people who knew how to read and write.

But why so many legal interventions? Was there a need for innovation? Did each government propose a different project that broke with the previous one, or did the social dynamics give rise to situations that required accommodation? The reminder of Professor Luiz Henrique Dias Tavares, in the introduction of his book Duas Reformas na Educação na Bahia 1895-1925, when he stated that “Republican Brazil does not begin with the November 15 episode, since it is much more than after the first war world ”(1968, p. 10) may force us to look at Bahia’s politics as one of the pieces that made up the educational mosaic of the republic in its first decades.

Education and politics, in the republican government, happened in an interwoven way. We can use the work of Montesquieu (2000), The Spirit of Laws, of 1747, which deals with the forms of governments and the means they resort to for their effectiveness through the daily practice of power over society, to understand the force that education took over in the Republic. For this author, the type of republican government was carried out, “acquired life” through the principle of virtue, achieved, in turn, through the education of the people⁵. Without a virtuous feeling, a nation and a homeland could not be built.

Legislation, as a way of “educating” the people through social norms (and in the case of this study, professional norms), is actively related to society.

This relational aspect of laws, present since the beginning of the Modern State as expressed in Montesquieu's (2000) thought, manifests its original condition. Coming from the Latin verb ligare, it connects human needs and the legal system, which is why they are “a product of human culture and are adaptable to the historical moment” (^{Schmieguel, 2010}, p. 129). This character imposes on the historian of education the expansion of the questions to be asked before this type of documentation.

The delayed Bahia’s Republic: conserve to rule

In Bahia, the proclamation of the republic, initially, was received by a part of the political elite with a movement of resistance to the events of November 15 in the Court. Authorities and part of the press reinforced their loyalty to the royal family and rejected the “military movement”⁶ that took place in the country's capital.

The sparse historiography that deals with the theme corroborates the idea that the republican movement had little momentum in Bahia’s lands (^{Araújo, 1992}; ^{Sampaio, 1975}; ^{Santos, 1973}; ^{Leite, 2005}). The social group (middle class) that was part of the Bahia’s republican movement “did not meet certain social and ideological conditions (...) to assume decision-making positions in the new state that was being organized” (Araújo, 1992, p. 04). Or as Sampaio (1975) stated, the monarchy remained alive in the republic "through the action and behavior of its men" (p. 17). Men who belonged to an agrarian, commercial, political and intellectual oligarchy, mostly white, who “had literacy as a common substrate” (Leite, 2005).

The republican ideals in the lands of Bahia were swallowed up in such a way that “the innovations were linked to points inherited from the imperial tradition, such as the attachment to order, the sense of hierarchy and the vision of politics as a territory for debate among chiefs. ', between gentlemen-citizens, to whom the rest of the population must be linked by relations of dependency” (Fernandez, 2002 apud ^{Sarmento, 2009}, p. 26).

The political conservatism of the Bahia elite delayed the advances defended by modernity as much as possible, adapting agreements with oligarchic groups from the interior and producing speeches that were not supported by reality, hence the numerous complaints and regrets about Bahia's constant backwardness. Public education and, at the same time, the slow pace of adding the poorest population to the education system.

Jaci Maria Ferraz de ^{Menezes, in her thesis (1997}), affirms that the speeches in favor of education / expansion of public instruction came from two very different sectors: those linked to a bourgeoisie and banks that wished to limit and decrease the power of agrarian elites and the “working classes” who claimed access to school to combat inequalities. The interests of all these social groups were confronted in the First Republic, setting up a dispute framework in which education (considering the apparatus that defines it: curriculum, teachers, buildings, legislation) was placed as a device of social control; of political use; ascension and social prestige; and political legitimation.

Teachers have become significant subjects in the context because they are part of a group of literate women and men, with the function of instructing different generations. According to Denise Catani, António Nóvoa in his thesis states that teachers “are located in the contradictory space of the intersection of interests and socioeconomic aspirations”. At the same time as they were the political agents of the State, they embodied the hope of social mobility of the popular classes (Catani, 2015, p. 585). It was at this juncture that teachers acted to point out ways for Bahia’s education and for its constitution as a professional category.

The Normal School and the formation of the primary teacher

The Normal School was created in Bahia in 1836. In 1842 it started to function. The state intervention in the organization and training of Bahia’s teachers dates from that moment. The existence of Normal School did not mean, however, the extinction of other forms of training, such as learning the trade with a more experienced teacher in his daily practice. As an embryo of teaching education, his invention was linked to the movement of nationalization and control of educational processes, especially the training of specialists with pedagogical authority (^{Nóvoa, 1999}).

Despite its origin being located in the Empire, the Normal Schools this period, in addition to living with “non-school forms of intellectual education”, were the target of numerous criticisms regarding the quality of their training, especially with regard to the absence of methods to society's needs. In the previously mentioned Report of 1883, the words of the rapporteur evaluated the Normal Schools in a forceful way. It said:

when the head of the schoolmaster was not wanted to contain more than a little ash of grammar; when the whole science of pedagogical psychology was reduced to the notion that the intelligence of the child consists exclusively of memory, and the whip applied to the student's muscular integument constitutes his natural system of culture - the professional teaching of school science could be a luxury and Normal Schools a superficiality”⁷ (Chamber of Deputies, 1883, p. 261).

The rapporteur's findings suggest that, until the reform proposal was written, these institutions contributed little to the systematization and social dissemination of pedagogical science. For Bahia, Débora Magali ^{Vieira (2013}) pointed out that, during the Empire, the Normal School presented a body of subjects focused on mutual education ⁸ and general training for reading, writing and rudiments of arithmetic. In 1873 a new curricular reform introduced Pedagogy and Methodology to the teaching program.

The profile of the Normal School in the eighties warns us that the “sociological mutation”⁹, in which the schoolmaster is replaced by the primary education teacher, who characterized professional training, did not happen fully. It was necessary to be under the aegis of the republican government so that “bureaucratic structures of state control” were organized (^{Vicentini; Lugli, 2009}, p. 37) and that the need for an institution that formed the technical competence of teachers was felt.

The republican government made it possible to consolidate a specific public space for teacher training, the organization of content, rules and practices and the structuring of a professional group. Dominique Juliá (2001) historically placed the invention of these elements for Europe. According to this author, from the 16th century it was possible to perceive the existence of a school space, with specific furniture and material. To this locus were added a logic of functioning in classes that reached levels of progression and a set of specialized professionals in the form of corporation or congregation.

In Brazil, the mandatory supply of schools of first letters occurred in the 1920s of the 19th century¹⁰, as well as the first Normal Schools in the two decades that followed, beginning a movement to format these elements in the country. In the case of Bahia, the construction of school buildings and the formation of a minimum group of teachers to take over the classes found greater vigor in the early 20th century. Until then we have the status of student-master who learns the art of teaching with a teacher in his class. A slow process of formal constitution of Bahia’s primary teachers.

There were many clashes, speeches, reforms to “shape” a modus operandi that expressed and defined the teacher. For Portugal, Nóvoa points out that the Normal Schools, on one hand, were places of control for professionals; on the other hand, this same space has become a field for the professional affirmation of solidary teachers (Nóvoa, 1992, p. 15).

This dual and sometimes conflicting movement of teacher training in Bahia, gains stronger colors with the political performance that teachers have taken over republican history. At the beginning of the 20th century, we have a group of professors active in politics, giving lectures, producing books, writing in newspapers and magazines, assuming positions of trust, they had a seat on the Higher Education Council, in addition to triggering a long strike in 1918 (primary teachers the capital).

Aside from those who entered a political life, it was possible to perceive teachers who worked behind the scenes of the executive advising on the drafting of laws and school management. In the book written by Alípio Franca for the centenary of Normal School, the author refers to some teachers like Cassiano França who helped in the drafting of the 1890 Regulation, under the guidance of Satyro Dias (Franca, 1936) and Antonio Bahia da Silva Araújo, primary teacher of the city of Salvador who was elected deputy twice, member of the Higher Education Council and general inspector of education of the capital.¹¹

This intellectual characteristic of part of the teaching staff was important in the Bahian republic and in the construction of the teaching career. On the part of the teachers, the open field of dispute was fundamental for claims to become rights and also to compose the set of laws.

Legislation and teaching status

In the legal texts of the Education Reforms in the State of Bahia - 1890/1919 analyzed, we perceive how certain defining aspects of the teaching condition were undergoing slow changes that preserved the regulations of the Empire. We will now deal with some of these points.

Access / recruitment to the function of primary teacher presented in the legislation, a slow dynamic of conquest of professional autonomy and preservation of the work field for the category. Slowly, the legal norms were narrowing, without closing, the access to the function in the public network, on the one hand, allowing only the specialists, with diplomas from the Normal Schools, to be considered apt and; on the other hand, reducing government interference in choosing these professionals via political indications.

If, at the beginning of the republican regime after 1889, the legislation established the control of entry into the public service to the government with the simple nomination for the 1st class seats¹² “and those of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, for access on absolute seniority or distinct merit” (Bahia Primary and Secondary Instruction Regulation - 1890, Art. 74), in 1919 access was restricted to the competition as the only form of provision. For the reader to follow the evolution of this issue, the table below shows how access / recruitment to the profession of primary school teacher was configured through legislation between 1890 and 1919.

It is noted that the entry into the teaching career in the public sector has acquired greater complexity over the years, reaching in 1919 greater rigor and detail in the selection processes. In 1904 the initial access was by competition for the lower level of the career; then the seats in the upper levels follow criteria (merit and seniority) that may suggest political preferences; for complementary and higher education the competition was necessary. A decade later, the initial access started to be made by simple application and the rise in the career by competition. In both cases, the category was hostage to the political use of current governments, as the criteria were not very objective and the entry of non-graduates was facilitated.

In 1913/1914, even with part of the access still under government control, the criteria become clearer with the establishment of documents that would serve as proof of “seniority and merit”. It is interesting to note how the legislation gradually defined the “formative curriculum” needed by the teacher for career advancement, with experience, participation in commissions and intellectual production being incorporated into the profession's procedures.

It was tacit, however, that Republican governments never gave up legal means to appoint adjuncts / teachers to the classes. The political use of positions for people of confidence who would be "grateful" for the favor granted occurred throughout the First Republic. Although not covered in this text, the position of director has always been placed in the legal rules analyzed as “trustworthy” and the prerogative of appointing the chief executive officers.

On the other hand, the legislation of this beginning of republican government follows the trend of the rules in force in the empire and, in a way, mirrors a conception about the teacher and his constitution. The Regulation of January 5, 1881 on instruction, which will be the basis of the legislation of 1890 and 1895, established as a form of access for primary seats, the hiring for 3 years for the 1st class, through the submission of application and tests of moral and intellectual ability (qualification exam / letter of student-master / literary or scientific / foreign title recognized by the government) and the competition for the 2nd and 3rd classes.

This resistance to the public tender by the government was present in another important document, which we cite as a reference for republican legislation, although produced in the Empire, the Report and Project of the Public Education Commission for the Reform of Primary Education nº 224, of 1883. Having Senator Rui Barbosa as rapporteur, the text defends merit as the main factor for admission to teaching. For the referees, the contest “removes the wise” and does not evaluate the vocation because it admits only good speakers, besides giving the approved the idea that he has the right to that place and does not need greater efforts (Chamber of Deputies, 1883, p. 291).

The arguments used in the report of parliamentarians point to a tendency of the government to conduct the composition of public professors, when seeking candidates with the profile closest to what was desired for a teacher, revealed by his “vocation” to teaching. Intellectual knowledge alone was not enough for the exercise of the function, since teaching required a natural gift that would be polished in the Normal Schools, responsible “in qualifying for the real practice of education” (p. 276).

When we look at the authors cited in the Report who supported the ideas in the text of the 1883 reform proposal, most of them were from French intellectuals ¹⁸. Rui Barbosa and his colleagues looked to members of the government administration and the French parliament for support to reinforce a position against the competition as a form of recruitment, understood as “false liberalism”, as ineffective and demoralizing (p. 289). The reports gathered were unanimous in the defense of the vocation to overcome the specific knowledge of the profession as a criterion for the selection of the teacher and, for this reason, the direct appointment of the government / king or the teacher corporation would produce positive results to teaching.

But how would this vocation be defined and what are the attributes that manifest it? A teacher would need to have spirit, moral and intellectual skills that consisted of “uprightness of judgment, (...) inclination of the heart, properties of the soul, moral qualities, in short, [talents] on which depends the goodness and effectiveness of all teaching” (p. 291). Still required enthusiasm for the profession, “extremes of patience”, “generosity and affectionate complexion. The set of all these moral and intellectual predicates results in a vocation” (p. 292).

The requirements for admission to the teaching profession presented in the set of texts of the Teaching Reforms 1890-1919 express the ideas discussed in the Report of 1883. The request for a moral certificate issued by the candidates' authority prevailed throughout the period; there is also the run sheet, the absence of conviction of any crime committed and disciplinary proceedings in public service. The aim is to “rectitude of judgment”, the image of a person who, by acting with respect to the laws and the Fatherland, can be a model for other people, in the case of children who were in training.

Regarding the adoption of the contest as an instrument to verify the ability to exercise teaching, the legislation did not directly follow the guidelines of the Report, but we can perceive mechanisms of control of the selection process compatible with the teaching concept corresponding to the intellectuals of the time, mainly the cited French.

Entry into the career of a primary school teacher was a gradual process and ascension required time. In all the legal texts analyzed, the first investiture took place at the lowest level of the profession, sometimes as an adjunct and in a place far from the capital. For promotion, he should submit to new competitions or be appointed by authority, reaching the status of teacher, and raising his salary. In the early years, the prerogative of choosing teachers to ascend was from the government through a list of names prepared by the director / inspector of education and sent to the governor. Subsequently, the title contest is introduced in which the candidate should prove his / her worthiness, aptitude, ability to teach, good performance of functions, among other qualities.

Another important aspect to consider is the role that Normal School played in this process. The preparation of the points, the evaluation of the tests, the examination and the classification of the candidates would be the responsibility of the Congregation of the Normal School of the Capital. It was the professional corporation that judged the attributes of aspiring public service teachers.

Whether the legislation validated the idea that teachers themselves would conduct professional selection; on the other hand, it did not understand that that training space was essential for the exercise of teaching. If the vocation predominates over primary knowledge, anyone could have that call and meet the conditions for teaching. Thus, the legislation has always enabled people without a degree to participate in competitions for teachers, and in 1913/14 there was no specification on the subject and in 1918/19 it is allowed that bachelors who studied the subject of Pedagogy can compete for primary teaching.

The denomination of teacher itself obeys a hierarchy in the legislation. The different terms established in the legal text expose the divisions in the composition of the professional category.

The primary teaching system, in the Reforms, presented a plural composition based on different functions and situations in the public service. Teachers were appointed and assumed the responsibilities of a class; adjuncts were assistants to teachers in classes that were split (divided into two or more); the single teachers were those who had their schools extinct and were available; the master students were those who had just left the teaching course or who received a letter from an experienced teacher stating their condition of exercising the profession; and substitutes those who replaced teachers or assistants in situations of impediment or absence and did not often need to have a diploma.

The 1913/14 legislation is a little different from the others when considering as teachers all those who work in classes, differentiating the location of the class they work in (school group, isolated school, or unfolded classes).

Acting in the classroom did not guarantee legal status as a teacher. As a beginner, he was called a master student (neither a student nor a teacher), then as an adjunct, a teacher assistant and, finally, his appointment as a teacher. This division corresponded to different maturities and, sometimes, only bonuses.

According to the body of the law of the analyzed acts, training at Normal School and the acquisition of a certificate / diploma were not sufficient to guarantee access to the degree of teacher in public primary teaching. Underlying this finding is a conception of teacher training in which the formally acquired knowledge should be added to other elements that would complete the profession. Let us return to the Report of 1883 to seek the roots of this understanding / project that guided the legal norms in the early years of the Republic.

According to the rapporteur Rui Barbosa, the legal provisions of the proposal followed Prussian law, considered the best model. In his words,

Normal school is not enough to find out and establish a vocation. For this verification to be complete, experience has taught people, such as Germany, whose pedagogical qualities are more pronounced, to seek safety in a series of further precautions” (Chamber of Deputies, 1883, p. 292).

The idea of vocation as a primary element for the formation of the teaching profession accompanies the logic of the career. If there was an understanding that the teacher diploma was not enough to verify the vocation, and as the access instruments such as the contest, also did not completely grant talent, legal precautions would need to be established to combat “the tendency towards indolence”, proper of a “career from modest perspectives like the professorship, where work does not find the impetus for ambition, it is essential (...) [to apply] preservatives against inertia” (Chamber, 1883, p. 292).

In the speech of the parliamentary-rapporteur, the teaching of first letters constituted a profession with no prospects for social growth and remuneration, that is why it was up to the government to create inspection mechanisms¹⁹ on the teacher's performance, a “complete assessment of professional provisions” and rules of professional advancement, in which the professorship would be divided into classes. The text states that through these stimuli, vocational investigation, and the establishment of a “gradual increase in dignity and advantages”, it could be possible to remove teachers from the “rust of laziness and indifference”.

The political elite of the republican Bahia considered the incentive of the Bahian parliamentarian, even though he came from the Empire and turned to education in the Court. Promotion in the teaching career was built by republican legislation with the idea that the vocation, understood as love of laws, the country and devotion to teaching, was the pillar of the profession; and that his development and affirmation would happen throughout his years of studies and his performance in the teaching profession.

It was up to the legislator to create rules that would facilitate the verification of teacher abilities and that would also maintain interest in study and career growth through various promotions. It was up to the administrator to monitor compliance and to convince the professed class that their role in society was the most noble and essential for the greatness of the republican nation, a virtue.

This process results in a permanent struggle to establish a school inspection and inspection system that operates throughout the state. Issues of financial resources, availability of qualified professionals and the extension of the territory resulted in the adoption of different models and failures that were reflected in the quality of teaching and in the difficulty of gathering data and documentation that portrayed the history of the implementation and consolidation of our primary education.

These ideas were present in another important point to understand the development of the legislation regarding the construction of the career of primary teacher: the professional formation. How did the different governments in Bahia, think of monitoring the vocation of teachers? If there was a conception of teacher education, in which the idea of a “culture of vocation” focused on “moral complexion and professional acumen” prevailed (Chamber, 1883, p. 278), we seek to understand how it was expressed through legal norms.

In reading the Acts, Laws and Decrees that form the set of Teaching Reforms from 1890 to 1919, we realized that the articles that referred to some form of contact of the teacher with specific knowledge of the profession during his performance were diluted in the body of the law. The norms found, which dealt with the improvement of the teacher, were provided in the teaching supervision sections, almost always under the responsibility of an inspector or school delegate.

The alignment of improvement actions with teaching supervision was in line with the thought that in order to become a teacher, a vocation and education would be necessary, not just instruction. The education of the spirit and the firmness of the vocation would occur gradually, in the exercise of the function and under the guidance of others more experienced. Otherwise, in the conception of the ruling elite of the time, stagnation and lassitude would be installed among teachers and, consequently, in education.

On the one hand, primary teaching was understood as a profession stemming from an internal talent, from a call for teaching; on the other hand, this vocation could only be revived through the education of the spirit. The absence of one or the other aspect in teacher education would result in teaching deficiency, which is why the need for strict and direct supervision over teachers.

The legislation presented some variations in the way this professional training would take place. Individual monitoring took place through direct contact with the teacher: i) given by the inspector / school delegate when visiting schools; ii) through the teacher who pedagogically guided the assistant; iii) the school group director guiding the art of teaching; and iv) through study trips to Europe or North America. Except for the latter, the training would take place in the workplace where the teacher works and would be carried out by those in a position of supervision and control.

Another device indicated in the legislation, the conferences offered a collective configuration and could involve people from society in general. This training model was present in all legislation during the period studied, and its design changed in the legal rules of 1913/1914 when reissuing the teachers' conference present in the Reformation of 1873/1875, in which teachers met in the capital to discuss teaching methods (^{Brandão, 2012}).

It is noteworthy that the Pedagogical Conferences of the republican period were held within the scope of the Municipal Intendency of Salvador²⁰ and only primary school teachers who worked in the capital participated. They were not an initiative of the State Government and had no effect on the State as a whole. And it was under the seal of the Municipal Intendency that the conferences also took place in 1896²¹ 1896²⁰, following the format of thesis presentation by teachers.

In the legal text, the republican governments took up the idea of the conferences and presented different formats, they would take place in the localities and would be given and / or organized by inspectors / school delegates. The teacher would be a listener and learn, mainly, of intuitive teaching. Another particularity assumed by this model of conference would be its dissemination aspect of republican ideals of education. The conferences assumed the objective of popularizing pedagogical knowledge, especially of the intuitive method²² intuitive method ²¹, for the population.

Educational laws did not outline an expanded training / updating policy; partly broke with the tradition of Empire conferences, but he presented no other alternative by keeping under the responsibility of the school inspector teaching “the means of learning or improving in teaching new subjects” (^{Santana; Menezes, et al, 2011}).

Even coming from the politics of the Empire, the Pedagogical Conferences of 1896 and 1913/1914 outlined for the first time in the Republic of Bahia an effort, even if restricted to the capital, to organize actions aimed at the professional training of teachers. Teachers presenting their theses on themes related to their daily challenges in the classes / schools, discussing the real problems of education and pointing out possibilities for resolutions. They stop being mere listeners and become protagonists. Together with the reference for the creation of a Museum-school, with the objective of “reviving the practice of modern teaching methods”, it reinforced the government's intention to create specific policies for the professional training of primary teachers. This initiative ended quickly.

In 1918/1919, it returned to the formative process in which the itinerant delegate was responsible for conferences in the localities. The format of large meetings of teachers, authors of theses on teaching, vanishes. The Government retroacted the idea of a policy aimed at the formation and intellectual autonomy of the primary teacher who resumed his status as a listener.

We consider symptomatic of this condition of knowledge recipient the edition of Art. 201 (which refers to the format of the didactic work) of the 1919 Regulation as a kind of contact of the teacher with specific knowledge and, in a way, active in its formation. When introducing the obligation in the author's “advice” textbooks on the best method and process for applying the book's content, the didactic work was transformed into a manual with recommendations for acting in the classroom.

Final considerations

The republic installed in Bahia two days after the 15th of November exposed the political convenience of following the decisions of the new regime without major changes in power relations. Monarchists incorporate republican appeals in their speeches, but the Empire's liberal practices are effective in dealing with reality. The government's proposals for education accompanied this flow; four months after accommodating the new regime, the reform of the Manoel Victorino government is canceled and the 1881 Regulation is determined as the current legislation.

The permanence of norms of the old regime announced the permanence of liberal ideals that resonated throughout the First Republic. In the case of education, the concepts expressed in the Report and Reform of Primary Education of 1883, whose rapporteur was Rui Barbosa, an icon of Bahia’s politics, reflected in the legal norms produced in the first republican governments.

In this article we seek to understand some of the concepts that remained present in the set of laws issued by the Bahia’s republic and that represented an idea of a teacher and recruitment for the profession based on three legal markers: access to the position, the type of teacher and professional training.

The view that prevailed in different governments and which predominated in legal texts understood that the profile of the teacher was the result of an internal call, of uprightness of spirit, moral and intellectual predicates, that is, of vocation, associated with the specific knowledge of the profession. It was this logic that governed the creation of access and monitoring devices for teachers in public careers.

In the first three Republican decades, the government did not give up naming people without contests or exams to exercise the function in the classroom or to assume the functions of directing and supervising primary education. The so-called “legal license” that made the profession an exclusive place for a specialist to work did not take place in republican Bahia.

As the teaching profession was understood by the republican elite as a profession with no prospect of material and social growth, which would tend to indolence, governments created mechanisms to monitor performance and rise rules to stimulate among teachers the search for better wages through new appointments, including to positions of trust such as principals and teaching delegates / inspectors.

Understanding that teachers needed to be tutored (controlled) to "revive" their vocation, the conduct of the Republican State was for a more diffuse and almost individual formation, under the terms / localities and under the responsibility of the delegate / supervisor who knew the place. Also, a co-formation between teachers and adjuncts without further accompaniment.

We understand that other aspects not covered in this article need to advance in the research to understand the constitution of the profession of the primary teacher in the Bahia’s republic, mainly regarding the performance of the teachers, the formative conceptions in the curriculum of the Normal School and in the relation of the category with the political game of the oligarchies. Let us wait for the next chapters.