O impresso escolar e o apetite de instrução: os pobres no banco dos réus (Ceará, 1865-1889)

Abstract

This thesis investigates the universe of school publications in the Public Instruction of Ceará (1865-1889), highlighting the material conditions of primary education, especially the lack of books in this part of instruction. The research is organized under three dimensions. Firstly, it presents the conditions that led to the deprivation of school textbooks in primary classes, focusing on irregular and inconsistent supply, approval and adoption processes, as well as the illegal donations and sales of this material by Public Instruction officials. Then, it seeks to discuss how the lack of books in primary education was not a widespread phenomenon and, on the contrary, there was a vigorous trade of books and periodicals in Fortaleza, with booksellers being attentive to novelties circulating in the transatlantic print movement. Thus, this study is also directed towards bookstores, stationery shops, binding workshops, printing presses, and variety stores, spaces that at the time commercialized books destined for education. Finally, it analyzes the resistance actions of the lower classes (petitions, improvisations, solidarity, and mutual aid) in demanding school manuals and primary instruction, practices that shaped a set of initiatives that clashed with the actions carried out by the political-administrative elites of the period. This conflict was particularly evident due to the stigma associated with and distinguished the poor population, affirming that such a social segment lacked taste and even less appetite for instruction.