Rodríguez, Simón

Introduction

Simón Rodríguez’s writings are within the richest and most powerful in the Latin American nineteenth century. Over his entire written works, Rodríguez maintains an absolutely novel concept regarding popular education. Through this idea, the author denies the very identity principle of each educational institution of the time. The Latin American school in the mid-eighteenth century and early-nineteenth century consists of a diverse group of schooling institutions. Each one accepts within a determined kind of population according to certain identity criteria established by a caste system. In this context, different schools are created throughout the colony for the castes that comprise the Spanish Empire. Schools for rich white boys, for poor white boys, schools for girls according to their stratum and social place, schools for boys part of the natives’ nobility, for the children of common natives that could not show nobility by birth, schools for mestizos, and schools for...