FROM THE COUNCIL OF THE PROVINCE TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY: the men and the ideas surrounding Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos (1795-1850)

Abstract

Abstract: This article presents the initial results of our research that investigates the influence of the thinking of the Deputies of Minas Gerais on the construction of the imperial state, taking as reference the ideas, actions and legislation produced concerning Education in the Province of Minas Gerais. Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos (1795-1850), its most influential deputy, is the parliamentarian who turns the Council and the Province into a laboratory for the insertion of his ideas at the national level, seeking to solve the challenges posed by Liberalism in the early nineteenth century. Using as a source the Atas do Conselho and the main periodicals of the time, supported by the theoretical reference of Cultural History and the Discourse Analysis methodology, we confront the sources in an attempt to abstract the traits of modernization applied to education and linked to Liberalism in the Brazilian Empire, whose objective was to educate, civilize and modernize the country.

Keywords: Sociability. Intellectuals. Education.