In association with its nation building projects, the imperial government in Brazil under monarchic rule took some concrete actions based on proposals for physical education. The aim of this article is to investigate the meanings and significations attributed to this subject in the legislation and the annual reports issued by the Ministry of Business of the Empire (1831-1889), giving special attention to Rio de Janeiro. The approach to the subject in the sources researched demonstrates that the views of physical education took shape through a web of ideas that associated moral, health and civilization conceptions, in a bid to deal with the concrete circumstances of a newly independent peripheral nation with a bureaucratic structure in the process of formation.
physical education; gymnastics; Brazilian monarchy