Pedagogical journals and the Brazilian republic

In his description of the cultural life of the city of São Paulo at the end of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century, ^{Cruz (2000}) points out that the collective spaces of the literate elites are expanding: recreational and literary associations, charities, sports associations, instructive and also those of crafts expand. These collective spaces, previously almost exclusively male, are diversified. This expansion is due to the significant increase in graphic arts in the city, which now offer cheaper and higher quality services. In addition, there is the structuring and regularization of postal and telegraph services, provided by the development of the railways, which allowed, in a stable way, the distribution of forms, including the systematization of subscription services. Also, it is during this period that some booksellers start their business and aid in the distribution of the periodical press, multiplying the access to printed materials (^{Cruz, 2000}).

The process of structuring this production network made it possible to multiply products: books; collections; periodicals (illustrated, literary, specialized in crafts, politics, or economics); leaflets; almanacs; leaflets; newspapers (large or small press); and a diversification of notebooks for writing (with guidelines, for calligraphy, grids, for accounting, etc.) (^{Cordova, 2016}). This increase in printed material indicates the diversity of readers (and writers) and strategies for seeking new markets, such as those for children, women, workers, among other groups that were not yet fully inserted in literate culture. This expansion of possibilities was also accompanied by the dissemination of increasingly hegemonic representations that “[...] associated the book/reading and the school with symbolic and mental attitudes that would allow the country's progress, whether as civilizing practices or as practices disciplinary and cultural control¹⁸” (^{Carvalho & Toledo, 2021}, p. 13).

It is in this effort that the invention of a new imagined community is articulated (^{Anderson, 2008}): that of primary school teachers. In this sense, the debate on recruitment and training strategies for new professionals in teaching the culture spread by the school (now teachers instead of schoolmasters) is established, sometimes with consensus, sometimes with fierce disagreements. This also applies to the models of normal schools, as well as to the practices to be disseminated, which, at the limit, would manufacture the identity of this new class of professionals and guide the political debate (for example, in the Legislative Assembly) and the debate of the nascent educational field (^{Carvalho & Toledo, 2021}).

The printed material produced by and for this craft corporation became fundamental instruments of intervention in ordering the new imagined community¹⁹, outlining the strength of the representations in dispute about its traits, practices, knowledge and identities. The printed material will produce and disseminate the lexicon/jargon (either the conceptual set, or the set of maxims or catchphrases) of this community, as well as its problems, its objects and its ethics. As ^{Carvalho (2003}b, p. 104) reminds us, “[...] the printed material will function as a device for regulating and adapting the discourse and the pedagogical practice of teachers²⁰”.

For ^{De Certeau (1998}), text producers refer to the idea that the reader is produced by the text. This corollary is present in the investment policies for print production, which intend to mold the reader to certain policies and practices. Therefore, another task assigned to the many pedagogical journals was to use them to support teacher training. These journals used their pages as a general uses his troops at war, that is, operating in a disputed, belligerent and hostile field, giving vent to the ideas and thoughts of those who elaborate them (^{Silva, 2019}).

Therefore, it is necessary to analyze these printed initiatives in an articulated way to the installation policies of primary and normal schools in the State of São Paulo. According to Carvalho, the first republicans from São Paulo, who promoted the institutionalization of primary school in the State in the 1890s and 1900s, appropriated concepts of 'modern pedagogy': a 'practical pedagogy', in which 'teaching to teach' is to provide 'good molds' (^{Carvalho, 2001}, ²⁰⁰⁶). Thus, they adopted the strategies of 'visibility of exemplary practices', which would ensure the dissemination and impregnation of the good teaching model. For the author, numerous devices for the propagation and implementation of 'good molds' were adopted, always with the intention of manufacturing new classroom practices, which would be molded under the supposed precepts of 'modern pedagogy'. Still, for Carvalho, among the teacher training strategies were those of practical demonstrations of the 'art of teaching', displayed in model schools and in the printed dissemination of models or lesson plans in books and journals aimed at teachers (^{Carvalho, 2006}).

According to Carvalho, the “[...] success of the policy of institutionalizing the republican school was, from 1911, largely dependent on what Hilsdorf defined as the traditional capillary system of teaching organization²¹” (^{Carvalho, 2006}, p. 19 ). The knowledge and practices cultivated in the normal secondary schools were disseminated to the normal primary and complementary schools and, from these, to the model schools, school groups and isolated schools strategically spread in the capital and inland, forming a complex network for the implementation of the model of modern pedagogy (^{Hilsdorf, 1998}). “The capillarity of this school organization system was undoubtedly reinforced by the numerous editorial initiatives to spread knowledge and pedagogical models that these professionals took, by editing magazines and publishing books and articles²²” (^{Carvalho & Toledo, 2021}).

It is with the system engendered by the institutions and by the printed matter that, since the first generations of graduates of the Escola Normal Paulista, the mystique of a mission is built: the craft corporation should work in unison and in tune with the transmission of the knowledge and practices referred to to the precepts of 'modern pedagogy' as it was understood (^{Carvalho, Barreira, & Nery, 2010}). The new craft, which was born with the institutionalization of the credentials of the normal school, should impose its representations on good teaching, drawing the distinction between those who possessed technical and efficient knowledge and those schoolmasters who still practiced their profession without having passed formally by this institution (^{Carvalho & Toledo, 2021}).

The mission of transmitting the knowledge required by the civilization in process in Brazil, as well as the effectiveness of practices, always referred to as 'modern pedagogy', constituted the borders of the territory of the imagined community of the new primary teachers. In this sense, well-executed models would separate the good from the bad professionals. These models, in addition to the jargon of the new profession, circulated through specialized journals produced by and for the corporation.

According to Carvalho, the model invented by these forms can be called a 'utensil box' (^{Carvalho, 2001}, ²⁰⁰⁶). Two magazines are directly debited from the editorial formula of the 'utensil box', as they invented the tradition of the reading model of the São Paulo community of teachers: A Eschola Publica (1893-1897), which was an initiative of teachers from the model school; and Revista do Ensino, organ of the 'Beneficent Association of Public Teachers of the State', (1902-1918).

In the material configuration of these forms are the relationship with the “[...] culturally rooted rules that made up the belief of São Paulo republicans in the renewing impact of what was understood and proposed as modern pedagogy [...]²³”; and materiality, which was composed of a whole “[...] repertoire of knowledge that is ordered and arranged as school organization tools in ways compatible with this pedagogy²⁴” (^{Carvalho, 2001}, p. 144). According to Carvalho, they are printed on the pages of these periodicals:

[...] the belief in the incontestable effectiveness of intuitive teaching processes; conceptions about infantile nature formulated within the framework of a psychology of mental faculties; the wager on modern pedagogy as a corpus of knowledge and methodological instruments able to make the school of the masses possible, organizing simultaneous teaching in large classes²⁵ (^{Carvalho, 2001}, p.146).

As has long been known, the autonomy of the teaching profession is also due to the independence that its subjects acquire in relation to the State (^{Nóvoa, 1991} apud ^{Boto 2018}; ^{Catani, 2000}). For this reason, its spokespersons will be endorsers (or critics) of the educational policies of which they are contemporary, criticizing the pace and effectiveness of the processes of dissemination of education and government action. In this sense, they produce readings about the present-past of the republic, establishing the horizon of expectations for the success of the profession of teachers, which is inscribed, in this case, in the very success of the civilizing process of the nation. The editors of the Revista de Ensino see themselves as heirs of the authors of Eschola Pública (1893 and 1897), 'the 1st journal for teachers trained in the trade', as agents of the Caetano de Campos reform and as founders of a new era in the instruction of the people of São Paulo (^{Catani, 2003}). Likewise, the 'Associação Beneficente do Professorado' proposed to inherit and continue the traditions invented by that generation.

Therefore, they would be authorized to denounce the serious deficiency in the training of teachers who graduated from complementary schools (^{Sousa, 1998}), which multiplied with the shortage of normal schools in the State. These poorly trained teachers took over the classroom without the slightest training in the knowledge and practices of exercising their trade. For the print editors, magazines proved to be important tools to remedy the deficiencies of new professionals, offering ready-made classes for these new teachers (^{Catani, 2003}); but also as guardians of the tradition of this imagined community.

The Revista de Ensino also denounced the lack of rewards for such an arduous and difficult profession, seeking to enhance the status of the profession in São Paulo society (^{Catani, 2003}). State policies erred in the lack of investment in the trade. The comparison between the 'golden period' and the present situation of the editors of the Revista de Ensino (1903-1918) authorized the denunciations of lack of funds, poor teacher training, the slow pace of implementation of the model graduate school and the lack of vision of politicians, among other arguments, allowing neophytes to enter schools, making them ineffective and disrupting the pace of civilization development (^{Catani, 2000}).

In the early 1920s, criticism of political investments in public education in São Paulo intensified: the school's effectiveness in teaching children of school age to read and write on a large scale (method crisis); the speed of expansion of the school network (reach of classrooms and well-trained teachers); and political effectiveness (engendering order and discipline, nationalizing rebellious working populations) (^{Carvalho, 2003}a).

In 1914, the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, in a scathing critique of the Rodrigues Alves government, published an Inquiry on the São Paulo school, in which inspectors and other authorities discussed the state's educational crisis. The dissonant voice of d’O Estado was supported by the movement in favor of literacy, promoted by the Nationalist League of São Paulo (^{Medeiros, 2005}). Still, impacted by the workers' strikes of 1917-18, the São Paulo elites began to question the rhythm and contours of the schools inherited from the golden period. With the inauguration of Washington Luís (1920-24), Sampaio Dória was called to solve the problems of the São Paulo school. Carvalho summarizes the defining milestones of the 1920 Reform:

Raising illiteracy to the status of a 'national issue par excellence' and, therefore, prioritizing the extension of the school to marginalized populations, the Reform capitalized on what, in the experience of the pedagogue, Sampaio Dória understood to be the basis of all learning, risking a pedagogical response to a political challenge. Convinced of the method of analytical intuition, he combined with this formula the objectives of moralizing and invigorating the race of the Nationalist League of São Paulo²⁶ (^{Carvalho, 2003}a, p. 230).

However, the new configuration of the literacy school - two compulsory and two optional years - triggered strong resistance, especially from 'education specialists', who presented technical arguments against the structure of the Reform. Sampaio Dória remained at the head of Public Instruction between April 1920 and May 1921, being replaced by his assistant, Guilherme Kuhlmann. The reform was criticized and denounced by several flanks, which legitimized its deconfiguration.

Carlos de Campos, elected in 1924 as governor of São Paulo, presented himself as the person who could restore the traditions of the São Paulo school that had been disrupted by Washington Luís/Sampaio Dória. In this direction, the conflicts between the educators are piqued even more. Voss takes over the Directorate of Public Instruction proposing a new reform, of which RE is the spokesperson.

The criticism of Dória's 'literacy school' indicates a new configuration of theoretical positions in the educational field with regard to the meanings of 'active pedagogy' and, consequently, to the very meaning of the 'glorious São Paulo school', hitherto considered modern and modeling (^{Carvalho, 2003}a). The convictions of the imagined community of educators from São Paulo are beginning to be questioned, thanks to the international debate on new pedagogies/theories of child psychology and new actors. But also because of the clear expansion of the notion of education towards secondary school teachers.

This debate focuses on the meanings of the lesson models of the art of teaching well and its precepts (the psychology of mental faculties), as well as on the effectiveness of the way in which this knowledge was being presented to teachers, whether in normal schools or in specialized periodicals (^{Carvalho, 2000}). The debate was presented to readers through the pages of the mainstream press, through vehicles such as the newspapers Correio da Manhã and O Estado de S. Paulo. Thus, it took shape in the new association founded by old and new names in the educational field, the Education Society of São Paulo (1922-1931) (^{Nery, 2009}).

If the RE was the result of the new Government's immediate positioning in relation to the glorious past of the São Paulo school and its tradition, it was also an intervention strategy to foster new meanings of the alliance between hygiene and the school. So much so that Campos enacted the reform of the Instruction on July 11, 1925, the Pedro Voss Reform, and the following month, enacted the reform of the Sanitary Code, the Paula Souza Reform. In this direction, as ^{Nery (1993}) suggests, the magazine itself had aspirations for renewal, since it converged with the renewal of themes and issues that shook the educational field, such as 'hygiene' and its civilizing effects.

With the analysis of the materiality of the magazine, it is possible to perceive that the new generation of educators invested in dissent and attributed the image of 'enemies of politics' to the generation of Pedro Voss, because it represented the 'old education'. The 'old' and the 'new' became the motto of the dispute between those considered heirs of the 'old model' of the São Paulo school (Pedro Voss, João Toledo, Guilherme Kuhlmann, among others) and the 'renovators' of education (Lourenço Filho, Fernando de Azevedo, Almeida Júnior, among others), allied to New School principles. In this binomial that would take place throughout the 1920s, educators critical of the 'model of lessons on things' of 'modern pedagogy' attributed to the Carlos de Campos government the defense of 'educational conservatism', which, in turn, was a sign of the 'rotten oligarchic republic'. The past is reassessed by the new generation based on the idea of overcoming it. Tradition takes on negative contours and signals the republican mismatch.

RE in its materiality

RE had an ephemeral life. The publication began in January 1925 and edited the last issue in September 1927, totaling 33 copies of monthly periodicity. Printing was done by the Siqueira typography, a commercial establishment that provided services to the state government, such as the editing, for example, of the Teaching Annuaries of the State of São Paulo (^{Razzini, 2006}) and school books.

Unlike the journals A Escola Publica, Revista de Ensino²⁷ and the Revista Educação, (from the Sociedade de Educação), which received subsidies from the government, the RE was formalized as the spokesperson of the Board of Directors and became an expense item in the São Paulo budget, guaranteed by Law 2182-C of December 29, 1926²⁸. Financing the journal avoided certain publishing complications, as happened in the first half of 1925, when the State Court of Auditors twice denied the credit in the amount of 3:500$000 for RE, but also indicated its importance as a strategy for Pedro Voss to disseminate the ideas proposed by his administration²⁹.

In any case, public investment guaranteed the regularity of the publication as well as its material form. In addition to the contact that teachers in the State of São Paulo had with RE through the donations that the Directoria made to school libraries, they could acquire the new periodical through subscriptions deducted directly from their salaries. These subscriptions could be annual or monthly, with values of 20$000 réis and 10$000 réis. The issues could also be purchased separately (2$000 réis), as shown on this second cover (figure 1).

Source: ^{Revista Escolar (1926}c, back cover)

Figure 1 Back cover of a copy of the Revista Escolar 

In the RE subscription form, a document that called on teachers to become subscribers to the journal, it was highlighted that the editorial line favored the collaboration of active teachers: a teacher's magazine designed for teachers. The first editorial described the journal’s content: “It awaits, therefore, with pleasure, collaborations of a didactic nature, pedagogical information, instructions, clarification, in short, any and all work that harmonizes with its nature and purposes³⁰” (^{Revista Escolar, 1925}a, p. 1). To this end, the articles were signed by professors in activity, but the Revista also featured renowned 'collaborations' and authorities of the time, such as general inspectors, national and foreign thinkers, as well as medical authorities. In addition, the journal published official documents (^{Silva, 2019})³¹.

From the beginning of the publication until the end, in September 1927, RE tried to keep the same sections, going through only minor typographic changes after official public investments, such as the layout of the letters, frames to highlight the name and drawings in the subtitles of the sections. These alterations gave it a more sophisticated appearance (Figure 2). The permanent sections were ‘Lições de Coisas’, ‘Lições Praticas, Literatura Infantil’ and 'Questões Geraes', which were present in all issues consulted, as well as the sections ‘Pedologia, Methodologia, Vultos e Fatos, Noticias, Escotismo, Secretaria do Interior, Cantos Escolares, Nos Arraes do Ensino, Educação Physica, Livros e Revista etc.’ and ‘O Folk-lore nas escolas’; the sections ‘Pelas Escolas, Diretoria Geral, Jogos Escolares, Página da Criança, Instrução Publica, O ensino em São Paulo, Resenha Pedagógica e Trabalhos Manuais’ were not always published (^{Silva, 2020}).

Source: ^{Revista Escolar (1926}c, p. 2, ¹⁹²⁶d, p. 2)

Figure 2 Title page and editorials of two issues of Revista Escolar 

In the December 1925 editorial (^{Revista Escolar, 1925}f), the editors hint at a representation of the target reader, which reinforces and, in part, justifies the reading model adopted by the journal:

In its LESSONS ON THINGS and PRACTICAL LESSONS it does not feed, as many have seemed, the desire to force the teacher to abdicate his teaching processes, becoming a mere repeater. Nor would that be conceivable, since, given that even if these lessons constitute sublimated models of perfection, they would still not escape the inherent subjectivity of each educator - subjectivity to which they must fatally be subordinated, suffering, as a consequence, changes in their form and structure.

But, then, why register them on the pages of the REVISTA

‘To, solely and exclusively, offer the neophyte in the teaching profession that which the lack of apprenticeship still does not suit him to provide; to make him wake up early in the spirit to that practice that is only acquired after long years of experience'; so that this teacher acquires it, in short, relatively quickly, for his own benefit and, above all, for the benefit of the children entrusted to him³² (emphasis added).

Already in the November 1925 editorial, it is possible to capture the express representation of 'child' that the magazine circulated. In this editorial, the magazine comments on the problems of the cinematograph in school classrooms. In the view of the editors, this means of communication could harm children, because “[...] in the dramatic representations provided by cinematographers to children, what most attracts them, what most excites and excites them are not the bold traits of nobility or virtue, but the impetuous bids of revenge, the gestures of hate and the like, facts of life³³” (^{Revista Escola, 1925}b, p. 2). In this direction, RE understands the child as a being who cannot distinguish what is good from what is bad, the virtuous from the vice. That is, the child is a being who needs someone to guide him within the thriving morality. The magazine thus maintained positions linked to psychology and morality that embodied 'modern pedagogy' and the craft's tradition.

The dominant collaboration of teachers appeared in the sections ‘Lições Praticas’ or ‘Lições de Coisas’ and adopted the formula of lesson models so well known to primary teachers. Still, it is important to emphasize that the section ‘Lições Praticas’, which always occupied the first pages of the magazine, right after the editorial, from August 1926, became the second section, giving way to the section ‘Questões Geraes’; while ‘Lições de Coisas’, another section of lesson plans, started to appear towards the end of the magazine, inviting the reader to leaf through a good part of the magazine.

Regarding the authorship of the published texts and classes, RE presented only a few names, probably names of people who enjoyed a certain prestige or recognition in the educational field, which expressed the idea of authority as authorship (^{Foucault, 1992}). There were 4 (four) authors who had great prominence, or rather, a routine circulation in the magazine's issues: the psychologist Frederic Queyrat and the doctor Henri Bouquet (interspersing in the Pedology section), both of French nationality; and pedagogues Arnold Tompinks and Francis Parker (signing Methodology and Lecture on Teaching respectively), both of American nationality. In addition to them, the Revista sporadically published texts by personalities such as Monteiro Lobato, Cecília Meireles, Decroly, Tolstoi, Fernando Pessoa, among others.

In addition to these authors, RE circulated texts without authorship, which mostly made up the sections ‘Lições de Coisas’ and ‘Práticas’. These texts were probably the contributions of professors included in the imagined community established by the journal itself and appeared in response to requests for collaboration from subscribers. As there is no information about these texts, it is not possible to identify who they are and where they came from.

The circulation of texts dealing with psychology, medicine and education placed the magazine at an important level in the educational scenario, as it showed subscribers how much the magazine was dialoguing with current discussions in the field of education, especially in the medical field, given the great discoveries what psychology and medicine were doing about the child at that moment and the partnerships that education established with health: teachers and the São Paulo Institute of Hygiene; Reform by Pedro Voss and Reform by Paula Souza.

Fonte: ^{Revista Escolar (1925}a, ¹⁹²⁶f, ¹⁹²⁵c)

Figura 3 Capa da Revista Escolar (Revista Escolar, 1925-1927) 

With each issue, the cover and the fourth cover of the journal were presented in a different color (figure 3). There were no advertisements³⁴, on RE's pages, which was common in other state-subsidized magazines. The journal also contained photographs: in the 33 copies, 87 photos appear, about 3 photos per issue. The selection of images had a particular and intentional meaning on the part of the editors. The ‘Vultos e Fatos’ section, present in 31 of the 33 copies, edited 24 images/photos of Brazilian personalities. This device made clear reference to the 'Pantheon Escolar' section of the aforementioned journal A Escola Publica (1893 -1897), reaffirming the heritage of São Paulo tradition contained in the policies of Pedro Voss, who was also part of the editorial committee of the Escola Publica (^{Catani, 2003}). According to ^{Catani (2003}), A Escola Publica brought in its pages a tribute to personalities that the journal considered admirable and worthy of imitation by teachers and students, which also occurred in RE (^{Nery, 2009}).³⁵

RE also circulated numerous photos of different external and internal school spaces, emphasizing the 'monumentality of the São Paulo school'. Gym classes, physical education, scouting, reading in libraries, among others, symbolized the activity of students, 'the eloquent order and discipline', inherited from the Caetano de Campos Reform. Therefore, these images, as well as the discourse in favor of the São Paulo educational model, sought to reinforce the republican values present in the Carlos de Campos government. At this point, it is important to point out that RE seeks to eliminate the problems arising from the lack of State resources, pointed out by critics of educational policies: it elevates the golden times and tradition, reinforcing the continuities of the inaugural times of the teaching profession, established by the Republic.

As ^{Nery (1993}) points out, the ‘Lições de Coisas’ and ‘Lições Praticas’, reminiscent of the heyday of the Republic, were central to the journal and were published in its 33 issues. It is precisely this formula that remains under the control of the group that criticized the older generation. For these intellectuals, it was important to offer professors philosophical discussions and reflections and not a collection of ready-made lessons. On this, ^{Lourenço Filho expressed himself in the inquiry organized by Fernando de Azevedo on June 23, 1926}, in the pages of O Estado de S. Paulo:

As for technical assistance, I warmly welcome the idea of the measures that the current administration has taken in this regard, specialized inspectors and a magazine for teachers. If I praise the idea, I sincerely, and not without sadness, regret its execution. RE seems like a deliberate joke or a work of sabotage³⁶ (^{Lourenço Filho, 1926}).

As can be seen, the criticism directly affects the RE model and the representation of the reader instituted by it, since, in Lourenço Filho's view, the reader should not be treated as naive or easygoing on the subject. If the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo (OESP) was the space for criticism against the thinking of the Directorate of Public Instruction³⁷, Voss used RE itself as a spokesman for the positions of his government. Soon after the publication of the Inquérito sobre a Instrução Pública, in June 1926, the August editorial of RE (^{Revista Escolar, 1926}a, p. 1), explained to its readers:

Whoever examines the current reform of public instruction among us, studying it in the light of severe but loyal criticism, this meticulous criticism in its analysis, but noble in its constructive spirit, will see that it presided over a high and safe criterion.

To say that this work, rightly entrusted to the General Directorate of Public Instruction, analyzing it in all its details, would be a work of great merit, as it would show not only the zeal with which matters relating to teaching in S. Paulo are treated, as it would demonstrate the importance that this teaching currently represents for the education of children in our schools.

To do so, however, that is, to prove the excellence of the reform in question, it is sufficient to simply examine certain matters of the programs in force, which have undergone modifications tending to their good educational purpose³⁸ [...]

In that same issue, in the 'Public Instruction'³⁹section, the magazine publishes a message from Governor Carlos de Campos himself, presenting a series of data that would show how Azevedo's analyzes, in the Inquiry, were mistaken and uninformed. According to Campos, “The last reform of the Public Instruction [Voss reform] gave it a new look, without taking away the essence that characterized it since the first republican governments, which always placed it in a position of prominence and importance. way to satisfy the needs of the State⁴⁰” (^{Revista Escolar, 1926}a, p. 56).

The governor also presented numerical data that demonstrated the importance of the Voss reform for the organization of schools. According to him, the reform allowed “[...] the government to accompany the march of the school units distributed throughout the state and still know the regional needs, for a better location, suppressing the unnecessary ones or creating new sources of teaching, depending on the development of the population centers⁴¹” (Revista Escolar, 1926a, p. 57). This speech by the governor not only praises the reform and Voss's stance, but also combats the criticism it had been receiving.

Campos' text expressed the governor's position on the São Paulo educational model, given that Carlos de Campos was the son of Bernardino de Campos, one of the contributors to the legacy of republican education (^{Vidal, Miguel, & Araujo, 2011}). This text also implied the relationship of closeness and trust between Voss and Campos, which perhaps explained Voss' entry and exit from office, which was always linked to Campos' entry and exit from the state government.

The fact is that every criticism published by Azevedo's group, whether in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, or in another publication, as is the case of the newspaper Diario Nacional on October 18, 1927, which enthusiastically published the end of Revista Escola, supporters of Voss made the counter-argument: sometimes with milder responses, sometimes with a lot of force, as can be seen in the excerpt published in the magazine's editorial in February 1926 (^{Revista Escolar, 1926}b, p. 1).

There are some zoilos out there slandering this MAGAZINE, and it seems to us that they do so, because they have not yet been able to give them a purely guiding purpose in the part relating to their practical lessons on various subjects of our school programs. However, it must be confessed, if the didactic strabismus of similar critics does not allow them to see things through their proper meaning, it has not lost the degree of acuity sufficient to compete with the microscope: like this, their critical eye discovers molecules, particles, atoms [...] but, unfortunately, it does not unite the whole, it does not observe the harmony of the whole.

Drumming some of their aversion for the said lessons, others trumpeting their contempt for them, they all go, solely and in an impulsive, morbid obsession, proclaiming the verdict found in the cenacle that they reached there in the Himalayas of their wisdom⁴².

Regarding the criticisms of the perpetuation of teaching based on good models, where the sections ‘Lições de Coisa’ and ‘Lições Praticas’, for example, are placed, RE has countered them at various times⁴³ of its existence. In the June 1925 editorial (^{Revista Escolar, 1925}c, p. 1), for example, the editors say that,

This JOURNAL, destined to deal with the general interests of teaching, has been dedicating itself, with particular care, to didactics in terms of its direct application in the primary school environment.

Thus, to her PRACTICAL LESSONS and THINGS LESSONS, she has tried to imprint a truly practical character, in order to produce the maximum benefit and utility for children. However, it is not always necessary to recognize it, such lessons have reached the desired scope; they have not always been developed according to all the requirements that must be inherent to them. There are so many and so delicate conditions of a didactic nature to which they need to be subordinated; there are so many observations of a pedagogical nature that fall within them, that something must necessarily escape the most astute mind in terms of teaching⁴⁴.

In the description of the magazine's material formula, it is indicated how the 'utensil box' was adopted by its editors, maintaining the tradition of the current reading and training model in publications of this genre, in addition to a whole conception of pedagogy that resumed the architecture of 'modern pedagogy'. However, there are discursive displacements adopted by the press that accompanied the renewal of the educational debate, especially with regard to the transformations operated by the medical and hygiene sciences.

In this sense, the grandiose speech of the school is consistent with the hygienic precepts defended by the Institute of Hygiene of São Paulo. These displacements can be noticed, for example, in the way public schools are photographed: always shown by the editor in their exuberance and grandeur, but also as exemplary spaces of what was prescribed in the new Sanitary Code (1924). If these framings of the colossal position of the buildings corroborate the 'pedagogy of the art of teaching' and the 'priority of visibility' - a sine qua non of the teaching-learning relationship - they also became models of the hygienic order linked to educational policies. The following photos exemplify this a bit (figures 4, 5 and 6):

Source: ^{Revista Escolar (1925}e)

Figure 4 Barra Funda School Group - Capital 

Source: ^{Revista Escolar (1926}e)

Figure 5 School Group “Conde de Parnaíba”, in Jundiaí, S. Paulo 

Source: ^{Revista Escolar (1925}d)

Figure 6 Carmo School Group - Capital 

Displacements and points of convergence

With Voss at the head of the Board, it can be said that RE gave relevance to issues related to body care. This can be seen from the mapping of the articles published during the years of its existence. When considering these 'precautions', it is possible to affirm that the journal was a great incentive for the dissemination of hygiene, discussing, for example, the problems of alcoholism, the risks of eating with dirty hands, the importance of neat clothing, care for nails and hair, etc.

The journal saw the condition of the people as a key problem and endorsed the representation, announced at a conference offered at an event by the Liga Nacionalista, of the promoter of hygiene reform, Paula Souza, on the subject, namely: it was necessary to raise it to the condition of importance in the educational tonic. This position of Paula Souza regarding dealing with health issues with education was echoed in the magazine's editorial board, corroborating the construction of a hygienic discursive field, because, as Marta Carvalho points out, “[...] , in the [19]20s, the conviction that health policy measures would be ineffective if they did not cover the introjection, in social subjects, of hygienic habits, through education⁴⁵” (Carvalho, 2009, p. 305).

This educational discourse focused on overcoming the miasmatic theory in terms of the bacteriological theory, since it would consecrate the studies that proved that the disease was not generated by miasms, but by viruses, fungi and bacteria. This paradigm shift led many intellectuals to take ownership of this new idea, as did Monteiro Lobato, with his character Jeca-Tatu, who ceased to be the sign of the indolence of the race to be the victim, that is, the sick man abandoned by the State.

If, in the 1910s, it was already possible to see the concern with the theme of hygiene, as occurred with the first Sanitary Code (1911)⁴⁶ and with the course promoted by Oscar Thompson to school directors, the new approach of the Paula Reform Souza gives sanitary and hygiene practices a whole new framework of meanings. Thus, the hygienic discussion, apparently inherited from the glorious times of the São Paulo school, especially with regard to the insistence on the habits of students, shifted towards the new scientific theories that formed the basis of Paula Souza's reform. It is the content of the rupture of the new theory of hygiene that the magazine circulated in the 1920s.

In Souza's view, hygiene at school continued to be responsible for inculcating healthy habits in children, keeping them away from society's vices, so it was necessary to clarify to teachers how diseases were perpetuated and how transmission took place in the daily life of city life. and rural. Hence the important partnership with RE, especially in the commitment to present the theme recurrently in the sections ‘Lições Praticas’ and ‘Lições de Coisas’.

These sections took body care from an immediate perspective, investing in practical prescriptions for taking care of contamination and disease, such as care for clothes, nails, housekeeping, among others. Furthermore, they prescribed prevention in a long-term perspective, that is, the importance of eating well, avoiding alcohol and tobacco, practicing physical activity, avoiding fat and being overweight. For example, in the section ‘Lições Praticas’ (^{Revista Escolar, 1926}c), the central motto is the preservation of students from the transmitters of the most common diseases in cities:

Student. - A doctor from the health service went to the house yesterday to see if there was water in the tank, or stagnant water anywhere. Why would it be?

Teacher. - Because of mosquitoes, mosquitoes [...]

Professor, - The mosquito, like the fly, is first of all an egg; later, larva; then cocoon, and finally, perfect insect... Kerozene spread over the water destroys the eggs. The larvae and cocoons, not being able to get air through the layer of oil, die too. Adults cannot approach the surface of the water to lay more eggs, and if they insist on getting there, they die too.

Student. “They annoy us by singing and biting, but they're not that bad, are they?

Teacher. - Why not! Mosquitoes, like flies, transmit disease germs [...]

Professor, - There were places where life was almost impossible, due to the large number of mosquitoes and other harmful insects. After Hygiene set to work sanitizing these locations, exterminating the dangerous insects, they became perfectly inhabitable and desirable⁴⁷.

In this question and answer scheme, located in an apparently commonplace situation, the magazine taught the professor how to teach the new scientific theories about the transmission of diseases, as well as about healthy habits and the order and discipline that should accompany civilization. As can be seen, RE adopts a material form inscribed in the traditions of reading practices that were part of the culture of the community of primary school teachers in São Paulo.

However, its editors produced subtle shifts in content and materials, especially in relation to the new hygienist precepts that emerged in the 1910s and 1920s. In other words, the magazine's editors used the same editorial formulas from the tradition of the São Paulo educational field to introduce the new contents of medical and hygienic sciences. The maintenance of the old editorial formulas, and even of the contents that were related to teaching practices, allowed, on the one hand, the acceptance of the public for which the printed matter was intended, reaffirming the representations of the functions of the printed matter in the formative process of the profession of teacher; but, on the other hand, it opened up a flank for criticism from the new generation of educators, who, despite agreeing with hygienist approaches, were opposed to 'modern pedagogy' and ways of teaching how to teach from the logic of lesson models.

This ambiguity between tradition and renewal in the field of education was erased by the memory of Azevedian historiography, which ended up establishing the interpretation that both the Voss Reform and the RE were a setback in the positive process of development of education in São Paulo. This new generation reassessed the past and tradition, insisting on new contours for the knowledge, practices and meanings of the teaching profession, also focusing on the present and past meanings of the imagined community of primary school teachers and constituting a new horizon of expectations for this community.

In this field of dispute, the magazine's actions would be configured either in defense of the criticism received, or in attack against those who took a stand against the traditions of the São Paulo school. However, despite the Manichaeism of the educational debate, some questions instituted the convergences, mixing the representations of the different groups: if there was clear disagreement about the teaching methods derived from modern pedagogy and child psychology and, for that very reason, about the representations of reading practices of the target teachers; there was a consensus on the use of printed matter as a unique strategy for disseminating the alliance between hygiene and education: the school should be the primary place for inculcating the habits of order and hygiene. In this way, the magazine's critics pointed to what they thought was a problem, especially the educational model inherited from the beginning of the Republic, but did not attack the magazine's position in relation to hygiene or the partnership with Paula Souza, director of the Sanitary Service, or with the São Paulo Institute of Hygiene.

The hypothesis of this investigation to explain the limited criticism of the educational methods that the group of intellectuals 'born with the Republic' addressed to the magazine and to Pedro Voss's reform is that the articulation between health and education was not in question, considering the importance that hygiene, in the 1920s, starts to have with the demonstration of the bacteriological theory. Furthermore, it is important to remember that many of those who were criticizing Pedro Voss' position were physicians, as is the case of some contributors to the 1926 Survey. Thus, the importance of hygiene for the educational issue was a consensus, without a shadow of doubt; the educational methods, the representations of the child and even the teacher were in intense dispute.