The prototypical image of Spain at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th is that of a failed nation, backward in many aspects. However, the history of the Spanish XIX goes beyond this stereotype. It was also the right context for first-rate intellectual development. Also in educational matters, where initiatives such as La Escuela Moderna and the Institución Libre de Enseñanza were the spearhead of the pedagogy of their time. We talk, in this article, about Francisco Ferrer Guardia and the pedagogical model of the Modern School. We will also discuss how it was applied in the midst of the Civil War, during the social revolution Spanish of 1936.
Political Context: The Restoration
The framework in which the Modern School of Ferrer Guardia was developed was that of the Restoration. After the Glorious Revolution of 1868 and the expulsion of Queen Elizabeth II, Spain experienced a period known as Democratic presidential term. During this period, which saw the monarchy of Amadeo de Saboya (1870-1873) and the constitution of the First Spanish Republic (1873-1874) the social and political upheaval was considerable.
The Restoration was the political system that put an end to the Democratic Sexenio and closed the Spanish 19th century. It was devised by one of the political oligarchs, the conservative Antonio Canovas del Castillo. This system was legally supported by the 1875 constitution, a conservative constitution. In this case, the type of suffrage was not collected within it, due to the disputes that this could cause between the factions of conservatives and liberals when it came to alternating in government. For this reason, among other reasons, it was not until 1890 when universal male suffrage was established by organic law (Carr, 1966, pp. 337-339).
Cánovas had been minister of Isabel II by the Liberal Union. In this context, he had come to the conclusion that the agitated Spanish politics of his time, full of pronouncements and revolutions, could only calm down if the two majority political options could reach power by other means. Evidently, these required other political mechanisms to develop (Layana, Clio).
The political system of the Restoration was based on turnismo, therefore. It was a bipartisan alternation system. You wanted power to oscillate between progressive liberals and conservative liberals without the need for military intervention. It was based on the arrangement of two major parties. In the first place, that of Cánovas himself, the Liberal-Conservative Party and an alternative, also liberal, of a more progressive nature: the Liberal-Fusionist Party. It was, this, chaired by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta. Both parties pretended to be a mixed bag of different groups and factions that, in any case, had to accept the Alfonsine monarchy. For this reason, they were called dynastic parties (Layana, Clio).
In any case, in these first moments of the Restoration, efforts were focused on stabilizing this system and making it strong. For this reason, options contrary to the Alfonsine monarchy such as the Carlism Y republicanism they were, during the first years of the Restoration, prohibited. And, with it, pushed underground, especially in the case of republicanism.
For this option to take shape, moreover, it was necessary to establish a representative system, which was not strictly democratic. However, what sustained the Restoration regime was a complex system of systematic manipulation of the vote. The Restoration was a parliamentary system, but it was based on cacique practices, the systematic alteration of the vote and the great pact between the two parties. In essence, the elections were always won by the party that called them, to ensure alternation (Layana, Clio).
As for religion, an element with considerable impact on the education of citizens, article 11 of the constitution of 1876 stated that the Spanish state was confessional Catholic. Catholicism was the official religion of the state, which must be kept and respected. This will have quite a strong impact on the educational system of the time, which has not shed its secular burden.
Social context
The social context we find ourselves in during this period is varied. There is clearly a geographical distinction in the standard of living of the dispossessed classes and also a quite appreciable difference between the capitalist classes of some regions or others. Due to the great growth of the Spanish population and the drop in the mortality rate (until then double that of the rest of Europe), the population of rural Spain grew exponentially.
These surplus population were forced to migrate to urban centers in search of employment. The industry was beginning to grow and the cities were developing with it (Barcelona, Bilbao). With this, a proletarian class also began to exist, salaried in that industry, which also required the proliferation of liberal professions. This, in turn, allowed a clear development of politicization in the city.
As for the predominantly agricultural southern Spain, wages, although unchanged and stable, were very low. The dispossessed classes had deplorable living conditions and the owning classes practiced strong chiefdom. Large landowners owned most of the farmland. Therefore, they had an excessive authority over their laborers. However, they also owned public activity. Especially if one takes into account that this social system was the basis of electoral and political control during the Restoration period (Carr, 1966, pp. 413-420).
This growth of the proletarian population in the big cities, combined with a large number of agricultural population that still persisted in most of the Spanish geography gave way to the configuration of a very peculiar labor movement in Spain.
The labor movement in Spain: the triumph of anarchism
In Spain the labor movement was translated in a rather peculiar way. In other latitudes the triumph of the socialist theories of Marx and Engels was undeniable. This could be related above all to the type of population that existed in other parts of Europe, more industrial. After the triumph of Marxism in the First International, against the ideas of the anarchist BakuninIn Spain, the result was completely the opposite.
Marx’s socialist ideas also took root among the Spanish dispossessed classes. However, it was the anarchists, of Bakunin, who had a higher level of reception in the Spanish people. These ideas gained strength through the introduction of the ideals of Bakunin’s Alliance of Socialist Democracy, and introduced by Giuseppe Fanelli. Anarchism affected not only the Catalan urban proletariat, for example, but also the Andalusian peasantry.
These ideas penetrated during the Sagasta government. Sagasta, who came to power in 1885, implemented a series of measures that, on the one hand, shored up a system that was already sufficiently established to be able to afford them, and, on the other, reformed it. At this point, the Restoration system could already allow itself to open its hand to an extension of the suffrage or to let anarchism associate itself. All this allowed the creation of the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region, predominantly anarchist in style, in 1881. The FTRE was heir to the Spanish Regional Federation of the AIT. The FTRE was dissolved in 1888 due to ideological and strategic differences between the Federal Committee, based in Barcelona, and the Andalusian movement.
Within the anarchist movement there were two distinct lines of action. Those who opted for direct action, for propaganda by deed and those who opted for the syndicalist path, taking full advantage of the loopholes of legality and opting for the extension of their anarchist ideals through education. At first, the wave of anarchist attacks caused a great commotion in public opinion. Although it was a minority, it served as a precedent to lay the foundations for the relationship with anarchism and terrorism. This increased and intensified certain episodes of repression. Indeed, it led to the subsequent execution of Francisco Ferrer Guardia (Carr,1966, pp. 421-434), who we will talk about later
The repression of the governments of the Restoration (which alternated between moments of greater openness and others of more closure) with respect to anarchist movements, added to an increasingly strong and growing anticlericalism among the dispossessed classes, made anarchism the leading edge spearhead of the labor movement in Spain. Already in the 20th century, the CNTfounded in 1911, and of an anarcho-syndicalist nature, was the largest labor organization in the country, reaching more than 1,000,000 members among its ranks.
In this context, the figure of Francisco Ferrer Guardia and his idea of the Modern School emerged. As we have seen, although there was a certain political stability, it was based on a system of systematic manipulation of the vote and repression of political options outside the dynastic parties. It is in this context that initiatives with a modernizing desire are born, such as this educational model. But before talking about it, we will review the educational panorama that existed in Spain at the time of the Restoration.
Education in the Spain of the Restoration
The liberal states, which at this point are still relatively young, will see education as a fundamental construction tool for their societies. Since the constitution of Cadiz, public instruction is seen as one of the ways to modernize the state and its citizens. Above all, it is essential as an instrument to move the population from the role of subjects to that of citizens. In short, it was considered the ideal instrument to build citizens according to the new state model that was being born. However, the Church still had enormous power. In the constitution of 1812, the learning of the catechism of the Catholic Church is added to the public instruction of children in first letters (art. 12).
After several legislative advances and setbacks with regard to public education, during the reign of Isabel II the first comprehensive educational law was born in Spain. It is known as the Moyano Law, taking the name of the moderate minister who launched it. This general education law lasted over time for 113 years. Despite having undergone different changes and reinterpretations, it is the longest-running education law in the history of Spain (Sevilla, 2007, pp. 110-123).
This law tried, in some way, to integrate certain elements of the previous educational laws. The Moyano law consolidated the liberal educational system in its moderate version, especially at the legal level. It remained in use for a long period,…