In the context of the interventions designed since the 1920s, education and health have been shaped up as pillars of the work of redeeming the Brazilian population from the supposed ignorance and disease, and thus regenerating the nation. This paper examines the hygienic education project, which sought to instill in children a set of habits articulated around the goal of forming an ideal of man who would be strong, healthy, productive and disciplined This study analyzes these initiatives led by the public education policy and decision makers from the state of Sao Paulo, considering their understanding of the social issues and the place assigned to education and health in their diagnoses, proposals and policies. For such, this study used the hygiene textbooks produced for the elementary school as references, seeking to grasp and question the hygienic prescriptions made by the policy makers in connection with the images these printed materials proposed.
history of education; textbooks; hygienism
