Educational Projects And Achievements Of The Rseapc

EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE RSEAPC In order to avoid the folly, carelessness and drowsiness that had settled in the Islands in different spheres of knowledge, the Societies in general, and the Canary Islands in particular, dedicated themselves even before their final approval to take the appropriate measures. In this way, in an attempt to respond to the most pressing problems facing the estate, especially in the fields of agriculture, industry and the economy, education became a priority. The testimonies of the majority of the enlightened Canarians show the existing shortcomings: useful education, the promotion of the arts, the training of subjects, the search for more effective methodologies, etc., must have been some of the links that marked the turning point with the past, excessively obscure and arbitrary, although – it is true – they never tried to pierce it. The first reference we have to the involvement of the Gran Canaria Economic Society in the island's educational problems is contained in its own founding statutes, drawn up on 25 February 1777, at the request and request of Juan Bautista Servera, Bishop of the Canary Islands.11 Specifically, in titles 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, the heading of which read as follows: "That is the printed reports of the Society: of the Bookshop, of the elections; awards; and the Patriotic Schools", he realized the preponderance of instructional activities. But it is also true that a very realistic apostille was made in the following line, which hinted at the existing difficulties, especially of a financial nature, in dealing with this facet related to the formation of the less favored social sectors: Everything contained under these titles is admitted by the Society by its own constitution, in order to provide for it in all its points. provided that the population of the country is less, and the funds and resources of the Society are sufficient, which it would seek with all solicitude. With these indications, the "patriotic" work of the Society began, following the idea of favoring industry and trades originally contained in the "Discourse on the Promotion of Popular Industry" of 1774 and in the "Discourse on the Popular Education of Artisans and its Promotion" of 1775, both by the multifaceted Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes. The letter of the Statutes included the need to create primary schools where, in addition to promoting the education and instruction of young people, knowledge of machinery, drawing, spinning, etc., would be imparted. It was the embodiment on paper and in the case of Gran Canaria of the wish expressed by the Prosecutor of the Council of Castile for the whole kingdom. In the absence of the original minutes of the Society, which seem to have disappeared since the nineteenth century as a result of the fire that destroyed the Town Hall in 1842, where the Economic Society had its archives, we are going to follow in the footsteps of Viera and Clavijo to analyse, explain and evaluate the activities carried out with regard to the instructive aspects12 knowing that, Like other economic societies, the objective of the schools created in the city of Las Palmas responded to a triple will, in some cases more formal than real: moral and religious formation, the achievement of individual and collective happiness and well-being, and technical and economic training. Although we know that there was a constant concern to promote the education of the noble children of the Island, as happened with other Societies, the truth is that Viera y Clavijo does not make any type of reference to it. It does, however, focus on the attempts to promote the education of those poor and marginalized children who belonged to the broad spectrum of the population without family and social protection, commonly referred to as orphans or foundlings. As an expression of the regalist policy sponsored by the monarch Charles III, a Royal Decree of the Supreme Council of Castile was received in the premises of the Economic Society in which this patriotic body was required to take charge of the ministry of Parents of Orphans, until then extremely neglected in the hands of the City Council. As a quick consequence of this letter, two fathers of orphans were appointed: one for the neighborhood of Vegueta and the towns of Telde, Agüimes, Tirajana and La Vega; and another for the neighbourhood of Triana and places in San Lorenzo, Arucas, Firgas, Teror, Moya, Guía, Gáldar, Agaete, la Aldea, Artenara and Tejeda. The first area was in charge of José de Matos and the second was in charge of Cipriano Avilés. As Viera y Clavijo attests, "the main aims of these commissioners should be to take care of the orphans, helpless and needy of the city and the places, providing them with some kind of accommodation, help or teaching, participating in the Society whatever they had practiced and what they needed from it in the performance of this pious destiny".14 Our enlightened man correctly analyzes the situation but does not go into the substance of the matter: As we will point out later, it was not a pious activity that the parents of orphans had to perform, but a practice of social order. The children, mistaken for lazy and thugs, annoyed and disturbed passers-by, impeding the decorum and decency proper to the "large" population centers. At the beginning of the 1980s, it was highly rated that girls should enter the service of various decent houses and that men should work on fishing boats. But it was also stated that, in spite of everything, there were still many orphans "wandering the streets in notorious danger".15 As it appeared in the entry book presented by Mr. Avilés dated March 15, 1784, 45 orphans had already been placed in honest houses and in the workshops of masters of arts and crafts. The interest in integrating these young people was so great that even the bishop of the diocese and member of merit of the Royal Society, Antonio de la Plaza, proposed a year later to award a prize of 25 doubloons to the best memoir in which he explained "the easiest way to give useful destiny and accommodation to so many boys of both sexes who are seen wandering idly in the streets". As a result of all this, the number of parents of orphans was increased from the two mentioned to eighteen (3 for each of the 6 zones into which the city of Las Palmas was divided). It was necessary to register every foundling or young foundling, distinguishing age, sex, occupation, means of subsistence, "also to carry out what was prescribed in the instruction communicated to them; to watch over the schools of first letters and friends in order to banish abuses, to increase them, to supply them with primers, catechisms, paper, pens, etc." The same indications were followed by the corregidor, who, at the request of the Society, published a proclamation dated April 1, 1786, by which all parents, guardians and curators were obliged to send their children and wards to the schools established for that purpose, to the workshops of artisans, service of houses, fisheries or other places of assistance within 15 days, "otherwise they would be at the disposal of the parents of orphans, who would assign them even if the aforementioned parents and other guardians repugnant to it".16 Among the initiatives adopted, it should be noted the creation of two patriotic schools of free education dedicated to "the work proper to the sex", one in Triana and the other in Vegueta. The first had 25 girls and the second had 55. This same activity was carried out in the neighborhood of San José, where about 30 boys and 54 girls attended. There they learned to read and do some kind of sewing. But in spite of these proposals, at the end of the 1980s a certain disorganization began to be perceived in the professional, educational and integrative activities proposed by the Royal Economic Society, to the point that the schools were left "almost entirely empty and abandoned, the workshops of the trades without apprentices, the houses without servants and the streets full of poor and idle boys. all because the parents of orphans cannot use the constraint of prison when they resist education".17 A requirement that, however, was not accepted by the new corregidor and that dispelled all kinds of doubts about the imposing and punitive nature of the educational proposals, as little altruistic as excessively subject to strong control mechanisms by the dominant social groups. Whether for this reason or for others, the truth is that not even the prizes intended to buy clothes and shoes to encourage the competition would have the desired effects. With great limitations of attendance and with enormous precariousness in their economic endowments, the schools continued in the two neighborhoods of the city where the teachers were paid two pesos a month to teach free of charge to the children who, in addition to being poor and orphans, had to obey a will that was clearly alien to their usual behavior. The patriotic schools would become one more piece of the prolific Enlightenment politics – plagued by edicts, rules and ordinances – destined not so much to form happy individuals for society, as to clean the streets of vagrants, beggars, prostitutes, pimps and thieves.