Prescrições sobre higiene na cidade e na escola normal: São João del-Rei, final do século XIX e início do XX

Abstract

This research examines the relations between hygiene and education. Therefore, investigates the movement of hygiene requirements in São João del Rei (MG) during the period between 1890 and 1906, seeking to understand how these practices were appropriated and represented by the local elite educational vies. The time frame with regard to the beginnings of the Republic, when the hygiene issues gained prominence in the Sao-Joanesses newspapers, and became part of the syllabus teaching in Normal Schools in the city. The study ends before the João Pinheiro Reform (1906). This introduced significant changes to education in Minas Gerais, which also affected São João del-Rei, coinciding with the closure of the Normal Schools at that time. For this analysis, two perspectives were established: the teaching of hygiene in and out of the Normal School, and these are not separate realities, but rather one which influences the other, a two-way street, as the listed sources for the research advocate. To analyze the extent of teaching outside the school-room environment, the research was mainly conducted through means of city newspapers, legislation, travelers reports and chroniclers of this period, which investigated how public hygiene was debated in the media, identifying ways of representing this theme by the local cultural elite and how this was intended to educate the population according to hygiene precepts. As for the Normal School of São João del-Rei, Hygiene education was researched primarily based on documents produced by teachers and students of this institution, such as education programs, points for examinations, tests and correspondence, which makes it possible to identify these records, the presence of such material in four subjects: Education, Moral and Civic Education, Elementary education legislation Hygiene, Physical and Natural Sciences; Gymnastics and Military Developments; Practical lesson for females. The knowledge in regard to hygiene found in the documents studied has shown a concern on behalf of the school with extrapolate teaching. Through the analysis of these sources, we sought to understand how a culture of hygiene was constituted as a learning and educational practice within and outside the Normal School.