Introduction

It is consensual the thought that when doing research, in the different epistemic territories, the researcher makes and remakes himself, also, when doing it. In the area of History of Education it is no different. In the very act of doing the research, in this case, the historian of education is faced with a human past which, as ^{Rüsen (2001}) states, "is not structured in the form of a construct that we can understand as history" (^{RÜSEN, 2001}, p. 68), so that the researcher is faced with the challenge of interpreting the past and, in this movement, making of the "deeds", of the human actions the history (RÜSEN, 2001).

In the French historiographical tradition, this "historical making" gained strong impulse with the emergence of the so-called Annales School, at the beginning of the last century, whose initial movement was to distance itself from the historicizing history centered on events, shifting the look from political aspects to economic ones, to social organization and collective psychology, besides making an effort to bring history closer to other human sciences (DOSSE, 1992; ^{BOURDÉ; MARTIN, 1983}). This historiographical renovation gained wide territory in research in later decades, opening paths for the emergence of the so-called New History. This historiographical current proposed a new way of "doing history", starting by giving protagonism to the subjects, previously hidden by the historical narrative of the great syntheses, making possible the investigations focused on regional and local particularities, besides opening space in the research for the "new problems", "new approaches" and "new objects" (^{LE GOFF; NORA, 1976}).

In this horizon, the present text discusses about the theoretical and methodological debate in the historiographic production, in the field of history of education, at local/regional level without losing sight of its relationship with the global, in view of the necessity set a long time ago by the historiography, that the realities resulting from the action of the man, on the space and the time, should be analyzed, also, from singularities manifested in its micro space. This work is the result of a doctoral research that investigated the public policies of education in the city of Vitória da Conquista-Bahia, in the period between 1945 and 1963, whose theoretical and methodological options came, above all, from the horizons opened by the New History. In this sense, as ^{Ariès (2011}) states, "the Annales today are something different from what they were in the past" (p. 278), so that, throughout its successive generations, this historiographical movement became broader, bringing to its field of studies significant phenomena of our contemporary history. Thus, we seek support, among other studies, in the work of Pierre ^{Goubert (1992}), whose approach on Local History, as a historiographical² genre, allows us to turn our gaze to the local reality and interpret it as the history of "a whole society, not only of the privileged ones who governed, judged, oppressed or taught it" (^{GOUBERT, 1992}, p. 48). Goubert contributed to such theoretical and methodological possibilities to bring new perspectives of investigation, including in the field of History of Education. In this aspect, the writing of the history of education in the local dimension does not fail to recognize the municipality as a political administrative entity with its own life, however, articulated with the political and educational actions at national/global level, breaking the dichotomy between the center and the periphery, the local and the global. And although the time frame of the aforementioned research is limited to 1963, within the limits of this text we will only make a brief "drawing" of what was education in the municipality of conquistense, until the first half of the twentieth century.

La Nouvelle Histoire³ and the resurgence of Local History

Philippe Ariès, one of the well-known names in French historiography, recovers in one of his writings the genesis of French Social History, when the renewal of historical science took place at the beginning of the 20th century. It was a time when "traditional history was almost exclusively interested in individuals, in the upper layers of society, in its elites (kings, statesmen, the great revolutionaries), and in the events (wars, revolutions), or in the institutions (political, economic, religious) dominated by such elites'' (^{ARIÈS, 2011}, p.273). In this scenario, Social History presents itself as a counterpoint to Traditional History, having its field of investigation focused on the "mass of society, left aside by the powers, by all those in a position of subjugation". (p. 273). It was a matter of breaking with the political history of positivist bias, the historicizing or événementielle history which, on one hand, was what Le Goff called a history-narrative and, on the other hand, "a history of events, a factual history, a theatre of appearances which masked the real game of history, which takes place behind the scenes and in the hidden structures (...)" (^{LE GOFF, 1990}, p.31). It is in this dynamic that appears, in 1929, the so-called École des Annales, French historiographical movement grouped around the journal Annales d'Histoire Economique et Sociale, launched in Strasbourg.

With Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre as its founders, the Annales School 'evolved' in several generations and, in 1946, it imposed itself with a new acronym and was renamed Les Annales. Economies. Societies. Civilizations (^{BOURDÉ; MARTIN, 1983}). In this new version its notoriety rose, above all, with the creation of a research and teaching institute, the VI Section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, in 1947, presided over by Lucien Febvre and, later, by his disciple Fernand Braudel. By incorporating researchers from different fields of research in a pluridisciplinary quest, the Annales School endeavored to bring History closer to the other human sciences, especially Sociology, Anthropology and Geography. The latter had in Braudel its most notable disciple. His work "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World at the time of Philip II" is the expression of a historian impregnated with the lessons of human geography, that is, the Annales School seeks in Geography the construction of a new approach for the interpretation of historical facts, placing them not only in a historical time, but also in a space. Not by chance, the journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale was inspired by the Annales de Géographie, by Vidal de La Blache (BURKE, 1991).

After 1968, Braudel surrounded himself with a committee which included Jacques Le Goff, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Marc Ferro, and it is in the 1970s that the Annales School reaches its third generation, under the command of the medievalist Le Goff in partnership with Georges Duby. After a while, in 1974, Le Goff, in partnership with Pierre Nora, proposed a new "Doing History", title of a collection of articles that carry in themselves the essence of the Annales, since they pose "new problems", outline "new approaches" and distinguish "new objects". In 1975, the Braudel era was left behind when the VI Section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études became the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, presided over by Le Goff, to be replaced in 1977 by François Furet (BURKE,1991). Here the so-called New History emerges as the 'heir of the Annales School', as ^{Bourdé and Martin (1983}) point out, and gains broad territory in historical research.

Nevertheless, the New History has "parents", as Le Goff (1990) states. For this historian, Voltaire's "New Considerations on History", in 1744, already wove severe criticism to a history in which he "only learned events", it was necessary "to know the history of men, instead of knowing a small part of the history of kings and courts" (VOLTAIRE, s/d, apud^{LE GOFF, 1990}). Also the preface of "Historical Studies", by Chateaubriand, in 1831, is, for Le Goff, a true manifesto of the New History. In it the thinker was dissatisfied with the analysts of antiquity, since they "did not introduce into their narratives the framework of the different branches of administration: the sciences, the arts, public education were rejected from the domain of history" (LE GOFF, 1990, p. 38).

However, Jules Michelet and Fraçois Simiand are regarded as the great precursors of New History. Michelet directed direct criticism at history as he saw it in the eminent men who represented it. His stance was "the refusal of an essentially political history and the aspiration to a total and profound history" (^{LE GOFF, 1990}, p. 41). Commonly, Simiand in his memorable article "Historical method and social science", criticizes the "three idols of the tribe of historians": "the political idol", "the individual idol" and "the chronological idol" (LE GOFF, 1990), that is, he denounces the historiographical construction in which exaggerated importance is given to political facts, to wars, to the study of an individual in his particular origin, while concealing the social phenomenon, the common subject and his relations.

It is undeniable that the Annales movement has continued for successive generations, to the point of speaking of a possible fourth generation, which would be the New Cultural History, in the late 1980s. This phase, led by historians Roger Chartier, Jacques Revel and the historian Lynn Hunt, besides the Italian Carlo Ginzburg who joined the group, seeks the investigation of "cultural practices", going beyond "mentalities". In this horizon, Jim Sharpe (1998), points to the "history seen from below"⁴ as another project born from the influence of the Annales and which proved extraordinarily fruitful, insofar as it "opens up the possibility of a richer synthesis of historical understanding, of a fusion of the history of people's everyday experience with the thematic of the more traditional types of history" (^{SHARPE, 1992}, p. 54).

It is in this movement of intermittent generations that the Annales School opens space for the study of the local. Delimiting, explaining the gaps, the silences of history, and settling it both on the voids and on the full that survived (^{LE GOFF, 1990}) constitutes one of the noble tasks of New History. This new trend that would approach "small space" became stronger in the 1950s and became known in France as "Local History" (BARROS, 2006). It is in this wake that the School of Annales discovers the field of demographic history, which is based on a series of births, marriages and deaths, soon after the Second War, and is found in several theses, as stated by ^{Bourdé and Martin (1983}). This is what Pierre Goubert does in one of his most notable productions: Beauvais and the Beauvaisis in the 16th to 18th centuries, whose contribution to local historiographical studies is indisputable.

Local History and the History of Education

Goubert's thesis Beauvais and the Beauvaisis from 1600 to 1730 (1960) highlights an achievement of historical demography: that it was able to invent its own methods. It is in this work that he marks a historiographical turning point and, moreover, offers a model for evaluating the movement of populations at a time when the accuracy of statistics was not thought of. For ^{Bourdé and Martin (1983}), Goubert did not renounce the search for the global, but wanted to achieve it on a more restricted spatial basis, within the framework of regional studies. This premise is confirmed by the fact that in his work, the whole of a society is studied and presented with remarkable scientific rigor and detail. Goubert was one of Bloch's disciples who adopted "the spirit of the Annales' ' and, although he specialized in seventeenth-century history, when studying with Bloch he remained faithful to his master's style of rural history. However, it is in his eminent article originally published in Historical Studies Today (1972), entitled "Local History", that Pierre Goubert problematizes historical research, electing local history as the focus of discussion. In this article, the French historian characterizes local history as being

that which concerns one or a few villages, a small or medium-sized town (a large port or a capital city are beyond the local sphere), or a geographical area no larger than the common provincial unit (such as an English county, an Italian contado, a German Land, a French bailiwick or pays) (^{GOUBERT, 1992}, p.01).

According to him, Local History had its golden age in France. Practiced with care, zeal, and even pride, it was later despised, mainly in the 19th century and first half of the 20th, by the supporters of general history, whose usual historical methods were concerned with the problems of the upper classes, that is, a history "interested in those who made the laws (...), in those who governed and not the governed, in the clergy and not the faithful, in the stories of men of letters describing their regions and not in the reality of the region itself" (^{GOUBERT, 1992}, p.48). However, supported by the new look of the New History that elects "new problems" and "new objects" for research, Local History gains ample territory in historical research and, as a theoretical and methodological possibility, comes to oppose a history that "was written from the center" (CERTEAU, 1973 apud^{SCHMITT, 1990}, p. 261) and seeks to bring to the historical scene the subject of the "history seen from below". Thus, Local History returns to the scene from a new interest of Social History, which is, "the History of a whole society, not only of the privileged ones who ruled, judged, oppressed, and taught it" (GOUBERT, 1992, p.48).

Therefore, local history is not opposed to global history or to "macro history", its cut- off only designates a thematic delimitation marked by historical, cultural, political, etc., particularities, almost always hidden by larger generalizations. The great value of local history is, above all, in its fruitful dialogue with global history, since

There is no gap, let alone opposition, between local history and global history. What the experience of an individual, of a group, of a space allows us to perceive is a particular modulation of global history. [What the microhistorical point of view offers to observation is not an attenuated, or partial, or mutilated version of macro-social realities: it is a different version. (^{REVEL, 1998}, p. 16).

Commonly, the local approach to history also includes the regional aspect. According to Janaína Amado, region is understood here as "the spatial category which expresses a specificity, a singularity, within a totality: thus, the region configures a particular space within a determined wider social organization, with which it is articulated" (^{AMADO, 1990}, p.13). Furthermore, ^{Pesavento (1990}), supported by the assumptions of dialectical materialism, states that regional history is the synthesis of multiple determinations, that is, there is a localized specificity which is economic-social as a space for the exercise of power and construction of the self-image of a group. Thus, the historical study of a region implies the analysis of a singularity in the totality (^{PESAVENTO, 1990}). In this perspective, it is worth pointing out that local and regional history, in its contemporary formulation, does not present the geographical dimension as a focus, or attribute to it the role of conductor of the idea, as Braudel did. The object of study of Local and Regional History turns to the man in his daily life historically constructed, and not the space, as proposed by the initial paradigm (^{HUNT, 1992}), to situate itself in the human actions woven in the space of a region or locality.

The coincidence between the region examined and a traditional administrative unit, such as a small municipality, sometimes allows the historian to solve his lack of sources in a single space, there and then appropriating information concerning the relations that shaped the social groups investigated, without, however, 'looking at the tree and, at the same time, hiding the forest'. Therefore, in the research about the public policies of education in the municipality of Vitória da Conquista, which gave rise to this text, when we think of the place as a space of restricted geographical scope, whose subjects and social practices express habits, customs, traditions that give them an identity, education emerges as an important social amalgam, whose function, especially in the municipal dimension, is aimed both to the social and economic development, as to the legitimation of local power. More than that, when we define Vitória da Conquista as the place, the context, the agency, the subjects/beneficiaries, the project/investment (^{CARVALHO; CARVALHO, 2012}), we see that historical research, in the area of History of Education in a micro dimension, focuses on the municipality as an instance of planning and consolidation of educational, school, political-pedagogical projects with their own characteristics, besides bringing to the historical scene the subjects who idealize, plan, carry out and dispute spaces of power, finally, it refers us to the meaning of the historical action played by these agents.

By focusing on local actions, from the educational point of view, such as the appointment of teachers, the creation of schools in specific places, the influence of heads of local traditional families in educational policies, the patronage in the hiring of education professionals, the public-private relations etc., the writing of the history of local education does not fail to recognize the municipality as an institution with its own life, however articulated with the political and educational actions at national/global level. It was based on these guidelines that, when we proposed to investigate a dimension of the history of education in the city of Vitória da Conquista, we committed ourselves to writing its history, in order to shape its educational memory, since there is no spontaneous memory (NORA, 1993). In this horizon, we do not despise the work of memorialists⁵, whose productions account for the local/regional specificities, so that one of the paths taken to interpret the history of education in the municipality came from the production of local historians, journalists and poets, who provided a "useful material" (^{GOUBERT, 1992}) for writing. These narratives, chronicles, news and poetry about the daily life of the city and its people reverberate in "evidence" that alter some 'general' ideas, prejudices and approximations that often prevail in the absence of more precise investigations (Idem, 1992).

Research in the History of Education in the local dimension

By choosing the place as a perspective of approach to the History of Education in the city of Vitória da Conquista-Bahia, we built, at first, a brief "drawing" of what was education in the city until 1945. This is the excerpt of a doctoral research which investigated the public policies of education in the aforementioned municipality, in the period between 1945 and 1963. In order to account for this "drawing", we went back in time, starting with the creation of the first schools in the municipality, still in the 19th century. For that, we resorted to documentary research, including making use of the local press of the investigated period, which enabled the comparison with the official⁶ sources, to the extent that it gave projection to the actions of the municipal governors, from the disclosure of their policies for local education and their political relations in the state and federal spheres. The construction of this 'drawing' of education in the municipality represented a condition to advance in our investigation from 1945 to 1963. However, we did not occupy ourselves in giving more depth to the discussion, nor build it with the intention of a comparative activity of the periods. We seek only to construct a starting point for our analysis, avoiding the generalizations that are so frequent in this type of narrative.

In that context, Vitória da Conquista presented a precarious educational reality, with few conditions to respond to the demands for education, since it was almost non-existent, in that period, the presence of the State in the guarantee of this right. It is a period in which social and political relations were still manifested under strong appeal to the coronelism authoritarianism, very much in vogue at that time, so that these lordly relations made it almost impossible to have a wider educational project in the municipality. It is known that the first public school in the municipality was installed in 1832, by the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Bahia. It was a school with a "beaten floor", which functioned in a

The children sat on boards, stones and coffins placed around an old table which had been ordered by the municipality with two benches. The school had an enrolment of 35 and an attendance of 20. Since there were no books, the children read from pieces of cardboard or manuscripts stuck on cardboard. (AGUIAR, 1888, apud VIANA, 1982, p.434).

According to ^{Silva (1996}), in this context, many cattle breeders and farmers began to reside in the villages, in order to send their children to school. The same author reports that some time later, in 1908, there was a mixed class in the city of Conquista⁷ for male and female students, and that it was called Municipal Class. In the registration book,

In sheets 3 and 4, 51 pupils are enrolled. On sheet 5, of the year 1909, there were 45 pupils enrolled, with a decrease of 6 pupils. In sheets 9, 10 and 11, the following year, this enrollment rose to 78 pupils; it would only decrease again in 1911, when there were 66 pupils enrolled on pages 12 and 13. This number fell even more in 1912, to 59 pupils, rising again a little in 1914, when there were 62 pupils enrolled. [...] In 1915, there was a new decrease, there being, in the same register, only 49 pupils. (^{SILVA, 1996}, p. 15).

This same school was closed in 1909, due to an armed conflict between political factions in the municipality, known as "Meletes and Peduros"⁸. Only some time later, the Intendency came to provide two schools for the urban community: one state and one municipal, whose enrollment, in both, totaled more than a hundred students.

Nevertheless, the municipality entered the twentieth century without much progress in this sector, so that the educational scenario only began to gain momentum from the 1920s. Here the studies of Aníbal Lopes ^{Viana (1985}), local historian and journalist, showed to be 'useful material' (^{GOUBERT, 1992}) for this research, insofar as they reveal particularities, but also reflect more general ideas. In his reports, the author dedicates a space to the history of the creation of public schools in the municipality, thus signaling the strength of private education in the first decades of the 20th century. There were 12 public schools set up between 1916 and 1940, by teachers, wealthy families and farmers, in urban and rural areas. The education offered was that of the first letters, primary and gymnasium.

The arrival of Anísio Teixeira to the General Inspectorate of Education in Bahia, in the 1920s, came with a certain optimism. Upon his appointment as Inspector General in the government of Francisco Marques de Góes Calmon (1924-1928), Anísio was excited with the idea of an "educational localism" (^{ABREU, 1960}, p. 14), striving for the approval of Law no. 1846 of 14 August 1925, reforming Public Instruction in Bahia, as well as Decree no. 4218 of 30 December 1925, approving the regulation of primary and normal education. Anísio proposed, by means of the law, the unification of state and municipal educational services, establishing in its Chapter II (Of Municipal Education), Articles 70 to 73:⁹

a) Primary education (borne by the municipalities and the State) is a single service, under the general direction of the State; b) The power to "create, maintain, transfer and suppress primary schools" of the municipalities is recognized, within the limits of the law; c) With the unification of services, all teachers become state employees. (...); d) The municipality is obliged to allocate 1/6 of its revenue to primary education, and may also create special contributions for education; e) The State Treasury shall pay teachers from the resources collected month by month by the municipalities to the State Treasury. (BAHIA, 1925).

However, in spite of the aforementioned law foreseeing a more decentralized relationship between the State and the municipality in educational matters¹⁰ (Arts. 70 and 71), it did not materialize in the daily life of most municipalities in Bahia as it should have done, given their deficient structure, both from a material and financial point of view. In the case of Vitória da Conquista, even after the approval of the State Law no. 1.898, of August 4, 1926, which "Authorizes the Executive Power to order the construction in the municipalities of the state, buildings destined to public schools, tax stations, collectories and public jails, by means of contracts celebrated between the respective Municipal Intendencies" (BAHIA, 1926; ^{TEIXEIRA, 1928}), we did not find any documents indicating the construction of such a structure in the municipality, until the end of the mandate of Governor Góes Calmon, in 1928. Moreover, in a report¹¹ sent to the State government by Anísio ^{Teixeira, in 1928}, it is supposed that the construction of the referred school buildings was facing difficulties of funding, as the referred report indicates:

any other process makes the construction of the school building excessively expensive for ordinary budgets, hence the eternal delay in satisfying this supreme need of a school system in a State, such as Bahia, of nascent progress and diminishing income. (^{TEIXEIRA, 1928}).

In the same document, the city of Vitória da Conquista appears among a group of 17 municipalities with "advanced construction" (^{TEIXEIRA, 1928}) of school buildings by the State. Between the end of the government Góes Calmon in Bahia (1924-1928) and the advent of the Vargas government, from 1930 on, there are no records in the municipality of Vitória da Conquista of the construction of new school buildings by the State. This design of municipal education remained precarious for a long time. However, the local political movement, in the 1930s, yielded to the municipality a close political relationship with the politics at the state level. A fact that corroborates this proposition was the appointment of the mayor Arlindo Mendes Rodrigues, from 1933 to 1936, by the then Interventor Juracy Magalhães. At this conjecture, public education in Vitória da Conquista was not left aside, since its framework remained precarious, at least until the 1930s. In a note, published in the newspaper "A Notícia" (11/04/1930), the editor, professor Euclydes Dantas, appealing to the Secretary of the Interior, describes the picture as "deficient the teaching, even primary in the city of Conquista. It is urgent to fill the existing vacancies and the creation of more schools, for the city and for the interior of the municipality (...). We are sure that our appeal will be attended to such is the importance and urgency of the case. (...)". (Newspaper A Notícia, 1930, apud^{VIANA, 1985}, p. 455).

It is true that the 1934 Constitution considerably expanded the political-administrative dimensions of municipalities, invigorating their revenue¹² policy, since without their "own revenue" their autonomy would be far from being achieved. Article 13 of that Constitution not only mentions the form of organization of the municipalities, but also the set of measures that guarantee their financial autonomy. However, in the 1930s, the municipality of Vitória da Conquista still did not have an intelligentsia that defined the contours of the education project that would meet the educational demands of the population in its different social strata. Even if the urban sector had expanded, the local government did not advance in its educational project for the city, not going beyond building a few schools and hiring teachers, without notable changes, including in the old command structure.

It was, however, during the administration of the mayor Luiz Regis Pacheco Pereira, between 1938 and 1945, appointed by the federal interventionist in the state, Landulfo Alves de Almeida, that municipal education gave timid signs of growth. It is worth remembering, however, that in the 1937 Constitution, federalism "goes totally out of the window", so that there was a strengthening of the federal executive and the consequent weakening of state and municipal governments. However, the municipalities of Bahia, whose administrators 'walked hand in hand with the interventory' of the State, as was the case of Régis Pacheco, in Vitória da Conquista, the public policies of education managed to achieve a timid advance, including after the creation of the Secretariat of Education and Health of the State, by Decree no. 9.471, of 22/4/1935¹³.

Thus, in face of the movement that agitated the educational environment in the state sphere, the municipal government sought to restructure the local education conferring to the municipality an aspect similar to what Justino Magalhães called "municipal-pedagogical"¹⁴ (^{MAGALHÃES, 2015}, p. 45). We borrow this category from the author, because we understand that the municipality "not having to whom to pass the obligation and dealing directly with the demands of citizens, ends up taking over education and organizing it within its limits" (GONÇALVES ^{NETO; CARVALHO, 2015}, p. 13), not reducing its action only to issues of political-administrative nature. It is in this perspective that some acts signed by the municipal government have gained visibility.

In Act number 36, signed on 09 February 1939, the mayor created, at once, five schools, two in the city and three in the rural area. According to the same document, the municipality would have the obligation to provide furniture and payment of "school lease to the schools it has created" (MUNICIPAL PUBLIC ARCHIVE, 2018), as required by a state decree no. 11.121, of 13/10/1938¹⁵. In another Act, no. 37, dated 10 February 1939, the Municipal Executive opens a special credit of eight contos de réis (8:000$000) to cover the expenses of the schools created, being six contos de réis (6:000$000) "for payment of municipal teachers, from March to December 1939; two contos de réis (2:000$000) for school leases and purchase of furniture for the aforementioned schools" (MUNICIPAL PUBLIC ARCHIVE, 2018). The same document establishes a salary difference between teachers of the schools at the headquarters, who would receive a salary of one hundred and fifty thousand réis (150$000) per month; and those in the rural area, a salary of one hundred thousand réis (100$000) per month, evidencing a salary valuation of the teachers at the headquarters to the detriment of those in the rural area. The document analyzed does not give the reasons that justify such salary policy, however, it points to the problem of rural education, often relegated to second place in the treatment given to it by the public authorities.

In Act no. 121 of 3 July 1939, there is mention of the National Crusade for Education¹⁶, from which charity balls were held for the maintenance of schools for poor children in each of the municipalities of Brazil. The act signed by the municipal mayor states that the Town Hall held the aforementioned ball in the city on 2 July this year. The 1940s, however, began without substantial changes in municipal education, except for several appointments of teachers made in the second half of 1939 and the first half of 1940, totalling eight appointments in all. In 1940, Decree no. 109, of 27 July, increased the teachers' salary for the year 1941, from one thousand three hundred and twenty thousand réis (1:320$000) to one thousand eight hundred thousand réis (1:800$000) a year, "with the teachers being obliged to meet the school lease expenses [sic]" (MUNICIPAL PUBLIC ARCHIVE, 1940). Here one notices a change in the dispositions of the above-mentioned Act no. 36 (9/2/1939), by denying the payment of the "school lease", as required by the State Decree no. 11.121, of 13/10/1938, leaving the same responsibility on account of the contracted teachers.

It is a fact that public policies without resources become declaratory and potentially innocuous (^{CURY, 2007}). In this aspect, with a view to the maintenance of municipal schools, still in the year 1940, the Municipal Executive forwarded to the City Council a Bill of Decree- law no. 66, of May 2, 1940, whose proposal would be to create "the rate of 2% on all taxes for the maintenance of municipal public schools" (MUNICIPAL PUBLIC ARCHIVE, 1940). The text of the project states to be in line with the Federal Decree-Law no. 1.202 of 08 April 1939¹⁷, although this does not make reference to the allocation of resources, specifically, for education. Although the 1934 Constitution requires, in its article 156, "never less than ten percent" of the income resulting from municipal taxes, "in the maintenance and development of educational systems" (BRAZIL, 1934), the aforementioned project justifies that the approval of the tax is due to the "intention of this Prefecture to equip the municipal schools (...) and provide some more schools".) with the necessary material and endow the municipality with a few more schools", besides arguing that "the revenues of this municipality do not correspond, in view of being relatively small, to the pressing demands of a municipal school equipment as it is convenient and the creation of new schools, an urgent need recognized" (MUNICIPAL PUBLIC ARCHIVE, 1940). In this sense, ^{Werebe (1970}) points out that the constitutional precepts regarding the financing of education were not always taken with due seriousness, even by the Union itself, which avoided such expenditures for a long time, starting in the 1940s. Also the state quotas, in the same period, were lower than the 20% constitutional, in ten years, even though there were some among them that exceeded such obligations (p. 68). However, Werebe (1970) points out that the global data of municipalities between 1940 and 1959 showed that the (average) percentages destined to education were always higher than the quotas established by the Constitution. However, the figures of the tax revenues of most units (either state or municipal), according to the author, are derisory (^{WEREBE, 1970}).

It is true that the binding of percentages of federal taxes for education, guaranteed by the Constitution of 1934, suffered an attack by the Constitution of 1937, which imposed the untying of the same resources, which represented a setback in public policies for the maintenance of education. However, the institution of the National Fund for Primary¹⁸ Education in 1942 brought some relief to the budgetary situation of the educational system, including in municipalities where the educational policies of the States found echo. Decree-Law no. 4,958 of 14 November 1942, which created the said fund, established the National Agreement on Primary Education, signed on 16 November 1942 by the Minister of Education and representatives of the States. According to Cury (2018), such convention would only be triggered by Decree-Law no. 5,293, on March 1, 1943, which, due to the bureaucratic-legal processing, it comes into force in August 1945, determining that,

The Union would provide technical and financial assistance for the development of this education in the states, provided that they invested a minimum of 15% of their tax revenues in primary education, rising to 20% in five years. The States were obliged to make similar agreements with the municipalities, by state decree-law, for the transfer of resources, provided that there was a minimum initial investment of 10% of income from municipal taxes in primary school education, rising to 15% in five years. (BRAZIL, 1943).

In Bahia, this convention was reinforced in 1946, when the Intervenor of the State Government signed the State Convention for Primary Education, at first with representatives from 110 Bahian municipalities (^{MENEZES, 1999}). Thus, unlike the Union and the States, in the period between 1940 and 1958, the municipal sphere was the one that most increased its educational funds in relation to the growth of its tax revenues, that is, this increase in revenues "was twenty-six times, while the funds for education was almost forty-six times" (^{WEREBE, 1970}, p.70). In this aspect, the Municipal Executive in Vitória da Conquista, through the above- mentioned Project of Decree-Law no. 66, sought its justification for the creation of the aforementioned tax on taxes, from the "recognized need for urgency" (Id. ,Ibid. , 1940), revealing a desire for the creation of new schools, in face of the scarce budget of the municipality.

The arrival of the first Gymnasium

In the August 22, 1937 edition of the newspaper O Combate, the news of the coming of a gymnasium to the city of Conquista occupied a prominent place. The newspaper became the voice of the local community which, in turn, was echoed in the City Council.

The idea of a Gymnasium in this city is gaining ground. [Regarding the foundation of a Gymnasium in Conquest, some days last week, bulletins were spread in this city, inviting the people of this land to the realization of this idea and asking for the cooperation of all, without distinction of political or religious beliefs. [...] That every conquistense helps in the realization of work so useful to the progress of our beloved land. (O COMBATE NEWSPAPER, 1937).

The mobilizing aspect of part of the population gave shape to what became known as the "Conquista Gymnasium" and later the "Padre Gymnasium". However, the journey to reach the final project took some years. The Gymnasium was consolidated from the guidelines of the secondary education established by the reform Francisco Campos¹⁹, in 1931, whose definition of this level of education was the one destined to the "man's formation for all the great sectors of the national activity", building in his spirit a whole "system of habits, attitudes and behaviors" (^{SCHWARTZMAN; BOMENY; COSTA, 2000}, p. 206).

The mentioned educational institution was transferred from the city of Caetité to Vitória da Conquista, in 1940, the city had its first gymnasium, directed by its founder Father Luiz Soares Palmeira, hence the name "Father's Gymnasium", where it was formed a good part of the children of the Conquista elite. According to Viana (1982), in 1940, Father Luiz Soares Palmeira, Otto Mayer and the federal inspector Anfrísio Áureo de Souza were in the city, together, to guide the first entrance examinations, in which 70 candidates were submitted to the tests. Of these, only 28 were approved for the formation of the first class of the gymnasium. (Figure 1).

Source: Municipal Public Archive, 2018.

Figure 1 Graduates of the Conquista Gymnasium in 1943. 

The Gymnasium of Conquista offered the first cycle of secondary education which, according to the Francisco Campos reform, corresponded to the four series of the gymnasium course. As a private institution, the school was attended by those who could afford to pay for its services, which ranged from the conventional course, to the boarding and admission exams. The newspaper O Combate, in its December 9, 1944 edition, reported on the federal inspection of the gymnasium.

GYMNASIUM OF CONQUISTA, UNDER FEDERAL INSPECTION. Director: Father Luiz Soares Palmeira. Inspector: Dr. Anfrísio Áureo Souza. Regime: internal male and external mixed. Course: primary, admission and secondary gymnasium. Note: The boarding school was reopened, not accepting students in boarding houses or private houses, except in the cases foreseen in the new statutes. (NEWSPAPER O COMBATE, 1944).

The gymnasium was born in the expansion movement of private education, especially in the 1930s, motivated by the aspirations of mobility of the urban middle classes. In this sense, this first gymnasium comes with the intention of confirming the pedagogical policy and ideals of the time, based on the development of skills to invention and initiative, moral formation, as well as the spirit of modernization of the society. There was a search to adapt the educational system to the changes effected in the society of that context by the various state governments that, despite the more centralized form of government by the Interventors, including during the Estado Novo, sought to make education respond to the growth and modernization of the country, since more people sought to educate themselves.

When tracing a "drawing" of the school education in the city of Vitória da Conquista until 1945, we can see in the documentation that there was an effort, even if timid, of the authorities and of the population to enlarge the number of schools in that period. There was the understanding that only education would promote the social and economic development of the city, assuring it an outstanding position in the region. In this movement, the city became an urban center, which required a certain level of education from the population.

Stephen J. ^{Ball (2001}) points out that policy analysis requires an understanding that is based on the general and the local, and that these relationships need to be built on the perception of the role of the State. In this sense, despite the constitutional determinations about education, especially in the Charter of 1934, reserve a space for local governments to plan their educational policies, we found no substantial changes in the educational structure of the municipality in this period, still very dominated by the strength of coronelism, both in the state, as in the region. This made it maintain, basically, the old political arrangement of the First Republic, with social practices that perpetuated the oligarchic model, including in its way of organizing education. Not by chance, during decades, the schools remained functioning in family homes, despite Anísio Teixeira, in his passage through the General Inspectorate of Education, at the end of the 1920s, lead a struggle so that the school building and its facilities meet, "at least, the average standards of civilized life [...]" (TEIXEIRA, 1935, p. 39).

However, it is worth noting that the national educational reforms of 1930, with the creation of the Ministry of Education and Public Health, by establishing common rules for the organization of education throughout the country, had a certain reach in the municipality, in the organization of local education, in the state schools and, especially, in the gymnasium, which was created under the supervision of a federal inspector. Moreover, the press reported that there was a notorious desire among the local population for more schools during the 1930s, possibly motivated by political changes at the national level, with the revolutionary movement of 1930, which signaled a "modernization" in the country, in the political, economic and educational fields, although such proposals did not find the full adherence expected by the dominant groups of local coronelism.

Nevertheless, the municipality followed favored by the State education policies, which sought to unify state and municipal education services, initiated in the Góes Calmon government, in 1925. These were demands that obliged the local authorities to respond with actions directed to the creation of norms for the organization of municipal education, one imperative being the expansion of the school network, which, in fact, began in the municipality, above all, from the administration of the mayor Régis Pacheco, in 1937. There were, therefore, intentions and disputes that influenced the political process, generating a context of influence (BOWE et. al., 1992, apud^{MAINARDES, 2006}) in which the interest groups entered in dispute in order to "influence the definition of the social purposes of education and what it means to be educated" (MAINARDES, 2006, p. 51).

Conclusions

The construction of this 'drawing' of education in the city of Vitória da Conquista up to 1945 represented the starting point to advance in our investigation from 1945 up to 1963. In front of the documentation, it was immediate the verification of the precariousness of the educational scenario of the city in that period, still marked by the local oligarchic domination, in which the poorest population was still dependent on the "support" of the influential families and farmers of the region. In this scenario, private education predominated, offered in the few schools built and, despite the 1934 Constitution imposing on the public authorities the duty to guarantee education as a right, it was only at the end of the 1930s, during the administration of the mayor Régis Pacheco (1938-1945), that public education in the municipality seemed to show signs of growth. The organization of education in this period was still based on the laws that reformed public education in Bahia, approved by the management of Anísio Teixeira, together with the General Teaching Inspectorate, in the 1920s and which remained in force until the end of the 1940s. However, in a more accurate analysis, it became evident that the policies for primary education in the Régis Pacheco administration were maintained in marginal conditions, bequeathing a still deficient school structure to the administration of the mayor Antonino Pedreira de Oliveira, starting in 1947.

During his eight-year term, we could not find more than 12 acts, signed by the mayor, that dealt with educational issues and that, for the most part, referred to the appointment of teachers, opening of special credits and creation of schools. Therefore, in almost half a century, the municipal public "educational structure" of Vitória da Conquista remained tiny, even with the policy of creating schools, especially in rural areas, strengthened by the rural school expansion projects launched by the Dutra government. At the end of Mayor Antonino Pedreira term, in October 1950, the municipality still had nearly 80% of the population aged five and older illiterate.

Finally, one of the questions that worried us in this research was related to the gaps on the history of the local education and the silence about the subjects that printed their mark in the education of the municipality, evidencing what Saviani (2000) had already denounced when he stated that the Brazilian History of Education continues being, dominantly, based on the sources of the central government, or of the hegemonic States, not having, for the time being, greater conditions to reflect the regional and local specificities (SAVIANI, 2000 apud^{MIGUEL, 2004}). This modus faciendi of the historiography of education, based on major generalizations, prevents that these subjects, and what they produced in a given time and space, overcome the siege of silencing by the so-called traditional history. Hence it is essential not only to talk about the "silences of history", but also "to question the historical documentation about the gaps, to wonder about the forgetfulness, the gaps, the white spaces of history" (^{LE GOFF, 1996}, p. 109). Thus, this dimension of historical research, now discussed, contributes to the demystification of certain "certainties", by denying some generalizing postulates, at the same time that it denies to be self-sufficient and, although one cannot sustain that general or state history are sums of local histories, it is certain that generalizations will never be safe if local developments are not taken into account the local development.