INTELLECTUAL NETWORKS IN EDUCATIONAL REFORM OF GUATEMALA AT THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

During the last three Guatemalan governments of the nineteenth century (18731898), groups of liberal intellectuals influenced the educational reform of primary, normal schools, and middle and high schools. Freemasonry of Central American and Caribbean intellectuals was introduced into the thinking of educators interested in the formation of male and female teachers in national public primary schools, middle schools, superior and normal schools. The positivist vision of progress and civilization in the style of modern societies in Europe and America brought intellectuals from this area to produce school books and teaching methods according to their needs. The work is of historiographic, cultural and intellectual history, supported by prosopography to analyze the social context and the intellectual networks of three educators: Santos Toruño, José María Izaguirre and Rafaela del Águila, whose links with different agents gave impetus to the national and Central American unity.