Introduction

Beside maps, flags, teaching instruments of the history of Brazil, public interventions, such as the “stage background” painted by Debret, to order for the coronation and consecration ceremony¹ of the first Brazilian emperor; the hymns (independence², flag and national, for example) become part of a set of other signs intended to compose a certain representation of the Brazilian Empire.

On December 6, 1822, four months after the elaboration of the Anthem of Independence, the front page of O Espelho described the celebrations held during the coronation and consecration of “YOUR IMPERIAL MAGESTY³”. According to the narrative, “the night did not put an end to such affectionate demonstrations, but was more beautiful and serene than what had promised the inconstancy of the day”. When trying to give “a little idea of the splendor of the show”, the editor emphasizes the silks in the boxes, the 200 beautiful crystals used in the lighting, the fine porcelain jars with flowers, the luxurious details of the imperial gallery (...). It also highlights the “stage background” prepared to be used at the São João Theater, site of the ceremony. According to the article, it could be seen on the stage background the ingenious allegory of Mr. Debret, which represented America on a high throne, to which coconut trees served as columns, whose canopy illustrated - Independence, or death. On the right, the Constitution; on the left, the shield with the initial letter of the august name of YOUR IMPERIAL MAGESTY, and a canoe overlaid. In the work of the French painter, there are several emblems of fertility, abundance, inner trade and martial strength of this country, based on the independence and gratitude to the immortal hero who adopted it for Fatherland, recreating the eyes and favoring the exercise of the imagination, finished the editor.

Through these and other related expedients, evoked in different situations, an attempt was made to forge an official history of the “free country”, independent, monarchical and constitutional, as Emperor D. Pedro I had expressed on September 7, 1823, representation widely disseminated in literature, theater, cinema, in schools and in other forms of communication and the production of a national memory.

Source: Senado Federal⁴

Figure 1 - Annaes da Assembleia Nacional Constituinte (9 de setembro de 1823).  

However, access to other collections, little or insufficiently worked, moving away from a proud, heroic and epic perspective, allows one to observe mediations, conflicts and disputes in the emancipatory project of Brazil. This text works with official documents such as legislation, annals of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, as well as the public debate observed in print in general, with a focus on speeches and measures aimed at the formation of the people, between 1824 and 1827. In composing a complex documentary nucleus, we sought to avoid falling into causal traps that impoverish the understanding of a special phenomenon in the processes of nation building and its ordinary links with the different strategies and mechanisms designed to tailor the people and the nation.

For the purposes of this work, considering investments in the field of historiography, with special emphasis on collections organized by ^{Holanda (2004}) and ^{Silva (2018}), it is possible to observe an important detachment from the official narrative. In the case of the 11 volumes of the collection organized by ^Holanda, the emphasis is on examining a complex process in which economic, political and diplomatic aspects are intertwined⁵. The enterprise was structured in three divisions, with two volumes dedicated to the colonial period⁶, five to the empire⁷ and four to the republican period⁸, until 1964, constituting a landmark of the “brasilianas” and the specialization of historiography of Brazil. In a similar way, half a century later, the collection of 5 volumes, directed by Shcwarcz, does not pretend to be a general history of Brazil⁹, since it does not deal with the colonial period. The established cut refers to Brazil-nation, with a focus on population, politics, economics, culture and international relations¹⁰.

In contrasting these two initiatives, we sought to observe the regularity and diversity of narratives about Brazil, in investments that gather several specialists as a resource to organize and deepen reflections on national history. This common trait gives rise to another; the type of visibility and legibility given to the problem of the formation of the people. As a rule, this theme is covered in studies on literature, prints in general, arts, theater, music, religion; elements that, undoubtedly, are linked to the various institutions, knowledge and strategies aimed at interfering with and ordering the course of life. However, the more formal education processes still occupy a very marginal position in this general historiography. At most, there are generic references to some higher education programs and secondary education. The “schools of first letters” are frequently absent from these initiatives, even though they are aimed at the population as a whole, gradually becoming mandatory throughout the 19th century.

The exception, in the case of education in the Empire, is due to the chapter by ^{Werebe (2004}), which is part of volume IV of the “brasiliana” directed by ^{Holanda (2004})¹¹. In this chapter, the author addresses the issue of teaching around ten topics¹², supported by five authors: Fernando de Azevedo, Primitivo Moacyr, Liberato Barroso, Lourenço Filho and Georges Cogniot. It is, therefore, a bibliographic review that, except for the only reference to Barroso and Cogniot, the others are considered protagonists of the so-called new school movement in Brazil, which produce a narrative very oriented by the foundations that organize and legitimize the reforms and initiatives to which they are committed. In this way, as can be seen throughout this chapter, the history of Brazilian education corresponds to a list of failures (or miseries¹³), waiting for those who could redeem the country from the failures it had accumulated. For it, in summary form, it could be said that

the Republic found the country, in the educational field, with a very precarious primary school network, with a predominantly lay and incapable faculty; a secondary school attended exclusively by the children of the economically favored classes, supported mainly by private individuals, providing literary education, completely disconnected from the needs of the nation; higher education distorted in its objectives, and yet - perhaps this is the worst inheritance received - with the distortion of the spirit of education, in all levels of education (^{WEREBE, 2004}, p. 442-443).

With regard to specific works in the field of the history of education, different from the generalizing and homogenizing synthesis proposed by Werebe, there is the existence of investigations that have sought to understand the complexity of the phenomenon of training, the strategies, agents and knowledge mobilized in the constitution of the training apparatus, in which different school properties are highlighted¹⁴. Nevertheless, research focusing on the process of political emancipation is still scarce, with a view to exploring this dimension in projects for the nation that is not a simple and tiring enumeration of failures, nor a list of the great achievements of Brazilian education.

In this study, investment seeks to contribute to filling aspects of this gap. To this end, we seek to support the argument that there is an important connection between the emancipation process and measures designed to tailor populations. Thus, in this exercise, I focused on some statements and initiatives aimed at moral formation, while considering that this issue mobilizes a complex discussion about the so-called “integral formation”, that is, physical, moral, intellectual and religious¹⁵. Finally, we tried to think about how the process of independence has been taught to future generations of teachers, based on the study of two classic cases in the historiography of Brazilian education.

FOR A STRAIGHT, SOLID AND ORTHODOX CONDUCT IN NATIONAL INSTRUCTION

A multiple man, José da Silva Lisboa¹⁶ played a variety of roles throughout his life (1756-1835), one of which was that of Inspector of the Literary and Scientific Establishments of the Kingdom, a position created by the decree of February, 26 1821, with the purpose of promoting public education in Brazil, believing that this is the best way to obtain the appreciable goods of happiness, power and reputation of the State. In this position, he mobilized for the creation of a mutual education school through the decree of April 13, 1822, which provided for the free admission of, “up to 270 boys, from the age of 7 years and up, to whom the government provides paper, pens and more material for education” ¹⁷.

After the official independence of Brazil (1822), he maintained a regular alignment with the constitutional monarchy project. In this condition, he wrote about different subjects, in different media, as shown by ^{Rocha (2001}) and ^{Kirschner (2009}). In taking this position, following the writings of the Viscount of Cairu, it allows to perceive the tones and counter tones of the debates regarding the direction of the Brazilian nation building project¹⁸.

In this investigation, we analyzed one of its manifestations, which appears diffusely throughout his production, with centrality in four of his books¹⁹. It is a question of moral formation, guided by a double boundary; the legal-political order and postulates of Catholic doctrine. Manifestation that, in turn, takes place in very specific microclimates. In the case of the two initial books, this is a publication that takes place in the interregnum between the constitution granted²⁰ and the beginning of the work of the first Brazilian parliament, in 1826. The books of 1827 are contemporary with the debates over the first law for general education in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, of which Cairu becomes part, from 1826. Therefore, through this material the dimension of public man, or man of letters, as ^{Kirschner defends (2009}), committed to the defense of a common project for the Brazilian Empire.

The books focused on the theme of morals were structured in topics, in which the author unfolds the reflections on the central issue, recognizing the interlocutors aligned with their positions, as well as those who deviate from it. For this purpose, volume I²¹ contains 21 chapters and the second, 18. This material, published shortly after the granting of the first Constitution, is preceded by a dedication “To your imperial majesty”, when the author seeks to justify the relevance of the book he had written. For Lisboa, the decay of public morals was a general object of censorship, due to the contagion of infidelity, propagated in the revolutions of both hemispheres. He anticipates, from the beginning, his commitment to public morality and objection to abrupt changes. In these terms, he appeals to D. Pedro I who, by virtue of his character, should sponsor the studies of doctrines that could contribute to the formation of citizens of heroic public spirit and, at the same time, excite virtuous emulation in Brazilian wisdom. At the end of this manifestation, he classifies the book as a "literary synopsis of a science that must be a very essential part of PUBLIC INSTRUCTION”.

Source: Senado Federal²²

Figure 2 - Book cover “Constituição Moral…” (1824) 

The dedication anticipates and synthesizes central points of the narrative, indicating the author's ties and positions alongside public order and morality, against the revolutionary dangers he identifies, especially in France, an element accentuated by the spread of pernicious books and adherence to anchored doctrine exclusively in the “goddess of reason”, with repercussions in Brazil, when he points out the existence of revolutionaries who have been slaughtered in Brazil or already wide open in Pernambuco²³ who, according to him, came to propose a disloyal manifesto that should serve as the basis for a Constitution without religion. For him, the best antidote would be found precisely in religion. According to Lisboa:

If, at some moment of madness, we rejected the Christian Religion, which until now has been our coat of arms and comfort, and a great source of our civilization and other nations, we are justly afraid that the void will be filled by the most incoherent, pernicious and vile of all superstitions. (^{LISBOA, 1824}, p. 2)

As can be seen, the volumes dedicated to the moral constitution and duties of the citizen²⁴ have a marked doctrinal tone. According to ^{Kirschner (2009}, p. 266), the man of the State, calls attention to the importance of the existence of a solid moral base for the political construction. In agreement with this author, these volumes were published at a critical moment, indicating commitment of Lisboa to the eradication of any element considered harmful to civil order. Thus, the expedient consists of tracing the moral bases of the Brazilian Empire as a strategy to combat the storm of revolutions. This, according to this author, is a Catholic reaction to a world contaminated by the revolutionary spirit.

Reaction that is anchored in the speeches that organize and sustain the arguments of the Bahian scholar, and of disapproval to those who disseminate the doctrines considered harmful. In general, the support for the postulations that he defends stems from an England literature, placed in opposition to a group of French writers, with abundant references to authors of antiquity to further tone the binarism that ends up organizing the narrative of Lisboa.

In these two volumes, the author reinforces the thesis of State religion, making history a kind of master of life, source of arguments in favor of the articulation and indivisibility between science and revelation, a condition for achieving a higher civilization, the best example of which, for the author, could be verified in the experience of Great Britain. For him, after granted the Constitution of the Empire of Brazil, on March 25, 1824, it was necessary to settle and expose the solid foundations of the “Moral Constitution and Citizens’ Duties”, a condition for the formation of good customs in all peoples of considerable degree of civilization. It is, therefore, that profound association between moral science and theology that has become the centrality of this statement. For the author, it was a necessary antidote to “gallic drugs”, described as more “deadly than poisons of Colchos”. At the end, the Bahian scholar’s discourse is deeply committed to the fight against what the future Viscount calls “catechisms of libertinism”, a necessary part to ensure a moral formation that would guarantee the “straight conduct” of citizens.

The volumes of the “Brazilian school”²⁵ reinforce Catholic marks as those necessary for a useful instruction for all classes. The first one is structured around 103 topics, starting with the “Coming of Christ”, ending with “Protestation of Faith”. The second book contains two parts. The first with 63 topics, starting with one entitled “Law of Society”, ending with the topic “Good and Evil”. The second part is organized around 41 topics, starting with “Virtue and Vice”, ending with “Admonition to the Christians”²⁶.

Published after the General Law of October 15, 1827, the new books have better defined recipients: parents and educators. New audiences enrolled in the title, which, in turn, are accompanied by credentials that define strategic belongings of the enunciation subject, considering the noble dimension, in high politics and in scientific associations. The epigraph also serves as an element of distinction among privileged readers. It is not a quote in Latin, from a man of antiquity, as in the book of 1824. In the book focused on “useful instruction”, the Viscount uses a parable of Matthew²⁷ that fulfills two functions, that of bringing the reader closer by dealing with text translated into the mother tongue and that of indicating the horizon of the statement, either by its markedly Catholic trait or by the conception contained in the parable, that is, the commitment to cover all “those in the house”, all classes, the whole nation.

Source: Biblioteca Brasiliana²⁸

Figure 3 - Cover of the book "Brazilian School or Useful Instruction …”. (1827) 

The anticipated commitments on the cover of the book are intensified in the dedication addressed to “To the very high and powerful Sir d. Pedro I, constitutional emperor and perpetual defender of Brazil”.

SIR Being constant in one and another Hemisphere the effort of the infidels in overturning the Altar and the Throne, by the introduction of more books, in which the Sacred Scripture appears, it seems convenient the firmness and stability of the Political Building, of which YOUR IMPERIAL MAGESTY was the glorious FOUNDER in the Holy Cross Land, which, in order to exterminate the contagion of the century, instruct and fortify the spirit of the boys in the Teaching of the First Letters with the lesson of original dictates of the Holy Books, which give the internal evidence of Divine Revelation. With this aim I made the present Collection of several relative doctrines, which I understood did not exceed the understanding of childish understandings, and which can improve the good nature of the nascent generation, which is the hope of the Brazilian Nation. (^{LISBOA, 1827}, p. 9)

As in the books of 1824 and 1825, political and doctrinal struggle is treated in terms of rigid polarities. On the one hand, the tenacity of infidels, subversives and contagion. On the other hand, good-natured people, faithful and bearers of the necessary antidote to combat the evil of the century; position taken by the author. In this way, he outlined the terms of the dispute which, in order to be successful, required the support of the Emperor. Upon concluding his dedication, he begs mercy of dedicating the book to the “august person”, fruit of the personal effort and desire to contribute to the “solid and orthodox National Instruction”.

In the impossibility of examining the set of 207 topics contained in the two volumes of A Escola Brasileira, we analyzed, in general, some elements that precede the development of these doctrines. In this case, we selected the items in which it deals with educators, parents and the youth itself, insofar as they constitute the subjects directly involved in the training program that the illustrated Bahian man formulates²⁹.

First, however, it is necessary to mobilize some indications that help to understand the endeavor of the man of letters. For him, he says that he considered it convenient to give birth for the use of private schools, what he classifies as “Booklet³⁰”, which he elaborated because it contained useful instruction for all classes, and could serve as a supplement to the boys' lessons, “making it easier for them to learn Capital Truths in Pure Source in order to form in them a straight spirit, and solid character, that constitutes them good citizens.” (^{Lisboa, 1827}, p. 18)

Formation that should be guided by the Christian Doctrine, according to the teachings of the Holy Mother Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church that, by the existing Legislation³¹, obliged the teachers of the “First Letters” to instruct the disciples of their Schools. For him, no knowledge could be considered more worthy to be part of general education, and the daily exercises of the same Schools, than a Collection of Religious, Economic, and Moral Doctrines, which “will be found in Sacred Scripture, and which are the Columns of Civilization, and venerable Documents of the Social Order, established by the Governor of the Universe.” (^{idem, p. 19}). For the author, such doctrines should produce the healthiest and most permanent effects on the understanding of boys, fixing in memory, in the state of innocence, so that, in certain cardinal ideas, Brazilians could always show themselves as primitive Christians, with the same heart and the same soul.

The details, unfolded in 207 topics, allow to think of the referred booklet as a disciplinary device, understood as part of a complex process in which the different forms of the disciplines come to be used as techniques to ensure a certain order and way of managing the multiplicities.

Disciplinary archipelago destined to a multiplicity difficult to regulate, as well as to increase the utility of each one³². Discipline thus allows power to operationalize life in a smooth, subtle and meticulous way, in favor of a circuit of maximum productivity and profitability. In this way, the Cairu polyhedral, when investing in moral education and useful instruction, starts to operate at the level of the microphysics of power, prescribing a complex set of guidelines, operating in a diffuse, interested, astute way, to be capillarized by the school network in formation. It is, therefore, about activating a supplementary resource to interfere with the houses’ reserve, with its customs, routines and variations, which also needed to be normalized. In this sense, the booklet was also a fertile resource that should have an effect on the processes of subjectification, in order to produce a great brotherhood "of the same heart and of the same soul".

To support his formulation, he lists a series of studies, such as those by Mr. Charles Rollin (rector at the University of Paris)³³, Adam Smith³⁴, Edmund Burke³⁵, Edmundo de la Borde³⁶, Cícero³⁷ and the Count of Montlosier³⁸. The enumeration has a common criterion, in that everyone converges on the imperative need to be educated, based on the sacred texts of the Catholic Church. After clearly explaining these enunciation markers, he addresses the book’s three audiences, suggesting a hierarchy among them. In this way, the first exhortation is addressed to educators.

When giving satisfaction to the educators, he claims to have been inspired by the booklet by João de Barros, described as the father of the History of Brazil, author of the Cartinha de Gramatica da Língua Portuguesa, first published in 1540. On the occasion of his reissue, more than two centuries later, in 1785, in the prologue, the editor claims to be one of the glorious companies of the Portuguese sage, who had written a booklet, with accuracy and clarity, covering the principles of Christianity, in which the boys should “drink”, for the parents’ care in the nutrition of the body could not be seen without penalty, forgetting or remembering late and scarcely to nourish the spirit.

He recommends, however, that educators should always have, for their own instruction, the entire Bible of the translation by Padre Pereira, from the Lisboa edition, for having brief notes explaining the most difficult topics, highlighting some passages from the prophets David and Isaiah which, according to him and the opinion of orthodox theologians, contained the prediction of the sacrifice of "our Redeemer, and the triumph of his Gospel, and the kingdom of God throughout the world”. (^{Lisboa, 1827}, p. 57).

He also highlights the exemplary character of those who “teach the lesson of the First Letters”, because the “formation of the character of the boys” depended on such people, due to the kindness of teaching and a good example of obedience to the authorities. As he goes on, he points out that “fortunately, no one sees the bad treatment, and even the cruelty of punishment, of children of one gender and another”, so common in schools, in which the innocent people shuddered before those who should be as fathers and mothers, but who showed to be despots and stepmothers.

It is possible to note that the rhetoric of piety and the humanization of penalties seems to prevail, aligning the Brazilian with a more general movement in favor of more efficient resources in the normalization process. Nevertheless, for him, in the Brazilian Empire, the abandonment of cruelty was especially worthy of recommendation, due to the influx that tyrannical education had in the habits of violence and pride of the children over their domestic and fellow citizens, which indicated that it was much more difficult to reform, while not abolishing “the sad Law of Captivity, which could only be the work of the OMNIPOTENT HAND” (^{LISBOA, 1827}, p. 73)

In addressing youth, he shared the fear of the presence of the corruption of the century in all classes. Even though he recognized this element, he believed that, in general, parents and teachers valued living in the Catholic Church, although it was not less certain, that, due to “fatal misfortune”, there were also infidels in Brazil, especially after the spread of corrupting books from foreign nations, “threatening to produce an unbelieving and perverse generation” (^{idem, p. 65}).

As can be seen, the discourse of fear and dangers arising from harmful doctrines seems to act as a cement for the interventions of the man of letters. Attentive to the normative movement underway in the process of organizing the independent national state, the scholar from Bahia, a court man, experienced in the old and new world, produces pieces designed to direct the moral constitution and duties of the citizen, according to the spirit of constitution of the Brazilian Empire, opting to conduct the doctrinal debate, reportedly guided by orthodox postulates of the Catholic Church. Investment that implies placing this discourse in a long chain, from antiquity to his contemporaries, in which the author seeks support, a device that allows him to print a certain meaning, (re)animate existing themes, recognize opposite strategies, make irreconcilable interests appear. In the established discursive order, he ends up arranging the elements that outline the game of the true, the legitimate, the good and the necessary.

The position of the Viscount is also visible in speeches aimed at schooling, at the time when he writes and publishes the book intended to standardize the Brazilian school or useful instruction aimed at all classes. In this material, from the title, it explains that it is about extracting rules of conduct and general principles directly from Sacred Scripture, interwoven in a complex of statements, in which it represents the difference and dispersion with great danger to be fought, from an early age. In this way, it tries to mobilize and make agents of the school and the house allies in this program, since, at the limit, what was at stake was the project of a theocratic constitutional monarchy. Horizon and commitment that marks, guides and allows us to perceive the regularity of certain statements, the existence of a dispersion system, which is grouped and separated to ensure the success of the company, in which the subject of the statements worked here appears as a protagonist quite active in defense of a new regime, maintaining, however, the centrality of the figure of the emperor and the Catholic religion. Traces of the old regime that should be preserved in the structuring and functioning of the new tropical empire.

Finally, it is worth reflecting on the theme of political emancipation in the field of the historiography of education. As a matter deeply involved with the possibilities of understanding the national, it is necessary to analyze how it appears in narratives specialized in the history of education. For that, I made a topical incursion in two classic books, to understand the knowledge and the truth that was intended to crystallize and reproduce in this specific type of narrative.

Concluding Words

In 1889, the last year of the monarchy, a report was published, in which ^Nunes (¹⁹⁹⁵) considers the first attempt to systematize the history of Brazilian education. As studies on this report-book indicate (^{GONDRA & MENEZES, 2015}; ^{VIEIRA, 2016}), this is an order designed to represent Brazil at the 1889 Paris International Exhibition. In the document produced, the author, doctor and the monarchist, by privileging the use of official sources, highlights points of tension around which he does not shy away from expressing his position, many times, colliding with widespread claims that his work is all laudatory and proud. Such adjectives can be associated with the heroes of the history of education constituted by/in the writing of Doctor Pires de Almeida, which does not occur in relation to the various points he addressed throughout his study, among which the issue of financing, teacher training, competitions, the structure and functioning of teaching, school institutions and legislation.

In this type of program (and advertising), affiliation to the monarchical regime, the male condition, medical training and performance in the area of public hygiene, urban planning, journalism and theater are elements that mark the words of the Court doctor, visible in the composition and handling of the documentation, in the highlighted articles, in the perspective with which he operates and in the very design of the narrative used in the report-book. By taking this statement as a discourse deeply interested in building an important link between instructing and civilizing, readers therefore have the possibility to enter the debate about education in Colony and, above all, in the Empire, through a well-defined statement.

In dealing with the independence process, Almeida argues in favor of a new milestone for the history of Brazil. For him, the arrival of D. João VI had completely changed the conditions of the country, in all aspects. With the arrival of the royal family, “the constitution of Brazilian nationality, the nationality proclaimed in December 1815” would have begun (^{ALMEIDA, 1989}, p. 41). With the gesture of granting Brazil the title of Kingdom³⁹, he had defined “the constitution of Brazilian nationality, the declaration of its independence” (^{idem, 1989}, p. 43). Then, he analyzes the fifteen years of the reign of King João VI, qualifying as the most fertile for the constitution of Brazil, with excellent results, with public education being the object of special attention. This assessment makes it support a new periodization and, therefore, specific intelligibility to understand the political emancipation of Brazil. In his perspective,

National historians really only started our history, as a recognized people, having their place in the repair of nations, in 1822 and they always say, when speaking of the kingdom of S.M.D. Pedro II, second reign⁴⁰. But, it is really the third⁴¹, because the kingdom of D. João VI, in Brazil, was one of the most notable and fruitful and will occupy an important place in the country’s history. This systematic exclusion has no reason to be. There is no enlightened Brazilian who does not admit D. João VI as the true founder of the Empire of Brazil⁴², under another title, it is true, but that does not diminish in any way the vigorous impulse that this monarch was able to give to the civilization of the country. (^{ALMEIDA, 1989}, p. 50-51).

As can be seen, the doctor-author promotes a retreat in the consecrated periodization, proposing an intelligence that recognized the actions of D. João VI in the process of national independence that, under this point of view, would have been proclaimed on December 16, 1815⁴³. With this gesture, Brazilians began to have the duty to give their children, not only the moral education and the primary or scientific education necessary for all men (an obligation), but also to inculcate them, as it were, in the national soul, this feeling of brotherhood towards all men in the country itself, a condition that would have strengthened the nation and ensured its independence; advocates the author. In short, we see once again, through the lens of the rapporteur, in the sovereigns and leaders of the people, the habit of great thoughts, of broad views, of the whole view, the faculty of synthesizing, in the measures of the present, the possible developments of the future (^{idem, 1989}, p. 51).

For him, it was in these terms that the story should be narrated, reproduced. Written in French, this book gained greater circulation with the translation, a century later, into Portuguese, outside the initial environment of its production, but still maintaining the defense of the initiatives of the monarchy, with an important shift with regard to the initiatives of the second monarch. Strictly speaking, it produces a line of continuity with the gestures of the grandson of D. João VI, D. Pedro II, with whom the narrator has doctrinal ties in terms of maintaining the regime and belief in instruction as the foundation of nationality.

However, the dissemination of the report-book was not limited to an exhibitor at the Brazilian pavilion, in the French capital, in 1889⁴⁴. One example is the reference that ^{Peixoto (1930}) makes to this document in the text regarding primary education, prepared on the occasion of the centenary of the Chamber of Deputies. For the Bahian doctor, synthetically produced as a deputy, Pires de Almeida is classified as an optimistic writer who, when writing a thick book, “L'instruction publique au Brésil⁴⁵”, was coerced to confess that primary education was out of harmony as the place that Brazil should occupy among educated peoples (^{Peixoto, 1930}, p. 70).

When summoning his professional colleague, Peixoto recognizes the “optimistic” character of the report-book, while selecting an element that helps to strengthen the representation he seeks to build from other presents of Brazilian education, that is, the disharmony of Brazil in the field of education when compared to the countries considered more cultivated.

The presence of the “thick book” in the production of the Bahian doctor is not restricted to the balance of the centenary of primary education (1826-1926), having been remobilized in the course-book resulting from his condition as a teacher of history of education at the Instituto de Educação do Rio de Janeiro. Once again, he turns to the monarchist to support the story that the Bahian man tells. In this case, even in the condition of being in line with the empire, Almeida was also surprised by the failure to implement some measures resulting from the additional act of 1834, such as the inspection of primary education.

With regard to the narrative aimed at teaching the history of education, we chose to make a foray into the manual written by the Bahian doctor, in this case, the book “Noções de História da Educação⁴⁶” by Julio Afranio Peixoto⁴⁷, to observe the representation he produces of the event of Independence of Brazil.

As a doctor, Peixoto taught the subjects of hygiene, forensic medicine and criminology at the Faculty of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro; acting equally in parliament, in public administration and in the literary and history fields⁴⁸. For three years of his life (1932-1934), he taught history of education at the Instituto de Educação do Rio de Janeiro (IERJ). This experience resulted in that book, the object of three successive reissues (1933, 1936 and 1942), in which he systematized the “dictated” course and produced a memory of what should be taught to future teachers in the capital⁴⁹. In this course-book, he establishes a certain representation of the event of independence. In his narrative, contrary to the book of his colleague, the Johannine period is made invisible and, with this, erases the recognition of who would have been the true founder of the nationality, according to the perspective contained in the book of the rapporteur-doctor, from 1889.

Peixoto adheres to the historiography that enshrines Independence as a date, a scene and a protagonist who, in his narrative, fails to carry out the project education for all, even though he admits the existence of a set of initiatives in the plans of the executive and legislative.

Recognizing the positive initiatives of the Brazilian Empire, he indicates that they had not been implemented. To do so, it uses the available literature, parliamentary archives, ministerial reports and those of the Emperor himself to inform future teachers of the diagnosis of the lack and/or insufficiency of teaching, at the different levels and modalities, indicating the need to merge the project with its execution, an aspect that, in the narrator’s perspective, could only be conducted by the generation that integrates it and the type of social reform that this group intended to develop, including in schools and in the creation of an effective teaching system.

This movement helps to understand the absence of an edifying history of education when referring to the emancipation of Brazil. What matters to be taught is a story that mixes good intentions and failures, an expedient adopted to produce the lack that his generation intended to fill in terms of intellectual, physical and moral education. Unlike Lisbon and Almeida, who narrate the successes of the Monarchy, the teacher-doctor is busy presenting a gallery of failures, a marker that organizes the information dictated in his classes for normalists and made available to all the recipients of the notions he publishes. From this topical incursion in the first manual for the training of teachers, there are at least two vectors to be explored.

The first confirms the narrative canon of national history, in which independence as an event constitutes a compulsory item, since, as in old biographies, it indicates a date of birth and seeks to confer and authenticate paternity and/or patriarchy.

The second vector, which we were able to explore in this work, suggests the existence of a dispute over the real, the possibilities of understanding and the social struggles, more or less exuberant around a national project.

For the purposes of this work, we emphasized the more or less subtle mediations around aspects associated with moral education, sealed by an order and published under the protection of August Emperor, D. Pedro I. Element that reappears in the report that represented Brazil at the Paris International Exhibition in 1889, in which the protagonists are D. João VI and, above all, D. Pedro II.

The concern with moral is rehabilitated more than a hundred years later in a dictated course, converted into a book, for future primary school teachers. In the new investment, the moral order is maintained, being, however, in that present, calibrated by the air of a scientific and renewed pedagogy, a device that ends up summarizing the history of the Brazilian empire to a succession of failures or miseries; condition to enable the new narrators and pedagogy as science to occupy the center of the scene.