Ciências naturais no ensino profissional do Pará: : Instituto de Educando Artífices e Instituto Lauro Sodré (1870/1901)

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to analyse the process of insertion of the Natural Sciences in the curriculum of the first Institute of Vocational Training of Pará (Belém, Pará state, Brazil), during both periods: from 1870 to 1897 – when it worked as Institute of Educating Artificers – and from 1897 to 1901 – when it functioned as Lauro Sodré Institute. Our results showed that the Natural Sciences were part of the Institute of Educating Artificers with subjects as “Brief Rudiments of Physiscs and chemistry” during the primary school from 1870 to 1883, and also in the Industrial Course of the Lauro Sodré Institute with the subjects Physics, Chemistry, History of the Three Kingdoms, Notions of Zoology and Botany from 1899 to 1901. It is noteworthy that modern scientific rationality began to be expanded in the Amazon by the sea with the steamships arriving from Europe. Then, the city of Belem began to take off as an urban center around the 70,s, under the particular name of Amazon Belle Èpoque. From the establishment of the Republic in Brazil, the urbanization process accelerated and Belém modernized. It is evidenced that the modernization of the city of Belém during the Belle Èpoque ofefered conditions for the instruction of the Natural Sciences in the curriculum of the Institute of educating Artificers and Lauro sodré Institute, reflecting the Amazonian context of valorization of the sciences as indispensable knowledge for modernization prmoting the formation of a type of individual whose discourses investigated pointed as being a workman. Our study suggested that since childhood, the student was introduced in this discursive order to receive instruction for a “useful” carrer to the state – generating profit the province – and for the constitution of modern civilized society, being in the order of discourse a subject who dominated the scientific knowledge of the modern world, wisdom that came to the Amazon as a model to be followed.