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Cadernos de História da Educação

On-line version ISSN 1982-7806

Cad. Hist. Educ. vol.20  Uberlândia  2021  Epub Jan 29, 2022

https://doi.org/10.14393/che-v20-2021-21 

Articles

History and Education: Dominican-Anastasian school institutions in Goiás1

Cesar Evangelista Fernandes Bressanin1 
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1221-2353; lattes: 4737722834785056

Maria Zeneide Carneiro Magalhães de Almeida2 
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2220-9932; lattes: 5736362178244406

1Federal University of Tocantins (Brazil). kaeserevangelista@gmail.com

2Pontifical Catholic University of Goiás (Brazil). zeneide.cma@gmail.com


Abstract

The aim of this study is to present the historical trajectory of Dominican-Anastasian school institutions in the state of Goiás between the end of the 19th century and the 1960s. Based on bibliographic and documentary research, and supported by studies on the history of school institutions and the assumptions of Cultural History, the text explains the educational philosophy of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils, of French origin, which was established in Brazil in 1885, and its foundations in the state of Goiás in the aforementioned time frame. Without considering the specificities of these school institutions, this work traces its itinerary and its contributions to the history of education in Goiás.

Keywords: Dominican-Anastasian education; Goiás; History of education

Resumo

O objetivo do estudo aqui proposto é apresentar a trajetória histórica das instituições escolares dominicanas-anastasianas no estado de Goiás, entre o final do século XIX e a década de 1960. Aportado numa pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, a partir dos estudos sobre história das instituições escolares e dos pressupostos da História Cultural, o texto explicita a filosofia educativa da Congregação das Irmãs Dominicanas de Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Monteils, de origem francesa, que instalou-se no Brasil em 1885 e suas fundações no estado de Goiás no recorte temporal citado. Sem considerar as especificidades destas instituições escolares, o trabalho traça o itinerário das mesmas e suas contribuições para a história da educação goiana.

Palavras-chave: Educação dominicana-anastasiana; Goiás; História da educação

Resumén

El objetivo del estudio propuesto aquí es presentar la trayectoria histórica de las instituciones escolares dominico-anastasianas en el estado de Goiás, entre fines del siglo XIX y la década de 1960. Apoyado en una investigación bibliográfica y documental, basada en estudios sobre la historia de las instituciones escolares y los supuestos de la Historia Cultural, el texto explica la filosofía educativa de la Congregación de las Hermanas Dominicas de Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Monteils, de origen francés, que se estableció en Brasil en 1885 y sus fundaciones en el estado de Goiás en el período mencionado. Sin considerar las especificidades de estas instituciones escolares, el trabajo rastrea su itinerario y sus contribuciones a la historia de la educación en Goiás.

Palabras claves: Educación dominica-anastasiana; Goiás; Historia de la educación

Introduction

The history of education in Goiás2 is marked by numerous initiatives by both the government and private institutions. The influence of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church at the end of the 19th century and for long decades of the 20th century articulated significant advances for the educational system in Goiás at the time.

The purpose of this article is to expose the itinerary of the dominican-anastasiana educational school institutions in the state of Goiás from 1880 to 1960. In a special way, the article emphasizes the schools and institutes founded and maintained by the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils in the Cerrado3Goiano4.

These school institutions based their purposes and philosophy on the educational proposal of their founders: São Domingos de Gusmão, progenitor of the Dominican Order in 1216, originating the term Dominican education and Mother Anastasie, genitor of the Congregation of Monteils in 1850, originating the term Anastasiana education.

The Dominican-Anastasian educational philosophy is summarized in order to promote an education that values the integral formation of the being, based on human and Christian values that evidence the individuality and potentiality of the subject in the perspective of people's transformation (SMITH, 2015, p. 30).

Hannah Arendt, in one of her magnificent works, Men in Dark Times (2008), alludes to the need to extract the richness of the past. Through her metaphorical reflection, referring to Walter Benjamin, she nods to the need to gather 'fragments of thought' and gather memories like "a fisherman of pearls that descend to the bottom of the sea, not to dig it and bring it to light, but to extract the rich and the strange, like pearls and the coral from the depths, and bring them to the surface" (ARENDT, 2008, p. 222).

Would Arendt's thinking clues to the research and stimulus for the researcher? Becoming a 'pearl fisherman', making a discovery, diving into the past would be clues and proposals for a construction of History? Bringing to the surface 'pearls and corals' of memories that almost faded and went to ruin over time, does it contribute to the History of Education?

Certainly, by bringing it up, these richness become treasures, fragments of thought that radiate knowledge, reveal trajectories and manifest experiences. How many possibilities open up to this perspective for research on school institutions. Therefore, proposing to historically rebuild "Brazilian school institutions implies admitting the existence of these institutions that, because of their durable character, have a history that we do not only want to know, but need to know" (SAVIANI, 2007, p. 24).

Thus, what is suggested here are responses to the stimulus, the clues and the possibilities proposed by Arendt. Involved in a bibliographic and documentary research, this article intent to bring to the surface 'pearls and corals' hidden somewhere, produce history, reveal and compile traces of the past of school institutions founded and maintained by a female Catholic religious congregation in Goiás.

It is known that the strong presence of religious congregations in Brazil at the end of the 19th century and until the mid-20th century marked Brazilian society. Foreign congregations, mostly, but also genuinely Brazilian congregations, in their minority, have made Brazil a great field of mission in the religious, pastoral and educational aspects. In full organization of the Brazilian republican state and the expansion of liberal thought, many congregations, of European origin, settled in various places in Brazil (BITENCOURT, 2017).

Europe experienced an intensely great process of laicization of education in the nineteenth century. Italy and France expelled the Catholic orders and congregations from their territories. Thus, "the interests of the Church, weakened in Europe and in the process of legitimizing a centralized policy in Rome, made her consider Latin America as a space of strong investment" (BITTENCOURT, 2017, p. 37-38).

In Brazil, the Catholic Church also faced a weakening in relations with established power. The liberal regalist influence in the Brazilian clergy, the Religious Question of 1872, and the need to assert itself as an institution, led the Brazilian bishops to react. Anchored in the guidelines of the First Vatican Council, in the proposals of Leo XIII explicit in his encyclicals and in the encouragement given to Latin America, the Brazilian episcopate undertook a major reform of national Catholicism. One of the guidelines of this reform was based on the opening of Catholic schools since the Brazilian educational field of the time lacked expertise (BITENCOURT, 2017).

Nevertheless, the educational field was one of the most promissory fields of the presence of Catholic congregations in Brazil, that with the help of the Brazilian ecclesiastical elite (MICELLI, 2009) took on educational works in many dioceses, occupying spaces proper to a republican state, as shown by the research e trabalhos de AZZI (1983), MOURA (2000), LEONARDI (2010), ROUX (2014), BITTENCOURT (2017) among others.

The Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils, of French origin, was the Catholic institution that, at the invitation and supported by the Goiano episcopate, made the Sertão5 and the Cerrado a place of implantation and expansion of its educational project and contribution to the plans for reform of Catholicism in the parameters of the ultramontano process and romanization.

History of Dominican-Anastasiana Education: an itinerary

After six centuries of religious and missionary work in different parts of the world, the Dominican Order, or preachers as it is officially recognized by the Catholic Church, arrived in Brazil in 1881. At that time, the bishop of Goiás, Don Claudio José Gonçalves Ponce de Leão, was responsible for implementing the project to install the Dominican friars in his diocese.

Friar Raimundo Madré and Lázaro Melizán were the first missionaries, from the convent of St Maximinus in France, to settle in Brazil. They arrived in the city of Uberaba on October 31, 1881. The region of the Triângulo Mineiro6 belonged to the Diocese of Goiás until the year 1907, and with the Catholic religious movement of evangelization and popular mission, they were collaborators of the diocesan bishop in the project of renewal of the Church undertaken by the Brazilian episcopate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

In the Diocese of Goiás, still under the rule of Don Claudio, the Dominican Order opened convents in the city of Goiás in 1883, city of Porto Nacional in 1886, city of Formosa in 1905 and throughout the twentieth century in several other Brazilian dioceses. The ecclesiastical historian Canon Trindade in his work “Places and People” stated that "[...] where the Dominican priest's scapular went, soon after, followed by completing himself, there came the habit of the Dominican religious sister" (SILVA, 2006, p. 420). Riolando Azzi said that the arrival of Dominican religious to Brazil opened the way "for the coming of the Dominican Sisters of the SS. Rosario, whose main activity was the education of youth" (AZZI, 1986, p. 24).

Certainly, as the Dominican priests were already well established, welcomed in the Brazilian Sertao, and encouraged by Dom Cláudio, the first Dominican religious of Monteils arrived in Brazil. In early May 1885, a small group of six sisters, Maria José, Maria Reginalda, Maria Eleonora, Maria Hildegarda, Maria Otávia and Maria Juliana left the port of Bordeaux and made landfall in Rio de Janeiro from where they made a long journey to Uberaba. Six women, six Marias towards the strange world completely on a steam train to the city of Ribeirão Preto and in bullock carts to the Triangulo Mineiro. A saga of mission and education began and which reached some secluded and central regions in Brazil in the perspective of an educational project based on the integral formation of the human person based on ethical and Christian values that value the subject in his individuality and potentiality (CONGREGATION OF THE DOMINICAN SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY OF MONTEILS, 2016).

When the first Dominican missionaries arrived in Uberaba in July 1885 they were housed and installed in the city's Holy House of Mercy. Initially, they devoted themselves to the task of caring for the sick both in the hospital and in their homes, joining the apostolic and pastoral task of the Dominican friars. However, the preparation of educational activities to open some classes to serve young people and children in the city occurred concomitantly with health work (LOPES, 1986). "Education and Health, two principles proposed by the founder, Mother Anastasie, two goals to be achieved by foreign ones" (CONGREGATION OF THE DOMINICAN SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY OF MONTEILS, 2016).

The College of Our Lady of Sorrows was the first school institution created by the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils in Brazil. His activities began very timid in 1885. In the beginning there were six sisters and six students, two internal and four externals. "The Congregation of the Dominican Sisters was a pioneer in the establishment of schools within the Triângulo Mineiro " (MELO, 2002, p. 45). Year after year, the number of students grew, in the first year the College morethan a hundred students and reached the number of almost 250 in 1895 (LOPES, 1986). The offer of a female education assumed by the congregation at the College of Our Lady of Sorrows was permeated with "practice and processes in which society could fulfill its longings, shaping, within conservative standards, the formation of a woman prepared for the sweetness of home and motherhood" (MELO, 2002, p. 79) according to the social standards prevailing at the time.

The College of Our Lady of Sorrows has grown, has been in operation until the present day with different teaching modalities since the middle of the 20th century and is regarded as a "radiation and reference center" for the entire Congregation of Monteils and for Dominican-Anastasian education in Brazil (CONGREGATION OF THE DOMINICAN SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY OF MONTEILS, 2016, p. 36).

This Dominican-Anastasia educational itinerary marked by continuities and ruptures was the possibility of 'spaces of experience' that marked the trajectory of the congregation and its school institutions and enabled 'horizons of expectations' that intertwined past and future (KOSELLECK, 2006) in a path that was made of dreams and longings.

At some moments Dominican education had to retreat, schools and educational institutes were closed for various reasons, including the need for consolidation of other institutions, financial economic issues, and the lack of vocations to the religious life of the congregation. At other times it was necessary to expand because new horizons of expectations opened with new spaces of experiences that were better projected for the future.

Thus, to obtain answers to some questions and concerns, to have access to some experiences of the past, to bring a little of the itinerary of Dominican-Anastasiana education in the state of Goiás, it was necessary to gather the 'shards of history' that allowed the narrative construction of this historical that is presented here. Without the intention of establishing truths and certainties, because "everything that was once can be told in another way, and it is up to the historian to elaborate a plausible, believious version of how it was" (PESAVENTO, 2005, p. 51), this article is intended to contribute to the construction of a 'discourse on the past' and the possibility of opening new questions and other questions about dominican-Anastasia school institutions in Goiás that have an arsenal of sources and information fundamental to the history of education (GATTI JR., 2002).

Dominicanas-anastasianas School Institutions in Goiás

With the growth of the School Of Our Lady of Sorrows in Uberaba and the request of the Bishop of Goiás for the opening of a school in the headquarters of the diocese, other sisters came from France with the aim of strengthening and expanding the educational mission in Brazil. The second group of religious arrived in the country in June 1889 and stayed in Uberaba for a few months to rest and become familiar with the Portuguese language.

New sisters, with very French names arrive in Uberaba, MG: Sisters Jeanne-Marie, Maria Emmanuel, Marie Antoinette and Maria Isabelle. These and four others, who were already in the College of Our Lady of The Pains of Mines, are assigned to go to Goiás. Come get them a state entourage, with 30 mules, and few employees. As a spiritual counselor, above all, comes Father Gallais, O.P., delicate and paternal. With basic provisions and mattresses that rolled, they prepare for 120 leagues of path, fulfilled in stages of 24 to 30 km daily. Always find good welcome among the rare residents of the route (CONGREGATION OF THE DOMINICAN SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY OF MONTEILS, 2016, p. 31).

With the arrival of the Sisters on September 5, 1889, the Sant'Anna School was inaugurated in Goiás, which began its activities on October 1st, 2015 with a free class, five internal students and one hundred external students. The O Popular journal of September 14, 1984 brought a report on the 95th anniversary of the arrival of the Sisters in the city of Goiás and reported the following:

Longing memories of times of struggles, plans and joys join the satisfaction of much accomplishment and work. This is some of what makes up the atmosphere of commemorations of the centenary of the arrival of the Dominican Sisters in Brazil in 1884 and the 95th anniversary of Goiás for the foundation of the Colégio Sant'Ana in 1889 in the city of Goiás. September, the 5th, at 11:00 a.m. It was the year marked for a major change of perspectives in teaching and culture of Goiás [...] Music bands, fireworks, the regular clergy, everyone in the city and D. Claudio Leão composed the reception entourage with great joy coming for so long awaited from the missionaries who came from Uberaba on horseback, and arrived after 28 days of travel and discomfort. Surrounded initially with much curiosity of the entire population, who, however, felt in them the confidence and responsibility of the new work, 95 years later they offer the balance of an extensive sheet of services fulfilled for the benefit not only of teaching, but of social works in general of the city and the state [...]. (THE POPULAR, Goiânia, 1984 apudMELO, 2013, p. 54 - our griffin).

In fact, a new educational era began in Goiás with the opening of The Sant'Anna School. As the capital of the province did not have a structured education system, neither the public network nor the private network and there was no concern for primary and secondary education for the female sex, the government's incentive to private initiative in education may justify the warm welcome that the Dominicans had to Goiás (CANESIN; LAUREL, 1994).

As most of the students who took place at Sant'Anna School came from wealthy families in the city and the surrounding area, there was a concern of the sisters in welcoming poor children (VALLE, 1989) and allocated rooms to these students (CAMARGO, 2014). The pastoral letter of Don Eduardo Duarte da Silva, successor of Don Claudio, elucidates this well.

You will not be able to deny that dominican religious heroines who, for the sake of the education and teaching of your daughters, will abandon their homeland, family, ways of life and will come here to confront our climate, become weary of our habit and consume in this Diocese their youth, their health, their strengths, their lives. You will not be able to pay to deny the immensos benefit that they provide the education and education of both the daughters of the rich, with poor ass, daughters of the less fortunate of fortune, the artist, worker and the proletariat (PASTORAL LETTER, 1897 apudCAMARGO, 2014sic).

For the educational enterprise of Sant'Anna School to be able to serve the needy girls the encouragement of public power was important, because neither the Diocese of Goiás nor the Congregation had financial currencies for such a high investment. Therefore, "measures taken in conjunction with the deputies and persons linked to the Dominican Sisters members made possible the adoption, on 6/22/1896, of Law No. 113, which grant the Dominican Sisters the sum of - one hundred and two hundred thousand reais annually, as aid to the school they ran" (CANESIN; LOUREIRO, 1994, p. 44).

The Sant'Anna School offered the youth of Goiás and the region a private education based on Catholic values already impregnated in the society. In 1904, the request of local families, the school opened a primary classroom for boys, in the modality of day-school, which reached the number of 40 at the end of the year (CAMARGO, 2014).

In 1907 the Sant'Anna School was equated to the Public Normal School by law no. 1,301 of 07/18/1907 (BRZEZINSKI, 1987; BRETAS, 1991). However, for reasons of adaptation and reorganization only in 1915 the normal course began to operate at Sant'Anna School and provided the training of many normalist teachers for the city of Goiás and region.

as experiences experienced in catholic schools and schools, the equivalent of the Official Normal School, besides being an interest of the State for the expansion of private education, would guarantee space, on the part of confessional schools, for the dissemination of religious ideas and formation of mentalities in tune with the conceptions of the Catholic Church and the traditional families of Goiás (CAMARGO, 2014, p.86).

Throughout the 20th century, Sant'Anna School lived its apogee. It was a referential in education for girls through primary education and normal school, offered mixed education to vilaboense society and adapted to Brazilian educational legislation with the provision of other teaching modalities. However, as the 21st century entered, the Colégio Sant'Anna, a Dominican-Anastasiana education school, suffered from the hard-working of the reduction of enrollment, competition from the capitalist market, the lack of incentives and the internal issues of the religious congregation, which was embezzised in the number of vocations. After 126 years of educational practice and contribution to the history of education in Goiás, as in the revelation of the works of Gonçalves (2004) and Camargo (2014), Sant'Anna School closed its doors in 2015.

The Dominican-Anastasiana educational philosophy expanded throughout the state of Goiás. There were already two schools consolidated at the beginning of the 20th century in the territory of the Diocese of Goiás. Thus, "in 1902, the request of Don Eduardo Silva, successor of D. Claudio José Gonçalves Ponce de Leão, as Sisters opened another school in Bela Vista (Goiás). This house served as a connecting point between Uberaba and the capital of Goiás" (LOPES, 1986, p. 81). The school was named Saint Catharina of Sena and operated until 1911, when the Sisters who lived there were assigned to the Formosa School, founded in 1910. There are few information and records about this school that worked on a boarding school, offering the primary course for girls. 7

Since 1886 the Dominican friars were present in Porto Nacional city and the Dominican Order used several devices in this mission in the middle of the old north of Goiás, now the state of Tocantins. The devices adopted were "as missions, as unobliged, as constructions and educational projects" used "as strategies coupled with the ideas of the civilizing process [...] that they shared with the proposals for reform of the Catholic Church in the context of the 19th and early 20th centuries" (BRESSANIN, 2017, p. 20).

In order to help the development of educational projects in Porto Nacional, the Saint Rosa of Lima Convent requested the presence of the Dominican women of Monteils to open a school for the education of young women, since the friars who were signed in Porto Nacional maintained an educational organization for boys through school, music band and youth group (BRESSSANINNIN, 2017). Like this

In Porto Nacional, as Dominicans of the Most Holy Rosary of Monteil, it arrives in the municipality on August 30, 1904. In the same year, the Sacred Heart of Jesus School was created. Its physical installation took place in a house of the then municipal intendant, Col. Frederico Ferreira Lemos, 82. With the collaboration of the public authorities, the families of Porto, belonging to the network of social relations of the Dominican women, they encouraged initiatives so that, in 1906, they would settle in the proper place of the College (DOURADO, 2010, p. 134, sic).

Four French sisters Mother Maria Ignez, Sister Maria Rafael, Sister Maria André and Sister Maria Fernanda were founders of the Sacred Heart of Jesus School and the school was named to honor the devotion, typically French, to the Heart of Jesus. According to Lopes (1986), the Congregation of the Dominican women of Monteils maintained this devotion in their religious practices, since the founder, Mother Anastasie, always consecrated her followers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and "with him dialogued in intimacy. In this fountain he would draw his fortress. He is your trust, your mercy, your redemption [...]" (LOPES, 1986, p. 19).

The performance of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils throughout the territorial extension of the Diocese of Goiás with the foundation of schools and the work with children and young people, in principle female, "is part of the reform strategy of the Catholic Church with regard to the moral and religious reform of the society in Goiás", because through these school institutions , youth, especially as girls, would be educated with the objective of "regenerating society through the Christian family, by the education of women" (DOURADO, 2010, p. 135).

According to historiography, the presence of various religious orders and congregations in Brazil during the first republic and the opening and maintenance of Catholic schools run by them meant the offer of

a humanistic teaching in the best European tradition, attracting elites who, by enrolling their sons and daughters in these institute, legitimized their civilizing character and contributed to its maintenance and reproduction. On the other hand, it is urgent to point out, that this Catholic school network brought economic compensation and made possible, like no other strategy, the project of recatolization of Brazilian society undertaken by the RCAC [Roman Catholic Apostolic Church], and was still of fundamental importance for the financing of religious congregations (AQUINO, 2012, p. 12-13).

Thus, the Dominican-Anastasia school institutions existing until the first years of the 20th century in Goiás, Sant'Anna School, Saint Catharina of Sena School and Sacred Heart of Jesus School were part of the romanization program of the Brazilian bishops, as Medeiros Oliveira explains,

In the midst of these discussions, it is possible to infer, once again, the church's eminent concern and interest in the coming of the European Religious Congregations to Brazil and the consequent task of disseminating Romanized Catholicism through its institutions. Education would be the means, romanization the purpose and principles would be the knowledge of God creator and almighty. In the same diachrony, the project that was installed at the end of the 19th century and which would be the support of the new era had its idea founded in the Church, aiming to form the republican and Catholic man (2010, p.160).

These school institutions were also in line with the great educational, cultural, civilizing, and evangelizing project of the Dominican Order for the entire region of Goiás. For dominican-anastasianas school institutions, families from all over the city and neighboring states sought to offer their children a good school education (PIAGEM; SOUZA, 2000), in view of the

pedagogical work by French religious aimed at an education centered on moral principles, discipline, religious, social and intellectual formation of young women [...] One of the relevant aspects of Dominican pedagogy was the emphasis on culture, especially in the manual arts, drawing, cooking, music, language study, highlighting the mastery of French and the development of verbal language [...] The teaching system based on the principles of discipline, obedience, respect and good examples, based on moral and religious inculcation, aimed at the formation of docile, obedient students, but at the same time prepared to occupy positions and responsibilities of command in the future. As permanent activities proposed to students, control of space and time were important devices used by nuns to accomplish their educational goals. (DOURADO, 2010, p. 135-136).

In Porto Nacional, the influence of the Sacred Heart of Jesus School was incisive and a European climate originated in the city, from a more refined culture that pleased the more affluent families and caught the attention of the poorest who sacrificed themselves to put their children in the religious’ school. As already highlighted here, dominican-anastasia schools grant benefits and scholarships to the neediest because of the existence of agreements with the public authorities. Thus, through the legislation that provided the State to subsidize private primary schools both sant'anna and the Sacred Heart of Jesus began to receive resources from 1908, which allowed the care of needy girls (DOURADO, 2010).

The resonance of the Sacred Heart of School throughout the 20th century in the hinterland of the old north of Goiás was significant and reached the 21st century marking the education of the newest state of the Brazilian federation, Tocantins. In full operation, the school institution has consolidated itself in Porto Nacional and currently offers the modality of basic education. It is recognized as a philanthropic institution, serves more than 1500 students, maintains a differentiated, demanding curriculum that dialogues with the current and emergency of the postmodern world based on the principles of Dominican-Anastasian philosophy and ethical and Christian values (DOURADO, 2010; BRESSANIN, 2017).

The expansion of the Dominican-Anastasiano educational project continued to the interior of the diocese and the state of Goiás with the foundation in 1910 of the St. Joseph School in the city of Formosa. Since 1905 the Dominican friars have maintained their missionary apostolate in this city and came to an agreement with the superior of the Congregation, and sisters Maria Leonor, Maria Hilária, Maria Apolina and Magdalene inaugurated on April 5, 1910 the school for girls, The St. Joseph School (LOPES, 1986).

This school stood out in the region - considered the geographical heart of Brazil - for a few decades, especially in the training of normalist teachers. It is stated that the dissemination of primary education in and around Formosa is due to the normalists formed by the St Joseph School (LOPES, 1986).

However, in 1942, as Dominican Sisters left the direction of this school institution and the surrender to the bishop of Goiás at the time, Dom Emanuel Gomes da Silva. The friars had withdrawn from the city a few years earlier and, perhaps for the same reasons, as financial economic, as Dominican educators "leaving a vacuum and a question mark" (LOPES, 1986) in students and in Formosa society. In 1945, the Congregation of The Missionary Religious of Our Lady of Sorrows, founded by Mother Maria de Jesus, took over the direction of St. Joseph at the request of D. Emanuel (COLÉGIO SÃO JOSÉ DE FORMOSA, 2019).

Among so many stories and memories of the mission of educating evangelizing and teaching liberating in the light of evangelical values in the spirit of St. Dominic and mother Anastasie's educational practice, the state of Goiás is a fertile land for Dominican-Anastasian education at the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century.

In 1933, the new country capital of the Brazilian Cerrado, the city of Goiânia, was erected, "as the starting point of a new period in the history [...] (PALACIN, 1979, p. 92) and also of the History of Goiás Education. However, Dominican-Anastasiana education reached the inaugurated capital in 1948. Mother Maria Aimeé and as Sisters Maria Celina, Gabriela da Immaculate and Maria Eulália settled in Goiânia on January 7, 1948 from Uberaba and Goiás and founded the St. Joseph School which had the beginning of the school year on March 2 with three early childhood education classrooms and 125 students enrolled in a house provided by the then mayor of the city of Goiás and father of one of the religious educators (MELO, 2013).

Unlike the other Dominican-Anastasia school institutions in the Brazilian territory, The St Joseph School began its educational activities with mixed classes. The Brazilian social, political and educational context was different. There were times of redemocratization of Brazil with the end of the Vargas Era, modernization of the Brazilian society with a more pronounced process of urbanization and the State began to invest in industrialization and became better equipped. Regarding education, "the 1940s are characterized by educational reforms that went down in History as the Organic Laws of Teaching" (VIEIRA, 2007, p. 249).

In addition to its function as the political and administrative center of the state, Goiânia was born with the mark of modernity, overcoming the social, political, cultural and economic isolation of Goiás in relation to the rest of the country (GRANDE; BOAVENTURA, 2015). It was planned in the midst of a Brazilian horizon, from the perspective of the March to the West, based on broad transformations, new political, economic and sociocultural definitions, in which what was in vogue was progress, development and modernity, the result of the Vargas government and Goiás politicians in such as Pedro Ludovico (CHAUL, 2015).

In the late nineteenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century, Dominican-Anastasian education was involved in the foundation of schools for the education of the children of the elites and focused on a female education according to the ultramontane and romanization proposals of the Catholic Church. In the context of the 1940s, as Dominican-Anastasia nouns were able to adapt to the demands of time and space. They paid attention to what was real, what was present, the issues in dispute, the challenges that the new reality signalized, but without forgetting the principles and purposes of their identity and their educational proposal since forever: valuing the individual and the potential in each one (MC VEY, 2015, p. 114).

St. Joseph School quickly monitored the growth of the capital Goiânia. In 1953, was founded the cornerstone of the construction of the current building that was inaugurated in 1963 and expanded over time due to the increasing number of enrollments reached 1300 students linked to early childhood education and elementary school (CONGREGATION OF THE DOMINICAN SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY OF MONTEILS, 2016).

The Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils pioneered Catholic education in the state of Goiás. Dominican-Anastasiana education was the first to settle in the heart of the Brazilian Cerrado. In the difficult time when distances, poverty, difficulties and isolation marked the daily life of the people of Goiás and the State was not really concerned in finance or structure the teaching, the education, schools and institutes, this congregation gained prominence in the educational field.

The Dominican-Anastasian education left indelible marks in the construction of the Goiás society, from north to south of the state. In the midst of expanding its institutions to other major centers in Brazil such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasília, the looks of educational mission turn to a poor region well known as the "corridor of misery" in the former north of Goiás.

In the end of 1957, after negotiations between the mayor of the city of Arraias, the federal deputy for Goiás, João de Abreu and the diocesan bishop of Porto Nacional, Don Alano Maria Du Noday - Dominican and French - arrived in Arraias, some Dominican religious. The request of much of the population of Arraias, which had many normalists from the Sacred Heart of Jesus School of Porto Nacional and the of St. Joseph School of Formosa, brought Mother Berta, Sister Maria das Graças, Sister Reginalda and Sister Liliosa to meet the longings of society, the church and the government.

In the city there was already a large building built by the government with the help of the local community. Taking advantage of it, the Dominican-Anastasia educators applied the examination of admission to the school. They formed a working team with the sisters already resident, other sisters arrived as Sister Marilda, Maria das Graças and Maria da Natividade and some lay teachers of the city. From this team they founded on February 11, 1958 the Institute of Our Lady of Lourdes (COSTA, 2004). Arraias was a

Quiet, small city, stuck in a basin surrounded by hills, far away and abandoned northeast of Goiás, known at the time as the corridor of misery and without any assistance in the area of health [...] in education, a school, luckily with normalist teachers [...] the trade was shy and unimpressive [...] That news of a school run by nuns revolutionized the region by reanimating everyone, because only in Dianópolis there was a school in the region, which made it difficult for most young people to continue their studies, due to great difficulties in keeping a student to their home (COSTA, 2004, p. 37).

In addition to high school education, the offer of the Regional Normal School attracted those who wanted to continue their studies. Thus, in 1961 the first class of normalist teachers was formed by the Institute of Our Lady of Lourdes.

As Dominican sisters they gave the first class of teachers to the community: a group of nine students, well educated, molded to divine and human laws, a group of young people who would continue the Dominican work, because the seed was very fertilized, watered with affection and cultivated with rigor and care (LOPES, 1986, p. 190).

The Institute of Our Lady of Lourdes was for many years the only school in the city and the region to offer high school and high school. It worked until 1982 when for financial reasons, pressured by a chaotic situation and without the possibility of continuing to enable the school for those who could not afford it, as Dominican religious passed the institute to the state government that received the name of the Joana Batista Cordeiro State School (LOPES, 1986; COAST, 2004).

Final considerations

Bringing to the surface the paths of Dominican-Anastasiaeducation in Goiás, from the school institutions of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils, it was the purpose of this article. Perhaps the pearls and corals that were rescued brought to light, in addition to a historical knowledge that was intended to produce, a list of doubts and questions about the 'materiality', the 'representation' and the 'appropriation' (MAGALHÃES, 2005) of these schools and institutes in Goiás.

The longing for Romanizing evangelization expressed in the position of the ecclesastical authorities of the late nineteenth century and first decades of the 20th century, communes with the educational proposal of the Congregation of Monteils: Dominican-Anastasiana education also aims at evangelization. Moreover, it is notorious a sense, which sometimes goes unnoticed, but that is aligned with the intentions of the Brazilian episcopate in that context: the civilizing character expressed in the institutionalization of this educational project in Dominican-Anastasia schools, especially that concerns female education.

Even though the philosophy of Dominican-Anastasian education is based on ethical and Christian principles from the perspective of an integral education of the being, there is no way to fail questioning the aspects that corroborate to accentuate exclusion and inequality: despite the care of needy children in the various schools, the main reason for the existence of these schools was the care, training and education of the elite of Goiás society.

Although inserted in a Catholic reformer and civilizer process, especially for the state of Goiás, anchored in the private initiative, serving primarily the female elite of the main localities of the Sertão of Goiás, this does not reduce the importance of Dominican-Anastasia institutions in the process of dissemination of education and schooling in Goiás.

Between advances and setbacks, the Catholic Church built, even though it was not institutionalized in this way, a network of education in Goiás that established deep and lasting marks in the culture and History of Goiás education. As progress, the consolidation of school institutions in strategic points from the mid-south to the north of the state of Goiás. As setbacks, the closure of some of them, such as the Sant'Anna School after 126 years of existence, caused by the economic crisis, decontinues, the migration of students to public school and, mainly, due to the lack of new vocations to religious life that renews the group of sister educators in the continuity of the implementation of the Dominican-Anastasia no educational project.

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2Goias is a state localized in the midwest region of Brazil.

3Cerrado is a savanna ecosystem in Brazil.

4Goiano - referent to the state of Goias, Brazil.

5Sertao refers to hinterland regions in Brazil. People living in Sertao regions have unique culture and traditions.

6Triângulo Mineiro is an area in the west of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil

7"The diocese of Goiás is strictly in the center of Brazil [...] In addition to the province of Goiás itself, which, from the south to the north, measures 2,000 kilometers long, and from this to the west about 850, in its largest width, the diocese also comprised a part of the province of Minas Gerais, which is called 'Triângulo Mineiro', a territory equal to four or five French departments" (GALLAIS, 1942, p.58).

Received: June 30, 2020; Accepted: October 07, 2020

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English versión by Marielza Magalhães de Almeida. E-mail: marielzamagalhaes@gmail.com.

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