The Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE, English: ''Free Teaching Institution'') was a pedagogical experience developed in Spain for more than half a century (1876–1939). It was inspired by the
Krausist philosophy introduced at the
Central University of Madrid by
Julián Sanz del Río, and had an important impact on Spanish intellectual life, as it carried out a fundamental work of renewal in
Restoration Spain.
The Institución Libre de Enseñanza was founded in 1876 as a reaction to
Cánovas del Castillo's policy of restricting
academic freedom
Academic freedom is the right of a teacher to instruct and the right of a student to learn in an academic setting unhampered by outside interference. It may also include the right of academics to engage in social and political criticism.
Academic ...
. The group of professors who had been removed from the Central University (the University of Madrid) for defending academic freedom and refusing to conform their teachings to any official dogma in religious, political, or moral matters, came together to offer an educational alternative to the one imposed by the government. Among them were
Augusto González de Linares and
Laureano Calderón (the first two professors to resign),
Gumersindo de Azcárate,
Teodoro Sainz Rueda,
Nicolás Salmerón,
Francisco Giner de los Ríos, and
Laureano Figuerola, who would become the Institution's first dean, Consequently, they had to continue their educational work outside the public sector by establishing a secular private educational institution, starting with university-level instruction and later extending their activities to primary and secondary education.
Intellectuals such as
Joaquín Costa,
Leopoldo Alas (Clarín),
Ramon Perez de Ayala,
José Ortega y Gasset,
Gregorio Marañón,
Ramón Menéndez Pidal,
Antonio Machado,
Joaquín Sorolla, Augusto González Linares,
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, and Federico Rubio supported and backed the pedagogical project. All of them were committed to the educational, cultural and social renewal of the time.
History
The political model of
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo wanted to ensure a fundamentalist Catholic nation. The Royal Decree of 1875 issued by the Minister of Education Manuel Orovio Echagüe, severely limited academic freedom in Spain "if it went against the postulates of the faith", that is, if it went against the dogmas and postulates of the
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
Roman Catholicism in Spain.
From 1881 onwards, the faculty recently trained in its bosom began to teach at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza:
Manuel Bartolomé Cossío, who succeeded Giner at the head of the Institución,
Ricardo Rubio, Pedro Blanco Suárez, Ángel do Rego, José Ontañón Arias, and Pedro Jiménez-Landi, strengthened the project and ensured its future (disrupted by the Civil War in 1936 and later wiped out). The Institution became the center of Spanish culture until the Civil War and managed to introduce the most advanced foreign pedagogical and scientific theories into Spain.
The list of contributors to ''The Bulletin of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza'' included
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
,
Henri Bergson,
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
,
John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
The overridi ...
,
Santiago Ramón y Cajal,
Miguel de Unamuno,
Montessori,
Leo Tolstoy,
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
,
Rabindranath Tagore,
Juan Ramón Jiménez,
Gabriela Mistral,
Benito Perez Galdos,
Emilia Pardo Bazán,
Azorin,
Eugenio d'Ors and
Ramón Pérez de Ayala. Contributors closely linked to the institution included Julián Sanz del Río,
Demófilo and the "children"
Antonio Machado and
Manuel Machado,
Julio Rey Pastor, Constancio Bernaldo de Quirós, Luis Simarro, Nicholas Achúcarro,
Francisco Barnes Salinas and
Alice Pestana.
The ILE began to critically investigate the Spanish past, and from it emerged the Center for Historical Studies, led by the founder of the Spanish philological school,
Ramón Menéndez Pidal. The ILE also created contact centers for artistic and scientific elites with the European avant-garde movement, notably the
Residencia de Estudiantes
ESO Hotel at Cerro Paranal (or Residencia) is the accommodation for Paranal Observatory in Chile since 2002. It is mainly used for the ESO ( European Southern Observatory) scientists and engineers who work there on a roster system. It has been ...
, led by
Alberto Jiménez Fraud, and the
Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios (Board for Advanced Studies and Scientific Research), organized by José Castillejo.
The poetic movement of the
Generation of '27 was largely a consequence of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, shortly before modernisation was halted by the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
and the subsequent
Franco dictatorship. Under Franco all progressive educational assets were confiscated and their advocates forced into exile. Those who remained faced censorship, prosecution, and ridicule, as their detractors considered them unpatriotic. Abroad, the exiles were dispersed throughout Europe and Latin America, moving to different countries and thus crossing cultural and progressive ideas throughout the Western world.
In Franco's Spain, the ILE was blamed for all the country's ills, accusing them of unleashing the war. An example of this revisionist and totally anti-ILE attitude can be found in a 1940 collective work sponsored by the Confederación Católica Nacional de Padres de Familia, in which the most visceral and atrocious attacks are launched against the work of the ILE. In the last chapter of the book, it is proposed to raze the children's school that the ILE had in Calle Martínez Campos in Madrid, sowing the site with salt in order to remind future generations of "the betrayal of the owners of that house towards the immortal Homeland".
Following the
Spanish transition to democracy
The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as (; ) or (), is a period of History of Spain, modern Spanish history encompassing the regime change that moved from the Francoist dictatorship to the consolidation of a parliamentary system ...
in 1978, when the legal process of recovering the legacy of the institution began, ILE funds have been managed by the Fundación Francisco Giner de los Ríos created for that purpose.
Headquarters
The 200 founding shareholders abandoned the first proposed ILE headquarters in the
Paseo de la Castellana, since occupied by the Military School, and instead rented an apartment in Calle Esparteros No. 9 (currently renumbered as No. 11), and subsequently relocated to Infantas No. 42 before moving again to Paseo del Oblisco No. 8 (since 1914 known as Paseo del General Martínez Campos No. 14 and No. 16).
The building block included a garden, on what was then the outskirts of Madrid, and was better suited to the educational concept of the institution. In 1908 the site was further developed with the construction of the Giner Pavilion and Soler Hall.
During the Spanish Civil War the building was heavily damaged and looted, and even underwent a symbolic destruction of trees by a group of
Falangists (only a century-old acacia and privet were saved). In 1940 the site was seized and attached to the Ministry of Education, refitted (1942) and reopened (1945) as School Group Joaquin Sorolla (close to the present
Sorolla Museum). After 1955 its premises were used as headquarters of the School Food Service.
After the
Transition, the facility was briefly opened as the Eduardo Marquina National College (1980–1985); but was finally allocated to the Free Institution of Education in 1982. Recent renovations have provided the ILE with state-of-the-art buildings.
Influences
The influence of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza was decisive for the public authorities to undertake a series of reforms that Spain needed in the legal, educational, and social spheres. Under its influence, the Museo Pedagógico Nacional and the Junta de Ampliación de Estudios were created. The Junta de Ampliación de Estudios, organised by its secretary José Castillejo, was originally set up to send Spanish students—regardless of their ideology—to study abroad. Later new centers sprang up under the auspices of the Junta, such as the Centro de Estudios Históricos, the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Físico-Naturales and the Residencia de Estudiantes which, directed by Alberto Jiménez Fraud, was in Calle Pinar. The Residencia de Estudiantes was considered a breeding ground for writers, artists, and ideas. It was home to prominent poets, filmmakers, and scientists such as
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a g ...
,
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish and Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians and directors to be one of the greatest and ...
,
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...
,
Jorge Guillén,
Severo Ochoa.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
gave a lecture during his trip to Spain in 1923.
Attempts at pedagogical renewal led to the founding of pioneering initiatives between 1907 and 1936, such as the Instituto Escuela, the school vacation camps, the
International Summer University of Santander, and the so-called Misiones Pedagógicas, which operated under the protection of the Second Republic with the aim of spreading education and culture among the peoples of deep Spain.
About a year after his death in 1915, followers of
Francisco Giner de los Ríos established a foundation bearing his name to ensure the continuity of the ILE and pursue its educational objectives. The Foundation published the ''Complete Works'' of Francisco Giner between 1916 and 1936.
There are still schools that are linked to the current Foundation Giner de los Ríos, and continue to provide, with certain variations, the educational model of the ILE like the Colegio Estudio, founded in 1940 by
Jimena Menéndez Pidal,
Angels Gasset, and
Carmen Garcia del Diestro, which educated Spanish intellectuals and politicians. Later similar private institutions emerged, like Colegio Base and
Colegio Estilo, founded in 1959 by Spanish writer
Josefina Aldecoa.
One of the most peculiar effects of the ILE is the Colegio Fingoi in the city of
Lugo, founded in the midst of the Falangist opposition (1950) by Antonio Fernández López, a Galician businessman and philanthropist, who wanted to develop the ideas of the ILE in Franco's Spain.
Associated people
First promotion
The early members of the ILE were mainly men who gathered around Giner after his return to the university in 1881 following his 1875 expulsion. They included
Manuel Bartolomé Cossío,
Joaquín Costa,
Leopoldo Alas (Clarín),
Alfredo Calderón,
Eduardo Soler,
Messia Jacinto Adolfo Posada,
Pedro Dorado Montero,
Aniceto Sela, and
Rafael Altamira.
Second promotion
Giner called the acolytes of the ILE his "children". These included
Julián Besteiro,
Pedro Corominas,
José Manuel Pedregal,
Martin Navarro Flores,
Constancio Bernaldo Quiros,
Manuel and
Antonio Machado,
Domingo Barnés,
José Castillejo,
Gonzalo Jimenez de la Espada,
Luis de Zulueta and
Fernando de los Rios.
Third promotion
Those born between 1880 and 1890, are recognized as the "grandchildren" of Giner; noted pupils included
José Pijoán,
Juan Ramón Jiménez,
Francisco Ribera Pastor,
José Ortega y Gasset,
Américo Castro,
Gregorio Marañón,
Manuel García Morente,
Lorenzo Luzuriaga,
Paul Azcarate and
Alberto Jiménez Fraud.
The women of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza
Women make up a group with less prominence but with a willingness and appreciation of their work. Over the years, the names of women involved in ILE projects such as
Amparo Cebrián,
Carmen García del Diestro,
Laura García Hoppe,
Gloria Giner de los Ríos García,
María Goyri,
Matilde Huici,
María de Maeztu,
Jimena Menéndez-Pidal,
María Moliner,
María Luisa Navarro Margati,
Alice Pestana,
Laura de los Ríos Giner,
Concepción Saiz Otero,
María Sánchez Arbós, María Zambrano, and
Carmen de Zulueta, among many others, have been highlighted.
One of the most important social innovations of the ILE was its proposal in favor of the integration of women into the general body of society, with equal access to cultural training and professional fulfillment.
The
Asociación para la Enseñanza de la Mujer (Association for the Education of Women) was also created, with
Manuel Ruíz de Quevedo (from 1874 until his death in April 1898),
Gumersindo de Azcárate (until his death in December 1917), and
José Manuel Pedregal presiding over its Board of Directors. Another man of the Institution, Aniceto Sela, promoted Institución para la Enseñanza de la Mujer de Valencia,
[Vázquez Ramil, Raquel (2006)]
"La Institución Libre de Enseñanza y su aportación a la educación de la mujer española".
and several founders were involved in projects related to the social promotion of women, among them
Juan Facundo Ríaño,
Rafael Torres Campos and
Francisco Giner de los Ríos himself, who taught psychology at the
Escuela de Institutrices.
See also
*
Escuela Moderna
*
Generation of '98
*
Noucentisme
*
Regenerationism
Notes
References
Further reading
* AA.VV. (2013). ''La Institución Libre de Enseñanza y Giner de los Ríos: nuevas perspectivas'', ACE / Fundación Francisco Giner de los Ríos, Madrid.
* Jiménez-Landi, Antonio (1996). ''La Institución Libre de Enseñanza y su ambiente''. Universidad Complutense, cuatro tomos. (Jiménez-Landi received the Premio Nacional de Historia in 1997 for this work).
* Jiménez-Landi, Antonio (2010). ''Breve historia de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza (1896–1939)''. Tébar.
* Jiménez-Landi, Antonio (1989). ''Manuel Bartolomé Cossío, una vida ejemplar: (1857–1935)'',
Instituto de Cultura Juan-Gil Albert,
Alicante
Alicante (, , ; ; ; officially: ''/'' ) is a city and municipalities of Spain, municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean port. The population ...
.
External links
La Institución Libre de EnseñanzaFundación Francisco Giner de los RíosArchivo virtual de la Edad de Plata (1868–1936)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Institucion Libre De Ensenanza
Politics of Spain
Educational organisations based in Spain
Alternative education organizations
Philosophy of education