From the Cane to Kindness: A Battle over School Bodies. Vergara and Bavio, the Problem of School Discipline in “El Instructor Popular” (1883–1885).

Abstract

This article is part of a broader research project that analyzes the philosophical assumptions—ontological, anthropological, axiological, and epistemological—underlying representations of childhood in Argentine normalist pedagogy at the end of the nineteenth century. It examines the figure of the “undisciplined child” and two opposing pedagogical approaches used to address it —cruelty and kindness—focusing on issues within the public school system of Mendoza during the 1880s. Based on the analysis of school inspection reports published in El Instructor Popular and on the writings of Carlos Vergara and other normalist educators, the study explores the tensions between authoritarian pedagogies and Krauso-positivist proposals. It seeks to identify the conceptions of childhood, the teacher, and the educational function implicit in these debates, and to reflect on the political and ethical implications of a “pedagogy of kindness” as opposed to a “pedagogy of cruelty” within the framework of Argentine normalism.