Competing Representations about how Families Educate Children (Province of Paraná, 1853-1889)^I

Abstract

Over the history of the Empire of Brazil, there were at least three different and mutually opposing representations about how families should educate children: the regalist, the liberal and the ultramontane ones. These representations manifested disputes over power between the two institutions that produced them: the State, with its regalism and liberalism, and the Catholic Church, with its ultramontanism. The goal of the present work is to analyze the different representations about the role of families in the education of children as proposed by regalists, liberals and ultramontanes, in a specific region of the empire, i.e., the Province of Paraná, from 1853 (when it separated from São Paulo) to 1889 (the year when, with the end of the empire, the relationship between the State and the Church started to be seen in a different perspective). The key concepts in this paper are Peter Burke’s notion of social role and Roger Chartier’s conception of representation. The sources investigated are printed material that put these representations in circulation in the Province of Paraná: the Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia [First Constitutions of the Archbishopric of Bahia], reports, sermons, newspapers and a catechism. The historical route followed in this article evidenced that, in the 19th century in this province, the role of families in the education of children was the object of significant debates between State and Catholic Church agents, who produced about it the different representations analyzed here. Regalists, liberals and ultramontanes chose this education as a way to affirm their place in the social arena and to shape society according with what they aspired to in their world representations.

Education; Family; Paraná; 19th century; Representations

Resumo

Ao longo do Império, houve, no Brasil, ao menos três diferentes representações em disputa sobre como deveria ocorrer a educação da criança pela família: a regalista, a liberal e a ultramontana. Tais representações manifestavam uma disputa de poder entre as duas instituições que as produziam: o Estado, com seu regalismo e liberalismo, e a Igreja Católica, com seu ultramontanismo. O objetivo do trabalho é analisar as diferentes representações sobre o papel da família na educação da criança, conforme propostas por regalistas, liberais e ultramontanos, numa região específica do Império, a Província do Paraná, entre os anos de 1853 (quando se emancipou de São Paulo) e 1889 (ano em que, com o fim do Império, as relações entre Estado e Igreja passaram a ser lidas sob outra perspectiva). Os conceitos centrais são o de papel social, de Peter Burke, e representação, de Roger Chartier. As fontes interrogadas constituem-se em impressos que colocaram tais representações em circulação na Província do Paraná: as Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia, relatórios, sermões, jornais e um catecismo. O percurso histórico aqui trilhado evidenciou que, no século XIX paranaense, o papel da família na educação da criança foi objeto de significativos debates entre agentes do Estado e da Igreja Católica, que produziram sobre ele as diferentes representações analisadas. Regalistas, liberais e ultramontanos elegeram essa educação como o caminho para a afirmação de seu lugar de poder na cena social e a conformação de uma sociedade conforme as aspirações de suas representações de mundo.

Educação; Família; Paraná; Século XIX; Representações

Introduction

Given the trajectory of the history of education in Brazil and the pragmatic marks that this process left on this branch of history as a discipline and a field of research (WARDE, 2006), the interest of historians has been focusing mainly on the history of the school and of schooling. This fact, verified in reviews in the area (BASTOS, 2006; MONARCHA, 2007; GONDRA; SCHUELER, 2008), has been calling for investments to clarify experiences occurred in other contexts, such as the family. Here is what Lopes and Galvão say (2010, p. 19):

Education was never restricted to school. Educative practices also occur out of that institution, sometimes more strongly than normally believed. The city, the work, leisure environments, social movements, family and churches used to have – and still do – an enormous power to introduce people into specific cultural worlds.

With regard to the 19th century, a time when the family, rather than the school, was the privileged institution of education, the remarks above are particularly correct and challenging.

In an effort to understand the family as an educative context in the period of the Empire of Brazil, and to expand knowledge in the field about education occurring out of the school, I found, in a doctoral study (ANJOS, 2015), the existence of three different representations of how the education of children by families should take place.¹

The first representation identified, i.e., the regalist one, was born of the confluence of State and religion. In addition to submitting the Catholic Church to the State, regalism² also submitted the religious doctrine to its own interests. Regalists – both lay ones and the priests involved in imperial politics – aspired for the doctrine transmitted through religious education, which the child received from the family, to produce the good subject by means of the good Christian, one who should, however, mind its earthly responsibilities more than its spiritual ones.

The second representation was born of the ruling classes’ belief – supported by bachelors of law and the press – that regulating individual freedom through respect for the law and the fulfillment of one’s duties, in line with the principles of the imperial liberalism, would ensure the maintenance of the slavery-based society of the time, as well as the privileges of the free men who formed it. Both the respect for the law and the fulfilment of one’s duties – conditions of governability for the Brazilian State –, which parents were to teach their children, became the elements that configured another conception of education – a liberal education with a strong patriarchal character –, which, albeit not opposing regalism, could stand on its own, regardless of regalism, since it was founded on patriarchal values, which were deemed liberal.

The third representation is, again, situated in the field of religion. It was gestated by the Catholic Church, which, over the 19th century, went through changes both in Europe and Brazil, with the purpose of adjusting it to the guidelines of Rome, in face of liberalism and modernity. This set of measures became known as the ultramontane reform.³

In Brazil, one of the main demands of its leaders, the diocesan bishops, was pastoral autonomy from the State. The ultramontane education that children should receive from parents was anchored in doctrine knowledge and practice, yet with an emphasis on experiencing a more spiritualized, orthodox Catholicism. Ultramontanes aimed primarily at the formation of the good Christian, and, only as a consequence thereof, the formation of the good subject, who would obey temporal authorities only to the extent that it did not counter his faith. What they expected was to establish a new ecclesial project, i.e., to keep their influence over society and their presence as an institution of power not below, but beside the State.

These three representations engaged in mutual competition, sometimes more, sometimes less openly, because they manifested disputes over power between the two institutions that produced them: the State, with its regalism and liberalism, and the Catholic Church, with its ultramontanism. The goal here is to analyze the different representations about the role of families in the education of children as proposed by regalists, liberals and ultramontanes in the Province of Paraná.

The last province to be created in the empire in 1853, Paraná became an interesting historical environment where global phenomena experienced at the national level – the production of the State, of governability conditions and of an independent identity, as well as disputes between the Church and the temporal power, among others – were experienced with specific shades. Among these phenomena, it is necessary to highlight the necessity to produce respect for law and order, as well as a Catholic spirituality in a population spread over a vast territory pervaded by demographic vacuums, where temporal and religious authority were not always felt. This caused the education of children by their families to be elected as one of the ways to imprint the new desired habits and conducts on the inhabitants of Paraná. Therefore, the same dispute between the representations of the family’s educative role mentioned earlier, at a national level, had its share also in Paraná.

Social roles are taken here as the “patterns or norms of behavior expected from the occupant of a particular position in the social structure” (BURKE, 2002, p. 70), which, in the context of this article, points us to the expectations of how a father and a mother should, as a family, behave as educators of their children. Roles which, since they are socially understood, could become the object of representations, i.e., “internalized intellectual schemata that produce configurations through which the present can take on meaning, other human beings can become intelligible and space can be deciphered” (CHARTIER, 2002, p. 17). Representations which are not

[...] simple images, whether true or misleading, of a reality strange to them. They have an energy of themselves that convinces that the world […] is really what they say it is. Produced in their differences by the distances that fracture societies, representations in turn produce and reproduce them. (CHARTIER, 2010, p. 26)

Because of this instituting force, they become “the matrix for a variety of distinct sorts of discourse and practices […] which permit the construction of the social world and, as such, the contradictory definition of identities, both of others and one’s own” (CHARTIER, 2002, p. 18). It was with a view to building a society according with their representations and a position of power for the State and the Church that regalists, liberals and ultramontanes in Paraná and in the empire made the family’s educative role an object of dispute, considering the education appertaining to the family as an element that could configure the type of reality aspired to.

The family we refer to here possessed, on the one hand, different configurations: the nuclear family living in a household (formed by a father, a mother and their children); the nuclear family living with others (grandparents, non-family members); the large family (with numerous children); the small family (sometimes with just one child); the monoparental family (almost always a single mother or widow and her children); the pampas family (with the father out in the cattle drive business and the wife acting on his behalf); the surrogate family (orphan children raised by tutors); the slave family, in which the enslaved community played a similar role to that of a large family, although it could also be configured in any of the forms mentioned above, always under the authority of a master, etc.

On the one hand, there was a constant model in these multiple family configurations: the family formed by the parents (the mother, father or whoever had these roles) and their children (whether biological or adopted), indicating that the base for conceiving the family world in the context investigated here was that of the so-called modern nuclear family, the model of relations which developed and became established between the 16th and 17th centuries in a good part of the Western world (DUPÂQUIER, 1981). Even regarding the patriarchal family – which is rather an ideological model than a formal one (SAMARA, 1998) –, it was over his wife and children that the family head exercised his patriarchy in the closest way. The family I treat in this article is, therefore, the modern nuclear family, formed by parents and children living under the same roof, where the former sought to exercise an educative action over the children under their responsibility, and which has known innumerous configurations.⁴

The article analyzes the period from 1853 (when Paraná separated from São Paulo) to 1889 (when, after the proclamation of the Brazilian Republic, the disputes between the State and the Church started to be seen in a different perspective). The sources investigated are printed material that put the different representations in circulation⁵ in the province: the Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia [First Constitutions of the Archbishopric of Bahia], reports, sermons, newspapers from Paraná, and the catechism written and recommended by the bishops of São Paulo.⁶

In the next pages, let us hear and interrogate the speeches of a few regalists, liberals and ultramontanes as they echoed in the Province of Paraná.

Regalists and the Educative Role of the Family

In the Empire of Brazil, regalism weakened the Church’s autonomy as it submitted the spiritual to the temporal with a view to producing cohesion for the imperial state. This cohesion was built through the state’s use of Catholic doctrine as a means to form certain desired habits and behaviors in the population, among which were obedience to authorities and the law, thus avoiding unruliness and social conflicts.

In Paraná, these questions were strongly felt in the first decades of organization of the new province. Given a situation of high criminality indicating a rebellious reality facing the State’s governability aspirations, the cause identified and the solution advocated by the province presidents were the same: the need for families to give their children a religious education. An education that was less concerned about forming a Christian faithful to the Church than an individual correctly moralized from childhood and taught to submit to authority according with the principles of religion. In this respect, Carlos Augusto Ferraz the Abreu is a good spokesperson of how he and a good part of local politicians – representing regalism in the province, along with regalist clergy – viewed the question:

[...] a child cannot find in its household the teaching that befits its moral enhancement. At school, when it does attend it, it will learn but the elements of primary instruction; simultaneously acquiring bad habits, which, in the course of its existence, will assume appalling proportions. Later, as it is received in society, were good examples vanish in the wake of pernicious ones, it becomes a fully-grown man, toyed with by passions and vices. For his childhood lacked the prophylaxis of moral and religious education to strengthen him against the action of the agents who are bound to act upon him later. Let us candidly speak the truth: neither parents nor teachers are teaching the new generation the salutary precepts of the Gospel, which constitute the virtues. And youths, without the redemption of religion, surrendered to the frights of inexperience, spell disbelief in the book of the future, going down the inclined plane of error, which leads to hideous crimes, to complete moral perversion. (ABREU, 1869, p. 3)

It was in this setting that the role of family became the object of regalist representations in the Province of Paraná. Let us see how this role was outlined in the Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia. This set of religious laws, which were valid for the whole empire, was known to and often quoted by Paraná politicians, and received a new edition annotated by canon Ildefonso Xavier Ferreira.⁷

Born in Curitiba, established in São Paulo (without ever losing contact with his homeland), a bachelor of law, a professor of dogmatic theology, a member of the chapter in the See of São Paulo, and a regalist (WERNET, 1987), canon Ferreira took upon himself to republish the Constituições, indicating which paragraphs were, in face of the 1824 Constitution, abrogated (revoked) or derogated (altered in part); he also added comments in the end, with regard to his indications. From the contrast between his annotations and the Constituições’ original text emerge the legalist representations on the role of families in children’s education, the same role advocated years later by president Ferraz de Abreu.

According with the Constituições, religious education was a most serious business,

For not only does it matter greatly that Christian Doctrine and good customs be planted in the infancy of the little ones; but [that they also...] be conserved in adulthood, by learning [...] together with reading and writing, the lessons of well-living in time, where our nature soon inclines to vices. (CONSTITUIÇÕES, 1853, Tit. II, § 3)

The doctrine was to serve not only the salvation of the soul – which was beyond question – but, most of all, the well-living in time and well-behaving on earth. To canon Ferreira, this pro-regalist paragraph was not revoked.

The responsibility for teaching the doctrine to children was shared: it was a task for parents, teachers and priests. Parents, in particular, should teach, or see to the teaching (by vicars) of:

the Articles of Faith, so they [the children] can believe well; the Our Father and the Hail Mary, so they can plead well; the Commandments of the Law of God and the Holy Mother the Church and the mortal sins, so they can act well; the virtues, so they can follow them; and the Seven Sacraments, so they can worthily receive them along with the grace they bring, and the other prayers of the Christian doctrine, so they become instructed in all that matters to salvation. (CONSTITUIÇÕES, 1853, Tit. II, § 4)

The Constituições offered a program where each item aimed to lead children to certain behaviors: knowing how to believe, how to plead, how to act, and knowing what salvation matters. Knowing how to act, in particular, must have been dear to hearts of regalists, as its foundation came from the commandments of the law of God (which, according with the regalist interpretation, taught, among other things, respect for the government and its laws, as well as for parents), the commandments of the Church (which ensured the grandeur of public cult, viewed as a moralizer of society), and the sins (against God or a fellow man), which, when avoided, give way to virtues, all this with the purpose of ensuring a good, orderly life on earth and, as a result, eternal life in heaven. If this also remained valid in canon Ferreira’s edition, the same cannot be said about another point: vicars’ duty to teach doctrine to children:

Because vicars, as spiritual shepherds and masters, are more obliged to herd their sheep with the Catholic and True Doctrine, we exhort all of them in our Archbishopric, and each and every person in it who is in charge of healing souls [...] that each Sunday of the year on which no solemn festival concurs, they are to teach children and slaves the Christian doctrine in the time and hour as seems fit to them, serving in the places and distances of their parishes, whether in towns or out of them. (CONST., 1853, Tit. III, § 6)

This resolution filled up a good part of vicars’ time as it established that they were to dedicate one hour on nearly every Sunday to teach doctrine to children and slaves. However, in 19th-century Brazil, regalist clergy were constantly involved “in business, buying farms and slaves, living in concubinage, and actively participating in politics” (CARVALHO, 2003, p. 182), at the expense of sacrificing their pastoral responsibilities. For these reasons, in the opinion of canon Ildefonso – who was himself involved in politics and other affairs than priesthood –, this paragraph was derogated. He explained:

The exhortation for all vicars and those in charge of Healing Souls, even when exempted, to teach the Christian doctrine to children and slaves in the time and hour as seems fit to them has fallen into disuse, not one vicar today practices this teaching in view of the state of civilization; thus the task of teaching the Christian Doctrine befalls family men and literacy teachers. Vicars limit themselves to preaching and explaining the Gospel. (FERREIRA, 1853, p. 149, italics by the author)

Very skillfully, our canon did not oppose the Constituições, but conveniently conformed to the custom that priests limited themselves to preaching the Gospel at the mass, leaving to parents and teachers the responsibility to teach the doctrine to children. In fact, this resolution was never derogated by ecclesial law. It was regalist priests who derogated it by themselves. The reverend canon, besides steering himself (and his peers) clear of the task, reiterated in another remark that “the Christian Doctrine is one of the main parts comprised in the duties of literacy teachers” (FERREIRA, 1853, p. 149, italics by the author), throwing on them a burden which, in theory, they should share with families.

However, although it was among the subjects taught in primary schools – whether public or private –, few children actually attended school during the empire period, as we have seen that president Ferraz de Abreu would note years later. Moreover, teachers did not always taught doctrine properly, if we are to trust what a general inspector for the Paraná Public Instruction said in an 1871 report:

The school only instills in children a few notions of the catechism doctrine, it does not penetrate their intellects and hearts with the spirit of Christianity, it does not give them the solid principles, the elevated feelings and the strong customs indispensable to man. (BARROS, 1871, p. 7)

On the other hand, regalist clergy members, who equally left much to be desired, did not fail to remind the people about the importance of religion – and the teaching of it – to social peace. Canon Ferreira himself, in a sermon where he deplored the lack of observance of Sunday rest, ranted:

Let us also speak about the importance for us to sanctify the Day of the Lord with regard to society. When, on a Sunday, one sees work side by side with rest, when some can be found gathered in the house of God and others in their shops, this contrast grieves us! One wonders whether these public profaners of the day are Christians or belong to another sect which consecrates another day of the week to the Lord? Oh! They are Christians and do not venerate God on another day! What a disgrace! How easy it is to predict that this laxness and confidence shall put an end to every restraint of religion, moral, and even civilization!... Yes, doubt not, my lords and my ladies. No society is possible without moral, no moral without religion, and no religion without an exterior cult to support it. Public cult is the column of religion; shake, destroy the columns of this temple, and it is all smashed and its magnificent ornaments reduced to dust! But it is not only moral which is compromised, but also civilization. If you love your Motherland, greats of the land! Family men! Wise men of the world! If you love your Motherland, if you want to contribute on your part to civilize it, you should concur as much as you can for the respect, conservation and maintenance of the great and salutary institutions of the country! And what is worthier of a great nation, what more favorable to the general good, than acknowledging the True God and honoring Him publicly by means of praise and thanks? Set the example by sanctifying the day of the Lord, and you shall quickly see how your countrymen shall gather as though in a family, and become like brothers, pleading to God for each other under the eye of the same Providence. In this frequent contact [...] they shall gradually humanize themselves with each other, their character, their spirit, their customs shall acquire a tincture of urbaneness, kindness and sweetness, and from their souls these brutal feelings of hatred and vengeance shall be put out. But if, on the contrary, you despise and fail to obey this holy precept, but rather command your children and family into servile work, what are we to expect of these degraded beings who are at the same level as brutes that ruminate, as plants that vegetate? (FERREIRA, 1852, p. 66-67, italics by the author)

In speaking from the pulpit to the people attending the mass, the canon also spoke to the family men who were there and even appeared in his sermon. Concerned about the nonobservance of the third commandment of God and the first of the Church (one of the contents of religious education!), he saw in it the symptom that more serious things could take place, amidst a people who failed to grow aware of the sacred duty to abstain from work and to attend the Sunday public cult, whose religion-mediated contact should sweeten their customs. From this fault, immorality, unruliness, disaffection for the Motherland, and division between the members of the social body were to ensue. Indirectly, he was pointing his finger at the ones he considered responsible for preventing it: the greats of the land, wise men of the world, and family men.

It is worth noting that, for all his sacred rage, he did not go into the causes of the situation. These causes might well be in people’s ignorance of the precepts of the Church, which, as the Constituições had said, were to be taught since childhood by parents, teachers and priests! But in a context where the last two did not do their part, indirectly, it was on parents that expectations to fulfill this duty fell. Unconcerned about the ones who dodged their duties, it was the disastrous result of the lack of knowledge and practice of religious precepts that he wished to underscore. Due to priests’ and teachers’ omission, it was up to families to provide an education which, all seemed to agree, was a cornerstone of the society of the time. Consequently, a role that was supposed to be shared by various actors became almost exclusively a role of the family. This displacement of functions made it the primary sphere of religious education, an education whose doctrine, transmitted by parents, was to contribute to build the Motherland through social cohesion and, indirectly, to affirm the imperial State. Therefore, it was this education that president Ferraz de Abreu advocated in 1868, aligned, in this respect, with the type of educative discourse produced by regalism in the diocese which Paraná was part of.

The Liberals and the Educative Role of the Family

In the empire, liberalism had various acceptions. Here, we focus on the point that is common to these liberalisms: a belief in the power of law to defend and delimit freedoms (BOSI, 1996) through the assimilation of duties and rights. A liberalism covered with a patriarchal ideology (MALERBA, 1994), which also aimed to legitimize authoritarian, unequal power relations, and hence the authority of the imperial State itself, without depending, to that end, on religious doctrine.⁸ It therefore had the same goals as the regalist education, yet following another path. In Paraná, the periodical press was the great voice of liberal-oriented educative representations. Let us see a few positions.

A Província do Paraná [The Province of Paraná], a liberal newspaper, manifested itself in a 1879 issue where it revealed the expectations befalling families. It started by reaffirming the institution’s privileged position: “The Temple of the Family is the home. A nest of peace and quiet affections; there, the fundamental principles of society develop slowly and solidly” (A PROVÍNCIA DO PARANÁ, 09/23/1879). The principles mentioned were presented in a literary form, which does not impede its identification:

There, the daughter learns to be a good wife, the wife to be a mother, and the boy, to turn his infantile impressions into a man’s beliefs. A fragile chrysalis, the human being acquires, in the seclusion of its home, bright moth wings to cross the flowery orchards of the world.

At the home, the creature is born and dies. There, the first and the last light are seen. There, one learns to feel and pray, in the arms of a loving mother, and to become an honorable citizen in face of the example and kind reprehensions of a venerable father. (A PROVÍNCIA DO PARANÁ, 09/23/1879)

One of the foundations of the society that the family was to be the builder of was a hierarchy of individual roles to be internalized. The family was responsible for being the formation environment of both man and woman. The latter should learn, as a daughter, “to be a good wife”; as a wife, “to be a mother”. The boy, “to turn his infantile impressions into a man’s beliefs” (A PROVÍNCIA DO PARANÁ, 09/23/1879). That family was also the environment for the internalization of cardinal values: religious belief, which the mother was to transmit (although as an element among others, rather than the central one, as regalists advocated), and the proper attitude for the honorable citizen, learned “in face of the example and kind reprehensions of a venerable father” (A PROVÍNCIA DO PARANÁ, 09/23/1879). The family was conferred the educative role of internalization of social roles and transmission of values which were in the bedrock of social life in the empire.

A similar route was taken by Dezenove de Dezembro [December Nineteenth], a liberal periodical, in its January 2, 1884 issue:

To educate one’s children is to build one’s family on solid education, to organize the society, and to give firm and fruitful bases to the national grandeur and prosperity. Heavy and rude is the task of educating one’s children. It is not enough to hand them over to a school of greater or lesser renown, or to entrust them to a teacher of higher or lower reputation. More is required, one must raise and strengthen one’s children’s character through example, through strict observance of the practice of what is just and honest, and of moral, as one’s children’s heart is the mirror of moral [...] where the tiniest acts of parents and the smallest insignificances occurring in the home are reflected, and the good or bad images reflected on that mirror, in such a way do they grow stereotyped, that never again do they vanish, thus lasting for a lifetime. (DEZENOVE, 01/02/1884)

Here, the author praises the non-school education provided by the family, to the point of relativizing schooling, when he says that “it is not enough to hand them [children] over to a school of greater or lesser renown” (DEZENOVE, 01/02/1884). School instruction certainly was not superfluous, as the newspaper had vividly promoted it in an issue not long before. However, in the issue we examine, it was viewed as complementary to the other, more fundamental one, which, given to children by their parents, allowed “to organize the society, […] to give firm and fruitful bases to the national grandeur and prosperity” (DEZENOVE, 01/02/1884).

This is an education based on example. Not the example that comes from experiencing religious practices and norms, but norms of a liberal society founded on “observance of the practice of what is just and honest, and of moral” (DEZENOVE, 02/01/1884). Just, honest and moral which, in liberal ideology, were nearly a synonym of the correct use of certain rights and the fulfilment of certain duties consecrated in a social contract: the law. An observance to be primarily experienced in the intimacy of the home, since one’s children’s heart is the moral mirror “where the tiniest acts of parents and the smallest insignificances occurring in the home are reflected” (DEZENOVE, 01/02/1884), and, given the belief in children’s educability, would be carried on for the rest of their lives. Another educative role of the family, by means of example and in a small scale, was to teach observance of social norms (rights and duties) which, when expanded, would shape the society they were part of, since “never again do they vanish, thus lasting for a lifetime” (DEZENOVE, 02/01/1884).

In 1887, in the Gazeta Paranaense [The Paraná Gazette], a conservative newspaper, Lindolpho Pombo also communicated to readers his liberal ideas about the education of children by their families. He wrote:

Children’s first school is the domestic home. There, they can learn, without a book, many good and bad things. Bad habits, children learn them at their own home. Parents (with rare exceptions) ignore the weight of the huge responsibility they have on their shoulders. Unconsciously, for a misguided love, parents teach their children to be bad for themselves. Today, they teach them, at play, what tomorrow the poor children will have to unlearn in tears [...] If parents unconsciously indulge certain fancies of their children at home, tolerating in them, as it looks beautiful in such young children, certain customs, certain habits worthy rather of reproach than praise, there is more to lose than to gain in that. [...] Parents are their children’s mirror: whatever the former do is reflected in the spirit of the latter: children are great imitators of their parents. (GAZETA, 19/03/1887)

Pombo viewed the domestic home as “children’s first school”. When we recall the low attendance in schools in Paraná, we can see that the family became, to the great majority, the only educative environment they would attend. It is in this context that family education became an object deserving consideration and reflection on the part of the periodical press.

In the family, Pombo weighed, children “can learn, without a book, many good and bad things” (GAZETA, 03/19/1887). Curiously, the good ones did not interest him, as he decided to overstress the bad ones to make a critique of the family as an educative environment. In this respect, he was incisive: “parents (with rare exceptions) ignore the weight of the huge responsibility they have on their shoulders” (GAZETA, 03/19/1887), the responsibility to correct in their children the habits deemed inadequate. “If parents unconsciously indulge certain fancies of their children at home, tolerating in them, as it looks beautiful in such young children, certain customs, certain habits worthy rather of reproach than praise, there is more to lose than to gain in that” (GAZETA, 19/03/1887). The problem Lindolpho addressed revolved inevitably around one a liberal society would always have to live with, and about which conservatives like him would also agree: the problem of freedom and its limits. Awareness of its range was something to be taught and learned, and such an education was a duty of the family. Certainly, children’s advances per se caused little harm, but they were seen as a sign of greater evils, which family tolerance necessarily tended to expand, generating problems in social life. Hence his affirmation that parents “teach them, at play, what tomorrow the poor children will have to unlearn in tears” (GAZETA, 03/19/1887), in a possible metaphor of the sanctions that the carriers of such “bad habits” had to suffer to be corrected. Giving limits to children’s freedom by force of parental authority, with a view to the consequences this would have in social life, together with the other instances we have seen earlier, was another educative role conferred on the family.

If “bad habits, children learn them at their own home” (GAZETA, 03/19/1887), this is because they were probably not having good examples from their mothers and fathers. At least, that is what the author delicately insinuates when he says that “parents are their children’s mirror: whatever the former do is reflected in the spirit of the latter: children are great imitators of their parents” (GAZETA, 03/19/1887). What Lindolpho seems to point out is that, besides correcting children and regulating their freedom, parents should be to them a living example of the behaviors to be inculcated, as the former were bound to eventually imitate, like a mirror, what they saw their parents do. This was the last educative role reserved to families in the liberal order.

Ultramontanes and the Educative Role of the Family

From late 1881 to mid-1882, Paraná received the pastoral visit of D. Lino Deodato Rodrigues de Carvalho, bishop of São Paulo. Although local newspapers rejoiced with the people about the long-awaited presence of a prelate (no such visit had occurred in eighty years), their keynote was, in general, occasional reports on the places the episcopal entourage passed through, with a greater emphasis on the people’s reactions to the event than on D. Lino’s words, possibly because they realized the ultramontane, anti-liberal character they conveyed. One of the few speeches by the bishop to the faithful that can be found treated precisely women’s role in children’s education within the family, as O Paranaense reported, paraphrasing the sermon given at the Christmas celebrations, in December 1881:

His Excellency, taking as the theme of his preaching the necessity of religious education to children, conducted it with much precision and in terms understandable to the less educated classes of society. Speaking as though inspired, he demonstrated the responsibility of a woman, a housewife, before God, for her children’s education; he showed the advantages of this education and the evils that its lack can bring on man. His Excellency, a solid and sacred preacher of easy and suggestive words, moved many housewives who heard him to tears. (O PARANAENSE, 12/29/1881)

If, in this excerpt, the newspaper records the clergy speaking about the ultramontane education of children in families, with an emphasis on the mother’s role, the truth is that his predecessor, D. Antonio Joaquim de Melo, had long been giving attention to this theme. His positions became known to the people of Paraná by means of pastoral letters, a catechism that D. Antonio wrote in 1860 and D. Lino re-edited in 1874, and the work of new priests formed at the seminar in São Paulo according with ultramontane ideas. Let us look into the positions of these bishops, based on the Catecismo da diocese [Catechism of the Diocese], intended for use within families, and used in the catechesis ministered by ultramontane priests in Paraná, from the 1880’s.

To the bishops of São Paulo, it was through good example that parents would educate “their children in a Christian manner” (MELO, 1860, p. 193). However, this good example meant to experience ultramontane spirituality and obedience to the Pope and the Bishops, with a view to the autonomy of the Church, to weaken regalism, and to ensure the Church a position of social power not below but beside the State. In this way, they aspired to establish an actually Catholic society and a State respectful of the voice and desires of Rome, represented by clergy and reformist bishops.

D. Antonio very skillfully proposed in the Catecismo a model of life to be followed by the faithful every day, every month, and every year. It was by experiencing these rules that the good example was to emerge and religious education be given to children by their parents.

A Christian should make God the center of his day (MELO, 1860).⁹ To Him should his mind turn to as he woke up (“As I wake up, I shall offer my spirit and my heart to God through an act of adoration and love”), as he meditated and attended the mass (“when that is not possible, I shall unite at least my intention to that of the priest and assistants when I hear the bell to celebrate it”), at work, by “offering it to God”, during meals (“I shall never omit the small ordinary prayer before and after a meal”), at spiritual readings, rosaries, and the examen of consciousness (“if I wretchedly have some grave sin, I shall humbly ask God for forgiveness”), when laying to sleep (“occupied with some good thought”), and even in insomnia (“if I wake up during the night, I shall raise my thoughts to God through some short and fervorous jaculatory prayer”).

For the most part, this is an intimate spirituality characteristic of Tridentine Catholicism, where personal piety is expressed, particularly, in individual prayer (LEBRUN, 2009). However, this intimate dispositions would bring about, in some cases, gestures and attitudes that were visible to other people. Inviting one to make the morning prayer by oneself or in company of somebody else, to attend the mass daily when it was possible, to pray before and after a meal with the family, etc., are external attitudes which – save for dishonesty or a bad intention of the faithful – would be external expressions of internal attitudes with a spiritual inspiration. Being carried out by fathers and mothers in front of their children, they became proposed examples to be imitated. In this case, the good example of a daily relationship with God.

There were examples that parents should give their children during the week, over the month and over the year. With regard to the week, a few days received particular marks, all linked, whether directly or indirectly, to Tridentine spirituality.

On Sundays, for example, “trips, forbidden games, nightly meetings, balls, theater and other dangerous forms of amusement” (MELO, 1860) must be avoided as they posed a risk to the faithful’s soul and occupied with earthly things the day that should be devoted to the Lord. What should be the center of the day was “to watch with devotion the parochial mass, attentively hearing the practice, if there be any” (MELO, 1860). Here, as we have seen with regalists, attendance to Sunday mass was commanded by the ten commandments of God and the Church. Therefore, as they conformed to this rule issued by the bishop of São Paulo, the faithful were conforming to a Church commandment, and the parents who fulfilled it were giving their children the good example of observance of the Sunday precept. However, unlike regalists, ultramontanes saw this commandment not as a source of moralization of society, but rather a source of strengthening of the faithful’s spiritual life.

With regard to the month, there were two obligations: frequent confession and communion. Sacramental confession – through which the faithful’s conduct was surveilled and the Church exercised a closer control over society – was nearly in disuse in the time of D. Antonio (WERNET, 1987). Its reestablishment aimed for the faithful to take to heart the need to seek and receive that sacrament, as it was directly linked to the other one, i.e., the communion. Frequent communion, encouraged since the Council of Trent (LEBRUN, 2009), could not be treated otherwise by ultramontanes, who planned to apply the conciliar guidelines in Brazil. However, to receive the communion, and with it the graces of the salutary sacrament, one had to attend the mass and listen through to it, hearing the ultramontane religious preaching, which, thus, would also form the faithful’s spirituality and conform it to the new guidelines, like D. Lino did in his visit to Paraná in 1881. Parents who fulfilled both obligations were thereby giving their children the good example of assiduity in the sacraments of confession and communion, and of docility to their pastors’ guidance.

Finally, in the annual calendar, “around Easter time or in another favorable time”, the believer should carry out a major review of his life and, again, resort to the sacrament of confession. Here, this gained a scatological character, as “I shall make this confession as though disposing myself to appear closely before God, and if it be possible, I shall go on retreat for two or three days to prepare myself” (MELO, 1860). Once a year, as he reviewed his life, the faithful was to look into many of his actions, but also into this whole program proposed in the Catecismo, in an exercise that should bring him to think about his acts and reflect even more about the obligations he was subject to as a Christian.

Again, it is the intimate dimension of Tridentine piety which we encounter here, yet a piety which should manifest itself from within the faithful in a concrete gesture of repentance and contrition, accompanied by the good purpose of mending himself. If a sincere conversion occurred therein, and this penitent was a family men or a housewife seeking the sacrament of confession in these circumstances devised by the bishop of São Paulo on occasion of Easter, he or she would be giving the good example of fulfilling the second commandment of the Church, the annual confession on the Lord’s Easter, as also established in the Catecismo da diocese: “Q: What does the Church command us to do under the Second Commandment: to confess at least once a year? A: It commands for every faithful to confess at least once a year.” (MELO, 1860, p. 140).

However, if the faithful did it on one of the other favorable occasions referred to in the Catecismo, such as Jubilees, which Popes often promulgated during the 19^th century – almost always intended as reparations to the person of the Holy Father for offenses and persecutions he felt a victim of in a Europe convulsed by revolutions, liberalism and modernity –, the faithful father and mother would be giving their children the good example of faithfulness to, and love for the Pope and the Church, remembering that, above temporal authorities, they owed such attitudes to the head of Christianity, represented in their country by the Catholic hierarchy. More than an occasion for penitence, prayer and conversion, this was also the time to give children the much-expected good examples that formed the education attributed to the family, and through which they were to shape a Christian society obedient to Rome.

It was from this obedience taught through example that the Church’s new position of power was expected to emerge. At another point in the Catecismo, in interpreting the fourth commandment – which prescribed obedience to parents and civil and religious authorities –, D. Antonio announced the power shift that ultramontanes expected to operate: “Q.: Should children obey their parents [and authorities] when they tell them to do something evil or forbid them to observe divine precepts? A.: No, because one must obey God first, then men” (MELO, 1860, p. 127). In a society that made obedience to authority one of its foundations, it became clear how the ultramontane education could cause serious shocks, first on the family (if parents failed to conform their will to that of the Church), and then on the State, which, in the liberal logic, made the acceptance of the father’s authority by the family one of its underlying elements. And even more: it imposed abandoning upfront the regalist use of the Catholic doctrine that underpinned this very State to make way for a relationship of true collaboration between both institutions.

Final Considerations

The historical route we followed evidenced that, in the 19th century, the role of families in the education of children was the object of significant debates between State and Catholic Church agents, who produced about it the different representations analyzed. We certainly analyzed them in a specific region; yet therein reverberates a wider discussion, which might have reached the whole Empire of Brazil, obviously with various nuances. If the subject of education in the family has attracted little attention among historians, it enjoyed importance in educational debates in the period. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate this fact into historiography, as not only does it allow to understand another form of education, but it can also help re-dimension the position occupied by the other forms, such as school education.

Even though sometimes operating with similar elements, the way the Church and the State treated the family’s educative role resulted in singular representations. Such was the case of religious doctrine, which regalists emphasized as a foundation for social life cohesion, while ultramontanes, in contrast, viewed it as a configurative content for the faithful’s spiritual life and his connection with the Church. Or, also, the question of the example that parents should give, which, according with liberals, meant experiencing the rights, duties and values of the liberal-patriarchal order to be imitated by children, while to ultramontanes it pointed to the good example of experiencing Catholic Tridentine doctrine and practices, which, once experienced by parents, would then be assimilated and given as a good example to children.

If the present work appears to indicate that children’s education by their families was a highly valued theme in the 19th century, much more than historiographic research trends have allowed noting, a better demarcation of the subject’s position in the social arena of the period still depends on further investment to analyze different regions during the same period. After all, in a continental country like Brazil, what other variations the liberal, regalist and ultramontane discourses could have assumed with regard to the family’s educative role? What other strategies, besides the printed material and press analyzed here, could they have used? What express or implicit tensions could have emerged from the growing understanding of the antagonism between those positions, particularly after the Religious Question? These are questions whose answers depend on collective work and historians’ interest in expanding the habitual loci of investigation of education in the past beyond the school environment, particularly in periods where this educative sphere enjoyed a quite different position than it does in the present. However, in the case investigated here, i.e., that of the Province of Paraná, the importance conferred on children’s education by their families is clear: regalists, liberals and ultramontanes chose this education as a way to affirm their position of power in the social arena and to shape society according with what they aspired to in their world representations.

Referências

• ABREU, Carlos A. F. Relatório presidencial. Curitiba: Typ. Lopes, 1869.
• ANJOS, Juarez J. T. Pais e filhos na Província do Paraná: uma história da educação da criança pela família. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) – Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, 2015.
• A PROVÍNCIA DO PARANÁ. Curitiba, 23 set. 1879.
• AZZI, Riolando. O episcopado do Brasil frente ao catolicismo popular. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1977.
• BARROS, Bento F. de. Relatório Instrução Pública. Curitiba: Typ. Lopes, 1871.
• BASTOS, Maria H. C. A pesquisa em história da educação em revista. In: LOMBARDI, José Claudinei et al. (Org.). Educação em debate: perspectivas, abordagens, historiografia. Campinas: Autores Associados, 2006. p. 99-128.
• BOSI, Alfredo. Dialética da colonização. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras, 1996.
• BURKE, Peter. História e teoria social. São Paulo: Edunesp, 2002.
• CARVALHO, José Murilo de. A construção da ordem: teatro das sombras. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2003.
• CHARTIER, Roger. A história cultural: entre práticas e representações. Lisboa: Difel, 2002.
• CHARTIER, Roger. “Escutar os mortos com os olhos”. Estudos Avançados, Rio de Janeiro, v. 24, n. 69, p. 7-30, 2010.
• CONSTITUIÇÕES primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia. São Paulo: Typ. Dois de Dezembro, 1853.
• DEZENOVE DE DEZEMBRO. Curitiba, 02 jan. 1884.
• DUPÂQUIER, Jacques. A contribuição da demografia à história. História: Questões e Debates, Curitiba, n. 2, p.109-124, 1981.
• FERREIRA, Ildefonso Xavier. Doze sermões escolhidos. São Paulo: Typ. Antunes, 1852.
• FERREIRA, Ildefonso Xavier. Apêndice. In:CONSTITUIÇÕES primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia. São Paulo: Typ. Dois de Dezembro, 1853.
• GAZETA PARANAENSE. Curitiba, 19 mar. 1887.
• GONDRA, José G.; SCHUELER, Alessandra F. M. de. Educação, poder e sociedade no Império Brasileiro. São Paulo: Cortez, 2008.
• LEBRUN, François. As reformas: devoções comunitárias e piedade pessoal. In: CHARTIER, Roger (Org.). História da vida privada 3. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras, 2009. p. 76-112.
• LOPES, Eliane M.; GALVÃO, Ana Maria. Território plural: a pesquisa em história da educação. São Paulo: Ática, 2010.
• LUSTOSA, Oscar. A presença da Igreja no Brasil: história e problemas. São Paulo: Giro, 1977.
• MALERBA, Jurandir. Os brancos da lei. Maringá: Eduem, 1994.
• MANOEL, Ivan. O pêndulo da história: tempo e eternidade no pensamento católico (1800-1960). Maringá: Eduem, 2004.
• MELO, Dom Antonio J. de. Catecismo da diocese. São Paulo: Typ. Imparcial, 1860.
• MONARCHA, Carlos. História da educação (brasileira): formação do campo, tendências e vertentes investigativas. História da Educação, Pelotas, n. 21, p. 51-78, jan./abr. 2007.
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• WARDE, Mirian J. Questões teóricas e de método: a história da educação nos marcos de uma história das disciplinas. In: SAVIANI, Dermeval et al. (Org.). História e história da educação: o debate teórico-metodológico atual. Campinas: Autores Associados, 2006. p. 88-99.
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• 1
  - By education, I do not mean school education, which aims at transmitting habits, behaviors and conducts to children during childhood, with a view to the adults they will become. Therefore, I do not refer to the home-preschooling approached by Vasconcelos (2005).
• 2
  - Regalism was the political doctrine according to which the sovereign had the right to intervene in the life of the Catholic Church in his country, which meant the submission of this institution to the State. In Portugal, this doctrine was consolidated during the rule of D. José (1750-1777), aided by his minister, the Marquis of Pombal. Due to Portuguese colonization heritage, after Brazil’s independence, the relationship between Church and State during the whole imperial period – a relationship confirmed as early as in the 1824 Constitution – was one of a regalist Catholicism, constantly marked by the temporal power’s interference with the spiritual power.
• 3
  - The main characteristics of ultramontane Catholicism are the centrality attributed to Rome and the figure of the Pope, reinforcement of episcopal autonomy in religious matters, and the resumption of the Council of Trent’s fundamental decisions (MANOEL, 2004). In Brazil, ultramontane Catholicism also implied efforts for clergy formation in seminars controlled by bishops, which linked priests to more spiritual matters while separating them from social and political issues (LUSTOSA, 1977), as well as fighting practices of the traditional Portuguese-Brazilian Catholicism by means of a centralization of religious activities in the hands of clergy and the creation of new practices and devotions (AZZI, 1977).
• 4
  - Education in the slave family, however, will not be approached here.
• 5
  - I was able to verify that this printed material actually circulated in the region, by mapping this circulation at newspapers and other sources, which are not explored here.
• 6
  - Although it was politically independent, in religious terms, Paraná continued to be part of the Diocese of São Paulo until 1892, being subordinate to its head bishops.
• 7
  - The Constituições were written in 1707 by D. Monteiro da Vide, with a reformative, Tridentine intent. Over the 18th and 19th centuries, they were progressively appropriated and adapted by regalists, in interpretations like the one in the edition we take here as a source.
• 8
  - Although not discarding it completely, but certainly placing an emphasis on liberal-patriarchal values.
• 9
  - The passages between quotation marks are excerpts from MELO (1860) when no other source is indicated.

• I
  - This study was funded by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Reestruturação e Expansão das Universidades Federais (Capes-Reuni). I would like to thank the reviewers for the suggestions and contributions which brought this article to its final form. Any remaining inaccuracies are my sole responsibility.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jan-Mar 2017

History

• Received
  09 Sept 2015
• Accepted
  17 Dec 2015