Introduction

Thinking about the teaching of history of education in disciplinary history inevitably implies a discussion about the available training library and, on that account, the role played by textbooks². Historically, textbooks were elaborated as a work of synthesis of educational events, of selection of texts relevant to the study of the thematic, and also of the exercise of consultation and indication of other documentary sources that would allow an understanding of the course of educational/pedagogical thought and/or the social and educational organization of different civilizations in different times and spaces. The textbooks’ function was to meet a specific demand: teacher training; at first, those who attended Escola Normal [Normal School], and, later, also those who started attending Pedagogy courses/programs after its creation, in 1939. Evidence shows that these textbooks formed the basis of the training library for teachers and students, and it is possible to state that, during a good part of the training work organization in the History of Education course, they formatted the content addressed in class.

This text sought to present what was a reference in training library in the History of Education course of State University of Londrina’s undergraduate Pedagogy Degree, from 1963 to 1998³. The methodology applied was documentary research, being the primary source the analysis of 47 course outlines, according to the following periodization: 16 outlines from 1963 to 1970; 24 from 1972 to 1991; and 7 from 1992 to 1998. The text was structured in a way that seeks to enumerate the material used as a reference in the teaching of HofE and, therefore, the location of the most recurrent textbooks.

From training library to textbook recurrence

In State University of Londrina’s (UEL) specific case, the list of bibliographical references or training library consists of a category present in practically all outlines located and consulted relating to the period from 1963 to 1998; although it is possible to notice variation in the listing, as well as in the number and type of indications over this period. Based on this information, a summary table of the main recurrences was prepared, identifying author, work, and the year in which they were referenced. Then, the list was disaggregated, considering two large blocks of content: a) those related to the History of General Education; and b) those associated with the History of Brazilian Education.

A general analysis allows us to notice that, regarding the areas of knowledge, the bibliographic reference was quite varied, consisting of texts on General History, Sociology, Philosophy (both texts on the History of Philosophy and texts by the authors of philosophy theories that were addressed in the contents), History of Brazil, Educational Legislation, History of Education and Pedagogy, Educational Policies and Didactics. Indication of articles published in scientific journals also appeared. Completing this list, the use of references in three foreign languages was observed: English, Spanish, and French. Some of the texts are not in State University of Londrina Library, an indication that they could be part of the teachers' private library. The pedagogical plot/warp built by the teachers was organized considering books (general education/general knowledge books; research results with particular or specific themes; and History of Education and History of Pedagogy textbooks), and both academic and general circulation journals, such as newspapers and mimeographed texts, for example.

Some authors were present in the outline references in all the four decades - 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990; others in three. The implication of available texts publication in the composition of the outline is identified. As a description of this experience, and considering materiality and textuality, 4 texts were selected and commented, taking into account the great recurrence in the outlines, as they are an example of work with History of General Education and the History of Brazilian Education contents. This decision was taken in order to enable an analysis approximation between what was proposed for the book in terms of content approach and temporality, and the configuration of the course as an expression of this representation.

Both the formatting and the course’s conceptual and temporal composition took place in different dimensions: the tradition that accompanies the course since its insertion in the curriculum of teacher education courses - the end of the 19th century, in the European and North American context, and beginning of the 20th century in Brazil -; the published texts’ availability and suitability to the course; teacher education and the characteristics of the academic circles attended by these teachers. In these dimensions, we sought to give greater visibility and explore the relationship between available publications and the adjustment of the course. What was intended was to demonstrate, through the collected documentary evidence, that the teaching of History of Education was shaped by the contents available in the textbooks in circulation at the time.

As a contribution to this analysis, we highlight the result of a research carried out by Henry Suzallo (1875-1933) - professor at the Teachers College of Columbia University -, published in 1908 and quoted by ^{Lorenz (2009}), in which Suzallo draws a profile of the nature of historical studies of education in the first decade of the 1900s in North American institutions. The result of this research is relevant for expressing a representation of the History of Education course, even if in another territory, in a period that preceded the formal configuration of HofE as a course in Brazil, which allows us to consider as a hypothesis a certain implication of that configuration and what was proposed as an organization for said course here in Brazil, mainly due to the effects of book translation - being the books authored by North-American thinkers - and the impact that the North-American experience has on the education of Brazilian leaders and teachers and on the orientation of local policies. Suzallo classified the courses that proposed a historical study into six categories:

The classification suggested by Suzallo, the reality of the historical educational contents offered in the United States in the first decade of the 20th century, characterizes a disciplinary type pretty similar to the one developed in Brazil, from the second decade of the 20th century on, in regular schools and, later, in Pedagogy programs. In at least three of these categories, the identification is quite close, even if the due proportions of context are kept. The first of them refers to the proposition of introductory courses that worked on History of European Education in the long term, from Ancient to Modern times. This is a type of narrative also identified at UEL. This condition expresses the objective proposed for the discipline - teacher education - based on the access to general knowledge about the history of different societies, their organization, guiding principles and theoretical productions on human education/pedagogy. The second aspect refers to the work set with theories developed by thinkers/school reformers. An approach that consistently addresses the so-called history of pedagogical ideas, which is heavily referenced in the experience of teaching in History of Education. A similar aspect was also the work - as in the North American example - with courses on the History of American Education, usually programmed as supplementary to European History subjects, a predominant condition in the History of Education courses in teacher education programs in Brazil until the 1970s; that is, they were narratives that promoted a presentation of the general educational context to, in the end, insert elements of the national education reality.

The History of Education textbooks⁴ seem to have reproduced this, or perhaps it could be said that they set up a dialogue with foreign models - especially the ones from the USA - to legitimize and consolidate this narrative model locally⁵. From the 1970s onwards, the institutions started organizing specific spaces for the treatment of History of General Education and History of Brazilian Education contents, preserving, however, the use of teaching instruments based on the indicated models.

A final comment of general nature concerns a complementary movement, carried out in this investigation, aimed at crossing the normative with evidence on the use of books by teachers and students. In this sense, a survey was conducted in the collection of the State University of Londrina’s Library. The documentary collection implemented in 2013, during the research linked to the doctorate, accompanying, in a way, the systematization of data from the HofE course outlines. Bibliography records from 1963 to 1998 were considered. As it was possible to notice from the documental analysis, many of the books referenced by the professors were not in the library's collection, which indicates the use of the professors' personal library.

The History of General Education textbooks at UEL

Considering these general notes regarding UEL’s training library, Table 1 (below) presents the most frequent bibliographical references⁶ in the outlines that dealt with History of General Education contents.

Regarding the History of General Education, the most recurrent texts in the outlines were: Paul Monroe, História da Educação; Lorenzo Luzuriaga, História da Educação e da Pedagogia; René Hubert, História da Pedagogia; Frederick Eby, História da Educação Moderna; Francisco Larroyo, História Geral da Pedagogia; e Maria da Gloria Rosa, História da Educação Através dos Textos. These works have a textuality and materiality that are recurrent in the textbook definition, as discussed here. This is followed by publications such as that of Edwards Burns, História da Civilização Ocidental, which addresses knowledge on general history, and Werner Jaeger’s Paidéia, a text that deepens and details the experience of human education, and social and cultural organization in Ancient Greek.

The first references on how to organize the History of Education contents made up the proposal already on a large scale, that is, in a long-term chronological perspective, from the Ancient Times to Contemporaneity, dealing with different dimensions of the educational phenomenon: pedagogical theories, authors and their thoughts on human education, methods, school organization, levels and modalities, curriculum. The proposal consisted of informing students about the general cultural heritage that involved the profession. This feature was consolidated, with minor adjustments, as a tradition on how to structure contents considered necessary for future teachers’ education. Regarding the organization of the History of General Education, two textbooks stand out: História da Educação, by Paul Monroe⁷, and História da Educação e da Pedagogia, by Lorenzo Luzuriaga⁸.

A Brief Course in the History of Education, published in the United States in 1907, was translated into Portuguese, in Brazil, for the first time in 1939, under the title História da Educação. The Brazilian version of Monroe's text had 19 editions between 1939 and 1987, reaching a print run of approximately 90,000 copies⁹. The book História da Educação is part of the Coleção Atualidades Pedagógicas [Pedagogical Updates Collection], published by Companhia Editora Nacional [National Publishing Company]¹⁰. It can be considered that Monroe's text effectively draws up the work with the teaching of History of Education in both regular and Pedagogy programs, implying the content formatting and time frame, as attested by the evidence referring to the content organization. Monroe’s text was the expression of a research experience guided by and for the teaching of the History of Education. According to the author himself, the book was prepared to meet “the needs of Normal Education and certain schools that do not have enough time to cover this matter in a longer text” (^{MONROE, 1976}, Preface). This text corresponds to a work of synthesis of a previous and more extensive production by the author, the book A Text Book in the History of Education, first published in 1905. According to Monroe (1976, Preface), “the great problem in the study of History of Education is the coordination of sufficient historical material, in order to incorporate the subject under study and indicate the affinity between history or social life and education”, without losing, in the synthesis, the exercise of analysis and historical understanding.

The procedure used by Monroe to write the book was to value a panoramic view of the History of Education, as stated by ^{Gondra and Silva (2011}, p.709), in which the “organization of the narrative was anchored in a chronological order [...] and by an encyclopedic approach”. In this perspective, he operated a selection of events that, in his perception, would express the “historical moment” of organization of the spaces of transmission of literacy and of the reflections and 'solutions' which that society (contingent by the cultural, political, and economic organizations, and by established power relations) achieved. This operation could become a reference for understanding “educational facts” over time, an indispensable condition for teachers in training. It seems, then, that the selection proposed by Monroe considered the most “expressive” events and those in which the greatest number of references for research, texts, documents, images, that is, the so-called “primary sources”, could be accessed. The concern with access to the sources was intended to ensure, through them, greater credibility to the analysis and narrative.

As for materiality, it was observed that the translated book¹¹ was composed of the following organization: 387 pages, 14 fourteen chapters, 14 images or illustrations. Author Paul Monroe was featured on the book's flap. The editorial information also stated that the translation was made from the original A Brief Course in the History of Education, published by The Macmillan Company, New York, 1949. In the 1976 edition, used as a reference for this analysis, the translator was Idel Beker, at the time professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at Mackenzie University in the Letters and Pedagogy section. In addition to the 14 chapters, the work presented, at the end, chronological tables from Greek education to the 19th century (^{MONROE, 1976}, pp. VII-XX). Each chapter ended with a summary, indicating the “main” topics addressed. In this 1976 edition, unlike the first one, bibliographical references were not presented at the end of the chapters. The book also had footnotes.

The text consisted of an exercise in historical writing that mixed the History of General Education with the narrative of a History of Local Education. From a chronological organization, it presented different experiences related to human education, educational objectives, curricular organization, methods, pedagogical practices, the spaces of transmission of literacy and its characteristics in different times and territories. This story was narrated from the analysis of social and cultural contexts, political discourses and pedagogical theories rooted in Philosophy, Psychology or Sociology.

Prescripts? Models? It is not possible to say that this was Monroe's intention, while it is also not possible to deny that he used a selection of examples that “expressed” the educational continuum “of societies”. More than that, he seems to have selected a set of experiences from some territories, being the privilege ones: England, perhaps due to the colonization process, Germany and its territory, and America, more precisely the experience the United States.

It is possible to state that the way of organizing and selecting educational events, as well as the historical approach applied by Monroe in his book, designed the format assumed by the History of Education discipline in many teacher education institutions, including in Brazil, which can be supported by the wide dissemination of his text within the scope of the Coleção Atualidades Pedagógicas, by Companhia Editora Nacional (CEN). The evidence registered in the outlines reveals a structure very close to the Teachers College (Columbia University) teacher's textbook, safeguarding adjustments and additions proposed by the professors based on the reality of their institution. The formatting of the contents, considering the school as a result of a type of society; the long-term temporal ordering, taking the historical periods defined by traditional historiography; and the emphasis on movements and theories that dealt with education and school organization were criteria present in most History of Education textbooks prepared at the end of the 19th century and in the first decades of the 20th century. It can be said that, in a way, the model of history coming from the Faculty of Education at Columbia University guided the modeling and structuring of the History of Education discipline, as well as the way it was taught. Even considering these common traits, the authors of those textbooks imprinted particular traits on the way in which the contents were treated and on the analysis of the educational event; traits that expressed their understanding of the role of History of Education in teacher education, of which contents would be most appropriate and, above all, of the role of research in this process.

Thus, in the same movement, it is also important to mention Lorenzo Luzuriaga’s book, História da Educação e da Pedagogia, which, just like Monroe's text, achieved wide circulation in teacher education institutions in Brazil, also being a part of the Coleção Atualidades Pedagógicas and being cited recurrently in the course outlines. Lorenzo Luzuriaga's work had its first edition in Brazil in 1955, and was reprinted in 1963, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987. It was published, in 1951, in Buenos Aires, by Editora Losada under the title Historia de la Educación y de la Pedagogía. In Brazil, it was translated by Luiz Damasco Penna and J. B. Damasco Penna. It was organized into 20 chapters, which approached the thematic of Education and Pedagogy. According to the author himself

In the exhibition we also tried to establish a more intimate connection between educational reality and pedagogical ideas, as both are just parts of an indivisible whole: education itself. We put education before Pedagogy, not because we believed it to be more valuable, but because that way the study of both would become clearer. For the time being, it remains unresolved whether the ideal of education arises from the educational reality or whether the latter precedes the former. (^{LUZURIAGA, 1969}, Introduction)

Luzuriaga proposed the treatment of two fields in the History of Education. On one hand, the school organization, visualized in social and cultural organizations by the institutions and by the devices created for human education; on the other hand, the elaboration of pedagogical ideas, that is, the theories that systematize the conceptions about human education in its various dimensions. For Luzuriaga (1969, Introduction), “ideals are not something vague and floating, distanced from reality, but precise and concrete like reality itself”. This configuration constitutes an important regularity in the textbooks in circulation in the first decades of the 20th century, recommended by UEL professors. The author expressed that his book assumed an essentially didactic objective, not being an “erudite investigation” work. Work, according to him, of gathering knowledge that allowed an overview of education and pedagogy, a service provided by a pedagogue addressed to other pedagogues and teachers¹². The fact that it was defined as a didactic text did not remove from the textbook - a condition reinforced by the author in the Introduction - the requirement to demonstrate the sources from which the text was structured, as well as the indication in footnotes of other texts for deepening of the readings. It is understood that this disposition of the author indicates concern with a level of research that should be a support both for the text’s production and for his readers education. ^{Warde (1998}) analyzed Luzuriaga's presence in Brazil and his work’s characteristics in comparison with the intentions indicated by the author. According to her,

In his texts from Argentina, which were circulated among us, it is offered a double itinerary of the History of Education and Pedagogy. In the first strand, the object is the process of constituting education networks and systems; in the second one, due to the lack of the practical-empirical sap that nourished him while he was in Spain, he ended up reducing Pedagogy to ideas and their 'carriers', as schematically presented in the book História da Educação e da Pedagogia, in which chapters alternate between education systems in different places and times, and chapters on pedagogy and its representatives.

In this format, the History of Education and Pedagogy offered by Luzuriaga lose their original meanings. In this hardened way, they are little different from the schemes adopted by other authors published in the same series Atualidades Pedagógicas. Luzuriaga served - as others - as an anchor for the History of General Education courses and for a lineage of works on the construction process of our education systems. Symptomatically, he did not support the construction of research projects around the History of Pedagogy, understood as pedagogical practices, as organization of schoolwork, as it emerges in his writings in Spain. At most, essays around pedagogical ideas and their authors are recorded. (^{WARDE, 1998}, pp. 80-81, emphasis ours)

Warde's assessment focuses on the condition of text synthesis and the lack of treatment regarding issues related to pedagogical practices that, once again, obscures dimensions of the educational experience. This condition seems to be the result, as ^{Monroe (1976}) said, on one hand of the difficulty, and on the other hand of the need to gather as much information as possible from sources; that is, documentary series that would allow a more precise and comprehensive investigation of dimensions that considered educational practices and that escaped the biography and writings of period authors.

As the documentation points out, the panoramic texts, in fact, circulated and seem to have worked as a compass for classroom work, as shown in the testimony of Zenite Teresinha Ribas César, professor of History of Education at UEL from 1964 on, when she began working with this discipline, to the mid-1990s. She reported the difficulty in accessing the bibliography for classroom work, indicating the lack of national production, and the consequent consumption of translated textbooks.

We tried to be in contact with bigger universities. Always in touch with the bigger universities to find out what was going on. At Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, we had a lot of contact with the professor, I don't know if you know her name, Nair Almeri (?). She was a very important professor at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. We had contact with them and also with people from the south. From Rio Grande do Sul. And then we looked for what was being published, the bibliography that was being published. At that time, the bibliography was very poor, [...] it was something that came from abroad. From here, from Brazil, there was practically nothing. It was really poor. (CÉSAR, 2012, p. 3)

Professor Zenite mentioned the first phase the course’s organization in the 1960s and 1970s. She also indicated that the resource she used was contact with her former professors, in addition to participating in national events. Professor Zenite graduated in Pedagogy from USP, in March 1964, having been a student, for example, of Fernando de Azevedo and Roque Spencer Maciel de Barros, authors who structured their course outlines alongside the already mentioned textbooks. According to the professor, it was always necessary to work on arranging texts that presented general knowledge about history and others that summarized educational events.

History of Brazilian Education’s turn and its bibliographic support

Regarding the bibliography that dealt with the History of Brazilian Education, texts/authors with greater recurrence in the 1960s and 1970s and others in the 1980s and 1990s were identified. There was, in the period of 1980 and 1990, an increased number of references, which also indicates the expansion of production in the historiography of Brazilian education, and the diversification in the theoretical approach of the available texts. In this set, the exception corresponds to the work of Fernando de Azevedo, A Cultura Brasileira, which appears in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s¹³. Therefore, Fernando de Azevedo was an author who appeared in the course’s outlines throughout the entire timeline considered by this research.

In addition to Fernando de Azevedo, other authors were frequently indicated, like Roque Spencer Maciel de ^{Barros, with his text Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (1960}); Luis Alves de ^{Mattos, Primórdios da Educação no Brasil (1958}); Jorge ^{Nagle, Educação e Sociedade na Primeira República (1974}); Otaíza Romanelli, História da Educação no Brasil (1978); Maria Luísa Santos Ribeiro, História da Educação Brasileira (1987)¹⁴.

For the analysis of the framework that dealt with the History of Brazilian Education contents, a slightly different procedure was adopted from the previous block. It was decided to carry out an exercise of general characterization of two texts, without analytically detailing the author's theoretical path. The attempt consisted of mapping the temporal references and approaches present in the most recurring texts that - as they were the basis of the classroom work - mainly characterized the History of Brazilian Education in the institution, in the period considered by this research.

According to ^{Nunes (1996}, p. 68), “[...] books are the main mediators of the pedagogical act, material and symbolic instruments that hold multiple meanings and allow a diversified reading”. It is understood that this mediation is preceded by another, just as important to the pedagogical act: the teacher’s mediation. Before being adopted as a material and symbolic instrument, books are selected based on circumstances, contingencies, or specific conditions: references from the academic education process, clarity of the course/discipline and program objectives, access to available publications, participation in academic circles, as well as institutional guidelines and possible demands from students.

The principle of mediation provided by the didactic texts was visualized in the History of Education course outline, specifically concerning the contents of the History of Brazilian Education, mainly regarding diversified reading. The table presented above indicates two very delimited moments in relation to the texts of greater recurrence: the ones that mark the 1960s and 1970s; and others that appear from the beginning of the 1980s on, with the exception of Diretrizes e Bases da Educação no Brasil, by Roque Spencer Maciel de ^{Barros, mentioned in the 1960}s and in the 1980s, and A Cultura Brasileira, by Fernando de Azevedo, mentioned in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

An exercise of content composition was observed, by offering students a very diversified reference for the study of each of the periods traditionally defined by the History of Brazilian Education. This can be understood as an expression of the professor’s attempt to define the most appropriate way of treating the contents, based on what was available. The composition of the course’s contents, registered in the outlines until 1976¹⁵, allowed verifying the indication of mandatory readings that would be discussed in the classroom, in addition to those that appeared in the bibliographic reference. These indications authorized and justified the affirmation mediator and content approach diversity in the development of the History of Brazilian Education.

Some examples could be extracted from these outlines. In 1969, the following texts were requested as compulsory reading: A Escola nem Risonha nem Franca, by Lauro de Oliveira Lima; Grandezas e Misérias do Ensino Brasileiro, by Maria José Werebe; and Educação Não é Privilégio, by Anísio Teixeira. There was also an indication of a research work whose objective was to investigate the “Historical Evolution of Education in Paraná”. In 1970, it was required the reading of Anísio Teixeira’s Educação Não é Privilégio, and Geraldo Bastos Silva’s A Educação Secundária. In addition to the readings indicated as mandatory, occasional ones were presented, linked to the periods of Brazilian education that would be worked on, for example: for the content “Impressionist vision on the current times”, Werebe’s Grandezas e Misérias do Ensino Brasileiro; for the colonial period, Mattos’ Primórdios da Educação no Brasil, Leonel Franca’s O Método Pedagógico dos Jesuítas, and Laerte Ramos de Carvalho’s As Reformas Pombalinas da Instrução Pública. It was also requested the reading of Boletim n. 160 of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of the University of São Paulo (USP). To support the teaching related to the imperial and republican periods, two texts by Primitivo Moacyr were added to the list, Instrução e Império and Instrução e República, and one by Lourenço Filho, A Pedagogia de Rui Barbosa. Concerning the study of the so-called Vargas Era, Lourenço Filho’s Introdução ao Estudo da Escola Nova was recommended. The “return to the democratic regime” was associated with Roque Spencer Maciel de Barros’ Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional. In the treatment of “Período Atual” [Current Times] (1970), the reading of the “Conferências Nacionais de Educação I, II, III, IV e V” [National Conferences on Education I, II, III, IV and V] was required, and for the treatment of Education in Paraná, it was requested the reading of the “Relatórios da Secretaria de Educação e Cultura do Paraná” [Secretariat of Education and Culture of Paraná Reports].

In the 1971 outline - alongside the occasional texts already mentioned in the 1970 one - an analysis of the then Minister of Education Jarbas Passarinho’s actions was also proposed, through the reading of articles collected from journals that presented the theme. In 1973, Antonio Tobias’ História da Educação Brasileira and Fernando de Azevedo’s A Cultura Brasileira were indicated as basic readings. What was presented in the structure suggested in the outlines was a movement to refine the discussions of each period with the indication of readings that addressed the themes in a specialized manner and in a different configuration than the one from the textbooks.

From 1976 onwards, it was not possible to analyze other recurrences besides those indicated in the bibliographic references¹⁶. From that period, there was greater reference to textbook work. The configuration of time in very defined periods, mainly considering the political order, was one of the most present conditions. Even with the temporal ordering, or traditional time frame, the way of organizing and treating the contents internally to the time frame had variations. As a resource for analyzing this situation, two texts that worked on the presentation of the History of Brazilian Education contents were chosen for an exercise of selection, content treatment and temporal arch identification. These texts were selected based on their recurrence in the analyzed outlines.

The first selection consists of Fernando de Azevedo’s A Cultura Brasileira, referenced in the 1970s and 1990s; the second one was Otaíza Romanelli’s book, referenced in the 1980s and 1990s; two texts with different narratives but some similarities, such as the addressment of the theme from the perspective of Sociology and Culture, and which - due to historical evidence - were recurrent in the organization of the History of Brazilian Education course. Another aspect to be highlighted is the presence of Fernando de Azevedo's text in the construction of Otaíza Romanelli's one, as well as that of other authors of the so-called renovator movement. These two texts perhaps cannot be characterized as textbooks, in their strict definition, mainly because they were not conceived for the purpose of teaching. But the records inform its persevering use as a pedagogical didactic resource in the classroom.

The historiography of Brazilian education is abundant in works that analyzed Fernando de Azevedo’s intellectual production¹⁷, and his actions as an administrator, sociologist, educator and one of the prominent figures in the renovator movement scenario. It is not this work’s intention to provide a detailed analysis of his work, because what we sought was to examine the treatment given to the History of Brazilian Education content so that it would be possible to identify the profile assumed and traditionally reproduced in its teaching¹⁸.

A Cultura Brasileira, by Fernando de Azevedo, was published for the first time in 1943, as a commissioned text that would serve as an Introduction to the 1940 Census. However, it proved to be of great importance and had a quick acceptance and fast circulation. According to Fernando de Azevedo, in his presentation,

The elaboration of this work coincided with a double movement that, for more than ten years, had been developing itself in a sense of renewal, and to revive the effort for a national awareness; of which the 'Brasiliana' - collection of Brazilian studies, which we founded in 1931 - was one of its first and most significant cultural expressions. It was among this atmosphere of concern, research (that I would help to develop), and in which our thoughts were often oriented towards attempts at interpreting Brazilian civilization, that this work was planned and written - with the same concern for objectivity, the same yearning for discovery and the same radical sincerity that were beginning to predominate in works of this nature. [...] ‘A Cultura Brasileira’, does not exactly bring unpublished documents, of direct origin, nor did the author offered to search archives, to exhume old documentary pieces from oblivion. But, even if it cannot be considered unique from that aspect, it is an original work, either by the conception and unity of plan, either in its construction that was built on the solid base of data and information, collected in the widest investigation of primary sources and historical literature, as well as in all kinds of monographs and detailed work, or in the presentation, coordination and explanation of facts, examined in the light of personal observations and long-meditated readings. But, considering that 'truth is a dialogue in which the conclusion is detached from opposing points of view', all of them were confronted and analyzed, after the preliminary, but reflected, rejection of all information of suspicious or partial origin, attributable to interests and passions or to perspectives that were distorted by ideological conceptions. (^{AZEVEDO, 1955}, pp. 26-27)

According to the author himself, the book was elaborated by considering the most attentive rigor in research, selection and treatment of knowledge about Brazilian culture and the spaces for its transmission, so much so that it was for a long time taken as a primary source for the study of History of Brazilian Education; it can be considered the result of a rigorous “State of Art” on the thematic, which presented the proposal for the content organization as an original; in addition to being original, it was theoretically and ideologically oriented by the 'Renovator' ideals of which Fernando de Azevedo was a protagonist. According to ^{Carvalho (2010}, p. 347), “it was about conceiving and institutionalizing - pedagogically, politically, and legally - a national education system that would express the project of 'national organization for the organization of culture', that had already been created in the movement”. The category that runs through the text A Cultura Brasileira was, according to Carvalho, a category of unification, and served as a reference and source of research in both the teaching of the History of Brazilian Education and in textbook preparation.

The structure proposed for the discussion was based on more general thoughts on the cultural constitution of Brazil, organized in the first part of the book, entitled “Os Fatores da Cultura” [“The Factors of Culture”], subdivided into themes such as: Country and Race; Human Work; The Urban Formations; Social and Political Evolution; and Psychology of the Brazilian People. As a result of this interpretative effort, the author presented a broad panorama of the different modalities of culture: Institutions and Religious Beliefs; Intellectual Life; The Liberal Professions; Literary Life, Scientific Culture and Artistic Culture. In the third part, the author's representation for the History of Brazilian Education was outlined. The chapter was organized around the following themes: The Meaning of Colonial Education; The Origins of School Institutions; Decentralization and the Duality of Systems; The Renovation and Unification of the Educational System; General Education and Special Education.

When analyzing the implications of Fernando de Azevedo's text in the configuration of Brazilian Education’s historiography, Carvalho highlighted dimensions that began to serve as a guideline in the reading and production of knowledge related to the History of Brazilian Education. According to her,

This is how the History of Education is instituted as the history of the organization of education systems by State educational policies. This is also how the study of educational institutions is configured as a procedure that cuts out, in the continuum of the process of educational systems institutionalization, a moment and an institutional way in which such a process takes place. From these frames, the selection of legislation elapses as a privileged source in the investigation. With these procedures, Azevedo's narrative structures a bipartite field by parallel temporal structures that can only occasionally be connected, in which he builds two separate domains of investigation: the history of pedagogical ideas and projects, and the history of the organization of education systems. The field is structured around the history of established education systems and the policies that legally and pedagogically instituted them. By producing it, Azevedo's work constitutes itself as a narrative that puts itself as a narration guideline for other texts, prescribing not only the rules for configuring the object, by its framing in one of the aforementioned series, but also the way of connecting them while giving explanations about their mismatch. Speaking of the place of production of the policies that pedagogically and legally establish the education system - the State -, the voice of the narrator of A Cultura Brasileira can be heard, even today, in the selections of periods and themes of study, in the descriptive and explanatory patterns, and in the periodization that configure the object of the investigation and the way of narrating it. (^{CARVALHO, 2010}, p. 343)

The analytical modeling proposed by Azevedo implied the thematic and temporal configuration, as well as the source reference of textbooks prepared for the teaching of History of Education. It also influenced the teaching of History of Education, even though it was not designed for this space - the classroom -, by presenting an interpretive model with well-defined categories - in this case, the education system, and its modalities -, allowing the 'user' to cover almost four centuries of history of Brazilian education in a chronological perspective, supported by sociological and cultural analysis.

The other highlighted text was published 35 years later, in 1978. It is Otaíza de Oliveira Romanelli’s História da Educação no Brasil [The History of Education in Brazil], which is resulted from the doctoral thesis carried out by Romanelli in Paris, at the Sorbonne. According to the author, the investigation originated from an old concern in analyzing the factors that implied the educational organization and now “answer for most of its problems” (^{ROMANELLI, 1991}, p. 13). The author chose some categories or dimensions that guided the evaluation of the educational organization and its conditions, being analyzed from the established relationship between culture, economy, and political system. According to the author, the work intended to

Establish that the evolution of the educational system, the expansion of teaching and the directions it took can only be understood from the concrete reality created by our cultural heritage, economic evolution, and political power structure. Each phase of the history of Brazilian education will reflect the interconnection of these factors: the cultural heritage - acting on the values sought at school by the social demand for education - and political power, reflecting the antagonistic game of conservative and modernizing forces - with the predominance of the former, they ended up guiding the expansion of education and controlling the organization of the educational system in a way that was far behind in relation to the new and growing needs of economic development, which is increasingly lacking in human resources. (ROMANELLI, 1978, p. 19)

The text was organized into six chapters. It was an option, here, to transcribe the titles of the chapters, as they allow us to see the historical path intended by the author, as well as the emphasis given to some dimensions. Chapter 1, entitled “theoretical approach”, was the space used by Romanelli to discuss the dimensions that imply, according to her understanding, the school organization; for example: culture, the relationship between education and development, school demand, the structure of power and the organization of teaching. According to the author, it would only be possible to understand the evolution of the education system by analyzing the network established between “cultural heritage, economic evolution and political power”. The structuring of the education system and its regulation would be mediated by its interests and representations.

Chapter 2, “Acting factors in the evolution of the Brazilian educational system”, presented the characteristics of the educational organization in the period prior to 1930, from the colonial times to the republican phase. The author dealt with more than three hundred years of history of education in just over 14 pages. As it was possible to observe, quotations and references from A Cultura Brasileira, by Fernando de Azevedo, predominated in the elaboration of the texts. It is important to mention that Azevedo's text was present as a reference in all chapters, and not just in the first one. Following the indicated analysis procedure, the author explored the relationship between school demand/social and economic demand and power structure.

In Chapter 3, “Education and Brazilian Development After 1930”, Romanelli studied the relationship between political and economic devices and is implications, also considering the relationship between the expansion of social demand versus the expansion of the education system. The chapter was organized in the following items: the 1930 Revolution and Brazilian development; the industrialization process and educational requirements; the relationship between the social demand for education and the expansion of education; quantitative and structural deficiencies for the expansion of education.

In the fourth chapter, the author expanded the analysis to the relationship between teaching and the sociopolitical context after 1930. In this chapter, she worked on educational reforms and theoretical-ideological movements from the 1930s to 1960s: Renovator Movement; Pioneers' Manifesto; Francisco Campos Reform; Reform Gustavo Capanema; Law 4024/61; and the implications of these events in the organization of levels and modalities of teaching. In Chapter 5, she worked on post-1964 social and economic and teaching organizations, reforms, agreements and established models. Chapter 6 was the conclusion, in which she returned to the meaning of modernization and its relationship with education. The text was structured from a rigorous exercise of analysis with the presentation of tables, of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) data on the school system and of documentary sources citations.

Otaíza Romanelli’s book is in its 40th edition (published in 2014, according to information collected on the website of Editora Vozes, responsible for publishing the book since the 1st edition) which indicates a significant circulation of a text from 1978, not revised or expanded, considering that its author died in that same year¹⁹; it was referenced as a basic bibliography in most works that dealt with the teaching of History of Education, and also in the course outlines, as observed in the consulted documents. Even though it was not written to serve teaching purposes, it was assumed as an important reference in the classroom space, thus shaping the discipline's outline.

A few remaining words

By considering the analyzed evidence, it was found that the organization of the training library proposed for the History of General and Brazilian Education courses was, at first - from 1964 to the 1980s - organized almost exclusively under the guidance of Professor Zenite Caesar. This condition implied that the courses configurations was based on the appropriation of the readings that she did during her undergraduate degree at University of São Paulo (USP), of authors who belonged to the intellectual circle of renovators and Catholics - who had a significant production, circulating in teacher education spaces -, of the History of Education course structure made by professors linked to institutions that were at the time - and which, in a way, still are - high reference institutions, such as USP, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), and Federal University of Paraná (UFPR).

Alongside the books, a production disseminated in periodicals and the result of scientific meetings was used. There did not seem to be an extreme concern about the selection of texts linked to a single theoretical orientation. Authors of different tendencies were studied in the same classroom context, which could be justified by the historical importance of the text, by the information, and by the data they presented, and perhaps because they are period texts. In hypothesis, these characteristics supplanted the divergence of approach.

Both the History of General Education and the History of Brazilian Education used the so-called textbooks as a reference, and greater continuity was seen in the use of these texts in the History of General Education course, including the ones produced in the first half of the 20th century, even with the presence of new studies in the field.

In the History of Brazilian Education, the use of synthesis texts was maintained, but with greater diversification in the comparison between the decades studied, so much so that, in Table 2, it was possible to verify this dividing mark in the recurrence of texts between the 1960s and the 1970s, and the 1980s/1990s, with the exception, as already mentioned, of the text A Cultura Brasileira, by Fernando de Azevedo.

The composition of the teaching of HofE appropriated the content formatting and periodization of the textbooks indicated as recurrent, confirming the network that was established between the teachers’ academic education, their training library, the available textbooks, the insertion in academic circles, and institutional relations. This plot historically configured the History of Education course in the undergraduate Pedagogy Degree at the State University of Londrina.