ABSTRACT
This chapter stems from the clear fact that secondary schooling was encumbered with fabricating citizens in order to consolidate the nation-state. It also sets out to show how the pedagogical and organizational modernization of this educational level in Portugal was mainly articulated within the circles of republican liberalism. In doing so, it addresses a few of the core subject matters discussed throughout the book while ascertaining the Portuguese example as an act of “differential creation” within a global fi eld. The general modern republican project of creating an “agent of progress” by means of education is analyzed through the historical singularity of the Portuguese Liceu. Its specifi c focus on the class regime and its concern with pupils’ self-regulated rational action are directed toward the accomplishment of what had gradually become a self-evident truth for Western thought: that progress depended on improved citizenship, and that schooling was to provide the fundamental tools of civic education and virtue to fulfi ll it. The solutions that were put into practice in order to produce liberty, citizenship, and participation (the “social administration of freedom”) became convergent regardless of political antagonisms. Indeed, the reformers’ diagnoses and solutions at the end of the 19th century were included in discussions on political progress and civic and citizenship education previously undertaken by the republican opposition. It was this convergence of opinions that ultimately made it possible for liberalism to accomplish the aims of social integration and civic participation advocated by traditional republicanism. However, this would not be achieved by directly teaching virtue and values in view of creating a “political community” of ideal citizens, but by focusing on conduct and the pupils’ exercise of self-discipline as the basic unit for the obtention of population homogeneity.
