Sowing ideas: The speeches in support of agricultural education in Brazil from the end of the Empire to the first decades of the Republic

Abstract

By dialoguing with the arguments in favor of the agricultural education, the article aims at thinking about the appreciation of the role of science in agriculture in the last decades of the Brazilian Empire and the First Brazilian Republic. We have as objective to discuss the concerns with the needs to train technical staff for agriculture, based on the argument of the circulation of ideas among different countries. The analysis that follows unfolds in the thoughts of technicians, farmers and political leaders at that time based on records produced largely by the ministries of Agriculture, the “Sociedade Auxiliadora da Indústria Nacional” (Auxiliary Society for the National Industry) and the “Sociedade Nacional da Agricultura” (Agricultural National Society). This analysis attempts to understand how these players thought the rural education, both in terms of basic education and college level.

Keywords: agricultural education, circulation of ideas, Science.