Manoel Baragiola, and Connected Histories between Gymnastics from Turin and São Paulo, 1895

ABSTRACT

In this study, we will analyze the representations in gymnastics teaching based on Gymnastica nas aulas, a manual published in 1895 by Manoel Baragiola. He was the teacher responsible for the gymnastics and military exercise classes at Escola Normal de São Paulo and sought to develop a model for classes through debates on gymnastic methods in the country and abroad. In addition to the analysis of the theoretical part of the textbook, other documents, including newspapers, periodicals, minutes of Escola Normal meetings, and management reports, were analyzed to demonstrate the gymnastics rationalization process in the city of São Paulo was based on many references in connected histories subjects and textual productions addressing practices of physical exercises that were distributed mainly in Italy and Brazil.

Keywords
History of Education; Physical Education; Textbooks

RESUMO

Neste estudo abordaremos as representações sobre o ensino da ginástica a partir do livro Gymnastica nas aulas, publicado em 1895, de autoria de Manoel Baragiola. Ele era o professor responsável pelas aulas de Gymnastica e Exercícios Militares na Escola Normal de São Paulo e buscava seu protagonismo na organização de um modelo para as aulas mediante o debate dos métodos ginásticos no país e no exterior. Este artigo, além da análise da parte teórica do manual, baseou-se em um corpo documental formado por jornais, periódicos, atas de reunião da Escola Normal e relatórios de direção para considerar que o processo de racionalização da ginástica na cidade de São Paulo ocorreu mediante muitas referências em histórias conectadas entre sujeitos e produções textuais que tematizavam as práticas de exercícios físicos que circulavam principalmente na Itália e no Brasil.

alavras-chave
História da Educação; Educação Física; Livros Didáticos

Introduction¹

It was Thursday, August 2, 1894. That morning, when Manoel Baragiola, an Italian gym teacher, left his house at Sete de Abril street, 11², downtown São Paulo, he was 450 meters away from República Square and the new headquarters of Escola Normal de São Paulo. The walk was short, taking no more than six minutes, and covered the entire Sete de Abril street until Ipiranga Avenue, arriving at República Square, where the school was located. That morning, he would have to go over the details of the presentation of his students at Escola Modelo, a unit attached to the Escola Normal. After the ceremonies with the speeches of the authorities, parades of students would be conducted in the central area. Baragiola was responsible for organizing his students who participated in the parade and paid tribute to the President of the State:

The students of Escola Modelo who also learn military exercises there salute Dr. President of the State, armed with their small and appropriate guns. Handling of guns by these children, who are generally only 10 to 12 years old, was very interesting

(Escola..., 1894, p.1).

That afternoon in August was special because of the inauguration of the new building of Escola Normal³, which was imposing and designed by engineer Ramos de Azevedo. All state public offices were closed for that event (Repartições…, 1894). The ceremony started with a speech by the President of the State, Bernardino de Campos, and the audience fully occupied the halls of the building and the square, so it was impossible to get closer to the building (Escola..., 1894, p. 1).

That construction work of that building started in October 1890 and was, without a doubt, the architectural materialization of an educational project led by Doctor Antônio Caetano de Campos. When Campos arrived in São Paulo in 1870, besides his practice as a physician, became a teacher at Colégio Pestana, where he met Rangel Pestana. With this increasingly stronger professional bond and his political identification with the republicans in São Paulo, he was assigned the director of Escola Normal de São Paulo by Prudente de Moraes, and then President of the State of São Paulo, in 1890 (Rocco, 1946).

With Caetano de Campos as director, the school was submitted to major reform, guided by the General Reform of Public Instruction of São Paulo and approved on March 12, 1890. The pedagogical principles of this reform were mainly based on the theoretical influence of Pestallozzi and the North American model (Almeida, 1995). Then, the new curriculum structure was centered on learning-by-doing model using utilitarian activities. For Casimiro dos Reis Filho (1981), Caetano de Campos had strongly biological principles about the reality, with liberal convictions. And such principles were coherent with the context of the late 19th century, between liberalism and the eclectic positivism in Brazil. As a result, Escola Normal de São Paulo became the republican model for other teacher training schools in the country (Monarcha, 1999; Schueler; Magaldi, 2009).

However, at that inauguration, in 1894, the director was no longer Caetano de Campos, who had died in 1891. The director was Gabriel Prestes, who spoke to the audience and journalists. The day after the event, newspaper Correio Paulistano, on its front page, praised the execution of that republican project, as it was a building designed to fulfill the educational demands in those days. The newspaper highlighted that, in addition to separated rooms for male and female students, there were also administrative rooms and rooms for theoretical courses. A central area housed the common structures, such as laboratories and offices (Escola Normal, 1894, agosto 3, p. 1). A large central room on the second floor was used for music and natural science classes. Physics and chemistry classes were held in an amphitheater on the first floor, each chair with its own laboratory. For the gymnastics classes, the newspaper said it was very convenient: “place the portico of gymnastic equipment there under a special, isolated building, of a special character. The convenience of surrounding the building with large gardens would greatly contribute to a healthy environment of good aesthetics and comfort” (Escola..., 1894, p. 1).

That building had a structure for gymnastics classes. A report of 1895⁴ written by Director Gabriel also mentions this large area in the back of the main building, which would be for students during class break, and which would also house ‘a gymnasium with all the necessary equipment for gymnastics classes. The area for class break is large and has a connection with the gymnasium’ (São Paulo, 1908, p. 95).

At that moment, Manoel Baragiola had a suitable structure to teach gymnastics. He also had the support of the press, especially newspaper Correio Paulistano; the director of Escola Normal; the director of Escola Modelo, Marcia Browne; some colleagues such as Gomes Cardim and Carlos Reis; and the gym teacher for girls, Marcia Moratti. Then, at the end of that day, August 2, 1894, when the parades on República Square were over, Baragiola was probably very happy, but also looking forward to the next goals in his career. How to give visibility to his pedagogy? What would be his role in that school, and in other educational institutions in that city, as it was growing everywhere? How to guarantee his professional space in that distant country, in that city increasingly occupied by many populations such as black people and immigrants, including Italians like him?

This article addresses this issue by analyzing the representations related to gymnastics teaching based on the theoretical part of Gymnastica nas aulas⁵, written by Baragiola (1895). As a teacher hired to teach gymnastics and military exercises to male students of Escola Normal de São Paulo between the late 19th century and early 20th century, Baragiola sought to develop a model for classes through debates on gymnastics methods in the country. In this sense, the manuals were relevant references for education planning and useful tools to highlight specific positioning in his practices in the public debate. Based on Baragiola’s speeches, for example, what would be the educational objectives and practices that are most consistent with the idea of a modern school? There are signs that his pedagogical proposals go beyond rational gymnastics to address the conservation or regeneration of a useful body for the nation. This study, in addition to the analysis of the theoretical part of the manual, was based on a group of documents that included newspapers; meeting minutes of Escola Normal; photos; management reports; almanacs; official documents; and texts from the periodical A Eschola Publica, the official publication of Escola Normal de São Paulo which in 1902 became Revista de Ensino.

In the context in which the manual and the author are inserted, we consider the rationalization process of gymnastics and military exercises intended to develop healthy bodies and assume a utilitarian perspective that was constantly aligned with the republican ideas of order, control of wills, vigor, morals, and civics. However, his explanation is not restricted to national borders because, as mentioned by Gruzinski (2001a), the historian needs to exhume histories that are enclosed in the national boundaries and lose the multiplicity of connected histories, which expose international and intercontinental records that national historiographies omitted. The original study by a gymnastics teacher like Manoel Baragiola challenges researchers to analyze themes through different scales, indirectly observing how a teacher who circulates between Brazil and Europe gives meaning and is marked by a mestizo mind (Gruzinski, 2001b). Serge Gruzinski is a historian who supports the thesis that modernities do not have European thought as the only guideline as opposed to the traditional mind of other societies. In this sense, he envisions a dynamism that permeates worlds and cultural objects increasingly merged in a process of globalization. Hypothetically, Baragiola’s gymnastics could be one of these cultural objects marked by the mestizo.

From gymnastics apprehended to mixed gymnastics of Escola Normal

Manoel Baragiola, according to the São Paulo press, was graduated “from the Magistral School of Gymnastics in Turin” (Esgrima, 1909); to be more precise, at the end of the 1890s, at Società Ginnastica de Torino, which housed Scuola Magistrale di Ginnastica di Torino.

The gymnastics course taken by Baragiola in Turin, had a strong focus on training school gymnastics teachers, even before it became superior education with the creation of the Higher Institute of Physical Education, in 1898.

The history of this institution has many particularities. It was organized within the Turin Gymnastics Society, a gymnastics club created in 1844 with the initiative of Rudolf Obermann, a Swiss gymnast who was invited go to Turin to teach gymnastics to the students of the Military Academy. With the support of the Kingdom of Sardinia, the institution was consolidated in the city and, later, in unified Italy in 1861 (Gori, 2015).

Gigliola Gori (2015), an Italian historian, explains that Rudolf Obermann arrived in Turin in 1833 to train the troops of the Kingdom of Sardinia, using the German military methods of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and revised by Adolf Spiess. Obermann successfully promoted gymnastics among the troops, which encouraged him to create a civil gymnastics society, similar to German ones. Then, Società Ginnastica de Torino (Turin Gymnastics Society) was created in 1844. After the unification of Italy in 1861, it was necessary to train teachers to teach gymnastics at schools. In this process, the society created by Obermann already had disciples trained in his school of teachers, founded in 1847 (Gori, 2015).

With Obermann’s death in 1869, his followers systematized gymnastics no longer exclusively based on the German didactic tradition of Janh and Spiess, but they did not abandon the strong civic-military character of gymnastics for young people. Then, a consolidated group was created in Italy called the ‘theorists of Turin,’ whose members had a strong presence in national gymnastics circles, leading to Felice Valletti, Obermann’s student and a member of the Gymnastics Society of Turin, being appointed the first Central Inspector of Physical Education of the Ministry of Education, in 1878 (Guazzoni, 2017).

Gori (2015) describes that Scuola Magistrale di Ginnastica di Torino aimed to train teachers in teaching techniques and methods, as well as anatomy, physiology, hygiene, history, pedagogy, and gymnasium organization and structuring. Above all, its objective was to encourage teachers to disseminate gymnastics among young people. As soon as they obtained their diplomas, these teachers would teach their students to march in groups with order and discipline in the organization of massive exercises, as these were articulated practices for physical and moral development.

Despite government support before and after the unification of Italy, supporters of gymnastics in school curricula, such as doctors, the military, educators, and the gymnasts themselves, Gori (2015) argues that Italians were resistant to that practice as it was considered an activity that distracted young people from studies, work, and religious classes. They even thought that physical exercises were potential dangerous to health. Also, local school authorities were not strongly committed to implementing this new discipline. In the opinion of many Italians, gymnastics would be more suitable for soldiers or as an acrobatic presentation of circus performers and, therefore, this practice should not be part of the school curriculum (Gori, 2015).

Even so, in 1878, gymnastics became mandatory in Italian schools, which led to the opening of nine new higher gymnastics courses in all regions of the country. But after four years, of all these new schools, only one survived, the Normal School of Gymnastics in Rome.

This period in Italy, in the last quarter of the 19th century, was also a time of debates between gymnastics schools across the country. Although the Magistral School of Turin has consolidated in different aspects, also politically, it had moments of strong competition with other gymnastics actors from Bologna and the Turin Physiology Laboratory. For Italian historian Deborah Guazzoni (2017), it was a time when gymnastics teachers had a very demanding job, as they needed continuous updating while the discipline underwent rapid evolution due to news from abroad and the debate on the gymnastics model to be adopted by Italian schools. It was a time characterized by repeated disputes between the various Italian gymnasts over which was the most suitable system for school training. A confrontation, in which Turin school graduates supported gymnastics with ethical-militarist purposes (Guazzoni, 2017). It was in this troubled period that Baragiola, with this background and these dilemmas in mind, migrated to Brazil.

Baragiola may have had many reasons to leave Turin and come to São Paulo. Unfortunately, the sources do not allow a precise answer, but based on the description of the Italian gymnastics scene at that period, where gymnastics of the Magistral School of Turin, although influential, started to have many critics (Gori, 2015; Guazzoni, 2017), he perhaps realized that offering his services in a city on the other side of the world, with no tradition of education in that area and which was growing economically would be a very interesting option, especially encouraged by a large Italian colony growing in that distant city.

In the last decade of the 19th century, São Paulo was one of the largest immigration cities in the world (Hall, 2004, p. 121), with many populations, such as Afro-descendants, often left out of the city’s history. However, according to data collected by Michael Hall for his study (2004), in 1893, the city had more foreigners in its population than Brazilians (54.6%). A city supported by the coffee industry, where the amount of coffee exported through the port of Santos grew from 2.5 million bags in 1888-89 to 7.8 million bags in 1900-1901 (Saez, 2004). This growth in economic activities also supported the advent of a coffee bourgeoisie, which related to the tradition of the countryside, but also aspired to ostentation that modernity brought.

The newspaper Correio Paulistano, of August 22, 1891, reported the arrival of Manoel Baragiola in the capital of São Paulo, where he would open a gymnastics and fencing school on Quintino Bocayuva Street.

Because of oten mentions in newspapers in the State of São Paulo, he was probably in contact with some local editors and was already recognized as a gymnastics and fencing teacher (Gymnastica e esgrima, 1891). These activities also included presentations and exhibitions in performances and theater acting in places likes Teatro Provisório, Teatro Rink, Teatro Minerva, and Frontão Paulista, dueling with other teachers such as Panizza, Vassela, Cristole, and Ferreto (Campinas, 1890; Programma, 1890; Gymnastica e esgrima, 1891).

In October 1891, he was hired as a gymnastics teacher at Escola Normal, which was his main professional activity until 1916. He was not the first gymnastics teacher to work at the school – since April 1890, the students had gymnastics classes with Maria Moratti (Escola Normal de São Paulo, 1894). After Baragiola was hired, Maria Moratti became responsible for the women’s gymnastics classes and Baragiola for the men’s classes. Besides Modelo School (São Paulo, 1908), Baragiola also worked at Ginásio da Capital (Escola Modelo, 1893), providing gymnastics and military exercise classes.

He was often mentioned in Correio Paulistano, which advertised his fencing courses, demonstrations of weapon shows, and participation in social events. As a professor at Escola Normal, he gained prestige in press companies closely linked with government interests, as Correio Paulistano, one of the largest in the country in the last quarter of the 19th century, became strongly influenced by the Paulista Republican Party, representing liberal principles, screened by the conservatism of rural coffee oligarchies (Thalassa, 2007, p. 42). This way, Escola Normal and its teachers were highlighted as examples of education and civility in São Paulo society. The new Escola Normal building inauguration coverage on República Square reinforces this situation.

However, the reality was not so favorable as described in the editorial line of Correio Paulistano, which conveyed the idea of an impeccable well-planned school structure, where the teachers had access to all possible didactic materials. Obviously, the material conditions were better than in most Brazilian schools, which does not mean teachers had no issues with scarcity of resources. In the case of Baragiola and the school, the situation was not so good, as indicated in the report of Escola Normal Director of 1894:

Gymnastics classes, despite the attention and competence of the respective teacher, have been greatly affected by the absolute lack of equipment, because, as I just said, we only have a few items and iron bars for gymnastics and a single carbine for military exercises

(Escola Normal de São Paulo, 1894, p. 17).

Then, we can understand the teaching conditions were far from the perfection envisaged by Correio Paulistano, which often highlighted the new educational policies encouraged by the state government. Regarding gymnastics, institutional support was provided to practical training of students through pedagogical experiences at Escola Modelo, which acted as a teaching practice laboratory for the students. In a teaching model that was considered innovative and modern, the students and their teachers encouraged these practices in primary education. In this sense, the newspaper announced events related to the teaching of gymnastics, for example, the one at Escola Modelo da Luz:

In this educational establishment, which operates in the large building on Largo do Jardim, managed by distinguished and illustrious educator Miss Marcia Browne, the distribution of openings of school battalion officers took place yesterday, in the presence of distinguished professor Mr. Manoel Baragiola and other teachers

(Eschola..., 1895, p. 2).

The year of 1895 was very busy for Manoel Baragiola. In addition to the publication of his manual Gymnastica nas aulas, he was on the front page of Correio Paulistano because of the organization of a gymnastics presentation with almost 1,000 children. He gathered students from Escola Modelo and Gymnasio do Estado and teacher training students for an event with the presence of Cesário Motta, Secretary of the Interior of São Paulo, and Cerqueira César, vice president of the State. Baragiola organized gymnastic exercise and singing presentations. The newspaper encouraged the teacher with the following words: “To Mr. Baragiola, congratulations on the progress made by your students” (Concurso..., 1895, p. 1).

Of course, the publication of his book was also news in the newspaper, in addition to the announcements for book advertisements. According to Correio Paulistano:

Mr. Manoel Baragiola, teacher of gymnastics and military exercises at Eschola Normal in this city, has just published a theoretical and practical manual about this subject, dedicated to the teachers of São Paulo. It is an 83-page book, an excellent typographic work by editors J. B. Endrizzi & Comp. More space will be dedicated later to Mr. Baragiola. For now, thank you for the copy sent to us

(Serviços..., 1895, p. 2).

Baragiola was at the peak of his professional activity since he joined Escola Normal. With this connection, a number of teaching activities emerged, such as working in private and public schools. Therefore, in an editorial perspective it was interesting to publish a guide to teaching gymnastics for primary school teachers without training on the subject. Researcher Diego Puchta explains that a manual, such as Baragiola’s book, can be considered a didactic book, “as a depository of school contents” (Puchta, 2015, p. 32). In this type of document, researchers can access the teaching contents provided by the author/teacher and his intentions to produce meanings for other teachers, designing educational practices in a certain systematization. Then, the manual understood as a didactic book aims to disseminate more specialized knowledge in theory, organized into a system of practices that intends to become a reference model for students and other teachers.

However, our study did not analyze the manual as a didactic book or as a private source, with a specific treatment that translates the pedagogical practice of gymnastics. In this article, we consider the manual Gymnastica nas aulas not as an object in the history of didactic books, but as a primary source that is confronted with the history of a school subject, in particular, the history of physical education. To illustrate that, we mention here the question of education historian Antonio Viñao (2008, p. 193), “instead of analyzing school subjects through textbooks, isn’t it better to analyze them based on the history of school subjects?”

We need to understand the content of this book are not a mirror or mechanical reproduction of the school discipline or teaching subject still called gymnastics. Therefore, it is also necessary to understand this argument does not disqualify the manual as a source; on the contrary, it requires a comparison with other sources and references. Then, we will not analyze the manual only for its internal elements, but also in a broader context of the history of school subjects.

Likewise, we take a particular look at this material. We could say the manual is dated with stable meaning, as it was published as a printed material. However, the practices expressed in that manual do not lose their cultural dynamics, they keep changing, as well as the theoretical understanding of teaching of the author and his readers. That is, everything remains in motion in a cultural history of school subjects and the manual can be, in the historian’s view, a portrait of the days when it was published.

Baragiola’s Gymnastica nas aulas has this characteristic when it was published by an individual with specific training in Italy, but who was aware of the international debate⁶ on gymnastics teaching in Europe. Therefore, comparing the theoretical part of his book with other texts published later helped us understand what was in motion in gymnastics methods in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. That was surely a moment of many transformations in his teaching at international level. Baragiola seems to be an agent of this pedagogical practice which, between the perspective of his European education and the educational debates in São Paulo and abroad, is influenced by a mestizo mind. In this sense, gymnastics, as a cultural practice, also presents these mixtures. Through a particular account of an Italian teacher in São Paulo, we will analyze how his practices expressed in a book and other writings are affected by many places, but also impacted by what was promoted as modern in that city and in those schools.

From the movements of the manual to the movements of mestizo gymnastics

Gymnastica nas aulas has two sections, one theoretical part and one practical part. It has 83 pages and 50 numbered figures, illustrating some of the 207 proposed exercises. The J. B. Endrizzi & Companhia edition is a hardcover book printing. In this text, we prioritized the theoretical part of the book, which is made up of six parts.

In general, the book language has a prescriptive and symbolic dimension, with European references of gymnastics practices supported by Ling in Sweden; Obermann in Turin and later in the unified Italian territory; and Angerstein and Schreber in Germany, a country in the process of unification. In addition, it shows a military character as seen in the book presentation: “theoretical-practical manual for teachers of the elementary classes of military and gymnastic exercises”. In its symbolic-cultural dimension, such teaching should be focused on the “harmonious development of all parts of the body and recreation of the spirit” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 17).

The theoretical part of the book is preceded by a prologue, and the practical part is a larger section. Manoel Baragiola dedicates the prologue to teachers of gymnastics and military exercises. However, he explains this is not a new work:

It is the result of studies of several German, Italian, French, and Swedish works, especially observing the recommendation of Ling, Obermann, Angerstein, Schreber, and precisely observing the commands adopted in the Brazilian army

(Baragiola, 1895, p. 3).

Baragiola was aware that his methodological proposition was encouraged by a European debate with many references from gymnasts and doctors. The choice of his main references says a lot about his training and about what he thought it was suitable for gymnastics teaching in schools. The references to Ling, Obermann, Angerstein, and Schreber are not fortuitous and represent the theoretical movements since his classes at the Magistral School of Gymnastics in Turin. In this sense, the reference to Rudolf Obermann is the most obvious, as he is the Swiss gymnast who became a pioneer in organizing a Gymnastics Society in Turin. From this tradition of gymnastics, originated from the ‘theorists of Turin’ (Gori, 2015), Baragiola inherited the support to a strong civic-military character of gymnastics with movements without complexity with a focus on young people (Gori, 2015). In this sense, Baragiola mentions German gymnast Wilhelm Angerstein, supporter of a military and nationalist gymnastic movement in Germany for gymnastics school training and dissemination (Tröhler; Westberg, 2017).

Another important reference mentioned by him is the contribution of Schreber, the most cited author in the book. In Gymnastica nas aulas, Baragiola expressed a concern about organizing methods for teaching gymnastics in schools. One of the texts on the subject that first circulated in Brazilian schools was Gymnastica domestica, médica e hygiênica, by physician Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber. For Puchta (2015, p. 19), the manual translated from Schreber’s material is one of the first in the country to “address the practice of gymnastics by consulting books”.

Schreber was born in 1808 in Leipzig, studied medicine and was director of the Orthopedic and Medical-Gymnastic Institute in the same city. He published the first edition of Gymnastica domestica, médica e hygiênica in German, in 1855. It became the most popular work published by Schreber, well known in Germany and abroad, and was translated into at least seven languages, and was published in Brazil, in around 1879 (Puchta; Linhales, 2021).

With Schreber, Baragiola, like many 19th century gymnastics instructors and teachers, sought scientific recognition for a pedagogical practice. On the one hand, doctors saw youth gymnastics as a strategy to discipline and inculcate healthy habits. On the other hand, the first instructors and professors saw medicine as a scientific reference required to legitimize their practices before society. It never meant that doctors were the only references for gymnastics instructors and teachers or that it emerged from doctors.

According to Baragiola, another relevant aspect in Schreber’s work and the Italian debate on gymnastics in the same period (Gori, 2015) was the need to systematize simple exercises that did not require the use of equipment (Puchta; Linhales, 2022). In the article Gymnastica Moderna, published in Revista de Ensino, Baragiola (1902, p. 256) reports the following: “Based on physiological, anatomical, and hygienic laws, it must be simple and fun, it must not force the disciple to great efforts or dangerous positions”.

This particular dimension stimulated the Italian debate about teaching gymnastics in that period. Angelo Mosso⁷, also a doctor and gymnast and a respected name on the subject in Turin, clearly criticized the complex exercises that he considered to be the main characteristic of a German gymnastics’ tradition. Mosso (1911) was a critic who generalized the tradition of German gymnastics, without pointing out the differences between the various practices in Germany (Quitzau, 2015). However, the posthumous edition of his book L’educazione fisica della gioventù, della donna observes that, although Mosso reported that British games would be more receptive by students than gymnastics, considering the practice is sometimes monotonous, he understood there were advantages of the simple and wide movements of ginnastica svedese in relation to ginnastica tedesca, citing the contribution of Pietro Enrico Ling” (Mosso, 1911, p. 75).

Baragiola seems to support the Italian debate at the end of the 19th century, but without abandoning the tradition of the Magistral School of Gymnastics in Turin based on Obermann’s military ethics. Baragiola’s reference to Pehr Henrik Ling shows that he wanted to move away from more complex exercises and make the practice more popular, as discussed in Italy, supporting appropriate scientific gymnastics in Brazil, of simple application. In Brazil, during this period, Swedish gymnastics was accessed in different ways and came the country through different paths, “with unique contours and strongly influenced by the territories/spaces where it circulated” (Baía; Bonifácio; Moreno, 2019, p. 17).

In the theoretical part of his didactic work, Baragiola addresses the challenges faced by teachers when teaching gymnastics classes in schools and the consequent need for a uniform and feasible program. For these reasons, the author supports less complex exercises: “It was necessary, however, a book that would indicate to teachers a program to follow, a uniform system which, in addition to the physiological results that this part of education produces, the teachers can use to prepare their students so that they can be useful to themselves and to the country” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 3).

In his text, Baragiola highlights the importance that must be given to the teaching of educational gymnastics, making it primarily a need for the human natural survival. Manoel Baragiola enjoyed that moment, the end of the 19th century, when gymnastics consolidated through objective methods, in line with current pedagogy and scientific knowledge. According to the author, earlier in history, only the ancient Greeks were concerned with the exercise and development of physical strength to reach harmony between body and mind (Baragiola, 1895). Given this reference to the classical tradition, the Greeks would be the predecessors of those individuals praised by Baragiola, the great names of physical education in the 19th century, such as: “Jahn, Adolfo Spiess, Leopardi, Gioberti, Tommaseo, Fénélon, Montaigne, Froebel, Pestalozzi, Aporti, Basedow, Hoffman, Salzmann, Ling, Eiselen, Krause, Rothstein, Massmann, Vieth, Neuman, Klumpp, Jaeger, Amoros, Clias, Young, Angerstei, Ranvenstein, Schreber, Kloss, Eugéne Paz, Obermann, Mantegazza, Gamba, Franchi, Baumann, etc.” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 7).

The order of reference to authors does not seem to have a planned logic, citing the names that most contributed to gymnastics in Europe, but it is interesting to note that he mentions the most important authors in the history of Italian gymnastics in the 19th century last. Starting with Rudolf Obermann, he also mentions, without pointing out the differences between them, Paolo Mantegazza⁸, Alberto Gamba⁹, Emilio Baumann¹⁰ who, with their disciples and antagonistic perspectives, promoted discussions on Italian gymnastics in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Based on Baragiola’s theoretical writings, he did not abandon the tradition of his training in Turin, with an emphasis on Obermann’s perspective, but he was well informed about what was happening in 1895 in Italian schools, including the criticisms of Angelo Mosso (1911). Then, he also observes in this theoretical part the purposes of rational gymnastics, which would have a moral utility, the provision of services to the eventualities of life and physiological results. In addition, gymnastics prescribed by Baragiola also intended to facilitate the practice of all limbs, increase muscle oxygenation, circulation, strength, resistance, and the harmonious development of organic systems, in a clear pretension of body rectification, “and this is why the gymnast grows with proportional and aesthetic forms” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 10). For Carmen Lucia Soares (2013, p. 164), 19th century European gymnastics can be considered the incarnation of a century that “consolidates the progressive victory of scientific knowledge”.

Likewise, in the third part of the theoretical section, the practice of gymnastics classes is restricted to classrooms, with rules stating classes should not start right after meals or in air currents, allowing air renewal. It should be “fast, easy, enjoyable, and collective” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 11) and adapt to the child’s nature; however, with a focus on the correct body position, facilitating walk and greet.

We understand the prescriptions of physical exercises in the writings of these educators are not immediately reproduced without thinking about their reception. However, they can also be important clues when observed in certain organizations, such as school hours. In the schedules published in Anuários de Ensino of the General Management of Public Instruction of São Paulo, we can observe gymnastics classes for boys and girls were at about 3 pm, three times a week, from the first to the fourth grades of Escola Modelo (São Paulo, 1908).

For Baragiola, this prescription was important, because educational gymnastics:

[…] must distract the intellect, alternating gymnastic exercises with the intellectual occupations of school; it must exercise hearing with the rhythm, the sight with precision and simultaneity of the exercises, and inspire moral and generous feelings, combining gymnastics exercises with easy chants. It should also give students the first idea of order, the basis of man’s intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and economic life

(Baragiola, 1895, p. 11).

The fourth part of the theoretical section of the manual is dedicated to gymnastics specifically designed for girls. Based on authors like Frank, Kloss, Flor, Guts-Muth, Spiess, Clias, Obermann, Gamba, Mantegazza, and Angerstein, the author corroborates physiological and moral differences between boys and girls and, again, highlights the Greek and Roman ideals of women’s physical education. In this sense, if in the Middle Ages, women were only allowed to practice horse riding, modernity would have to restore their physical and intellectual development through gymnastics. This practice would be limited by a moderate and special method, aiming to eliminate most diseases that affected women, such as anemia, esthetic pressure of tight-fit clothing, and muscular inactivity. Baragiola was more concerned with safety of exercise practice among girls when compared to boys because, for girls, he adopts a method of gymnastics without equipment. As the equipment involved more risks, he prescribed almost exclusively elementary exercises to the girls. Besides these differences, Baragiola did not mention the methods of his co-worker, Maria Moratti¹¹, who had joined Escola Normal before him. It would be important to analyze Baragiola’s methods in relation to those adopted by Moratti, the gymnastics teacher for the girls, but the sources do not allow even a single line about Moratti’s classes. We only know that she was the gymnastics teacher based on documents stating the assignments of classes and salary payments at Escola Normal.

However, this positioning of gymnastics for girls is also related to Baragiola’s training in Turin. Italian historian Deborah Guazzoni (2017) explains that regardless of the disagreement among the Turin school, Angelo Mosso, and Emilio Baumann in terms of gymnastics methods, they all supported gymnastics dissemination among girls, with Mosso and Baumann actively promoting it. Despite its usefulness, in Baumann’s proposition, for example, the practice was even simpler for girls, so it could be also performed in classrooms. Even so, it would still be an unconventional view in that context, especially if we consider the resistance to the practice of gymnastics in the Italian culture of that period (Guazzoni, 2017).

In the fifth part of the manual, we see that singing activities were part of gymnastics classes. According to the author, it should “exercise the vocal apparatus, to give cadence to gymnastic movements and more elegance to execution [...]” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 16). There were two ways in which singing should be applied to classes: “First, to accompany the student’s own movements with the voice; and second, to accompany the movements of the other gymnasts” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 17). Here, other authors of gymnastics books were also mentioned, such as Plato, Tomaseo, Amorós, and Fröbel, to support the idea that gymnastics and singing should never be separated. Singing would inspire in gymnasts “love for the country, good actions, as well as order, discipline, and elegance while performing the exercises” (Baragiola, 1895, p. 16). When translating an excerpt of Gymnastique et morale, a manual by Amorós, Baragiola argued that singing promoted certain behaviors and values:

All chants are composed of words, melody, harmony, and rhythm, and I use these four means to inspire my disciples; through words, good ideas and good feelings; through melody and harmony, good taste; through rhythm, I accustom them to precision, order, regularity in all the actions of life

(Baragiola, 1895, p. 16).

Good feelings and good ideas, good taste, precision, order, and regularity in actions of life were objectives to be achieved by this education of singing applied to gymnastics. This section and the whole manual present practices for training the complete man, that is, physical, moral and intellectual aspects developed now, in the short time, promoting a paulista or national republican education. However, in the long run, they also seem to be imbricated by other temporalities, in which an education of bodies was outlined, in the sense of Soares (2021), with educational processes involving gestures and behaviors focused on sociability and self-care through the body. Marked by these different times, in Baragiola’s view, gymnastics and singing are practices for training useful citizens in a civic perspective.

Civic and military education was an inflexible aspect in Baragiola’s pedagogical practices in the context of Escola Normal. In the spirit of the other teachers of the school, this perspective of civic education was also desirable and encouraged. This idea is observed in the text A educação cívica e moral das crianças, published in the magazine A Eschola Publica (1895, p. 260):

In our classes we often hear passionate voices against the government of this or that politician, or against the government of the President of the State; we hear the children applauding depredations that rebels from this or that political faction perform against the law and against the country and against the families, creating other bad principles that are inoculated in the spirit of children, without thinking about the tears that will be shed later by these bad citizens educated in disrespect for civil and moral laws...

Nothing could be more coherent with Baragiola’s proposals, especially in terms of civics and military education. There was even some coherence between Baragiola’s book and the gymnastics teaching programs published in A Eschola Publica, em 1895.

However, the dynamics of gymnastics as a school discipline was in motion and such changes can be observed mainly in a text published by Baragiola in 1902, titled Gymnastica Moderna. It shows the same civic and military character, but with the inclusion of outdoor games:

Italy has increased the hours dedicated to physical exercises in its programs and introduced more modern, more pedagogical equipment and outdoor games for schools. [...]

England and North America have also introduced modern equipment in classes, in addition to outdoor games so popular in those countries.

What system will be adopted in Brazilian schools? The systems adopted by different nations teach us how to follow the rhythm of innovations. The character of Brazilian gymnastics must be eminently educational-military, but it must include outdoor games. A country that does not have compulsory military service must teach that in schools, and it can only be achieved with well-directed military gymnastics. Not only knowing the military evolutions will make a student a good national guard; but knowing how to easily handle a rifle, then a student will have obtained a good physical result. For this reason, the student needs the gymnastics practice, to bear the weight of the weapon, and outdoor games to resist the marching

(Baragiola, 1902, p. 259).

Baragiola’s support to outdoor games is quite inherent to the international debate on teaching gymnastics in several countries and in the context of a school in São Paulo that was so close to North American perspectives. The educational project of Escola Normal had a liberal education view, as a symbol of republican education (Monarcha, 1999). Therefore, we consider the game of complex social relations between the political-pedagogical proposals, as Baragiola remained firm in his ideas of ethical-military education, in line with the Turin school and, concomitantly, made a move towards outdoor games, so popular in the United States and England, and which found support in Escola Normal. In this sense, he promoted a mixture of already mixed practices. The same occurred in Italy, in the same period, as explained by Gori (2015), where modern games and outdoor sports were spreading and becoming more popular. Despite the rejection of the Bologna school, influenced by Baumann, regarding games and sports, the arguments that favored games in an English and North American perspective defended by physiologist Angelo Mosso prevailed in view of the popularization of these practices.

Likewise, we understand that supporting gymnastics in schools was also part of an articulation of the same nature, which can be exemplified by the ideas of Swiss pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestallozzi (1746-1827). His intuitive method can be seen with more evidence in the political-educational debate and, in relation to gymnastics, they should “show its undeniable usefulness for the body and the huge moral benefit that could derive from it” (Soares, 1994, p. 57). This rational pedagogical renewal starts with a teaching universalization process, which was based on the development of knowledge, through senses and observation, as briefly described in the theoretical sphere (Souza, 1998).

In this sense, the sixth and last subdivision of the theoretical section describes 12 rules for teaching rational gymnastics. The harmonious development of all parts of the body and the spirit recreation, just as the method, should be exciting for students; and energy, precision and grace would be required in the practice, with daily variations of exercises and combinations.

Then, it described a rational and regular method for the progress of classes, including mixed practices in an international school. However, a common factor was that body was always a useful instrument for itself, but also for the country, when healthy and without excesses.

Final considerations

Baragiola was involved in a practice linked with discourses by authors of several gymnastics manuals. There is among Baragiola, his predecessors, and his contemporaries a common ideal of training healthy individuals, who should be aware of the relations of their bodies with another dimension – the social body expressed by a civic vocation. Then, Baragiola’s work aligns these concerns with the regeneration of the new man, also ‘useful for the nation.’

The theoretical part of the manual offers numerous recommendations for physical, moral, and civic education at school. We understand the institutionalization of the discipline of gymnastics and military exercises in school legislation, at a period of reforms and ideals of modernization of society and its bodies, encouraged Baragiola’s didactic production. In this sense, knowledge and practices were developed by subjects who felt and also educated bodies to assume a rationality that was configured in the long run as “comprehensive educational processes focused on the body, within the dimension of physiology control, slowly learned and uniquely experienced in different societies and communities” (Soares, 2021, p. 15). While monitoring continuities and discontinuities that do not allow a linear history, many temporalities and spatialities are intertwined in the analysis of systematization of gymnastics in schools, as a school subject that went through a slow and gradual process of consolidation until the institutionalization of Physical Education. This study, delimited by a period and a place, which envisaged the need for teacher training and the organization of knowledge in modern education methods, involves questions that are part of the “19th century mentality, impregnated with the principles of rationalization of production and social life” (Souza, 1998, p. 159).

Also, the city of São Paulo and Escola Normal were in a place where these new institutionalized school practices involved a mestizo mind and many characteristics of what was seen there, as well as in other regions of Brazil and international scenarios. For this reason, in addition to the local and national borders, this study opens a door in the history of this school discipline, understanding how gymnastics teaching in São Paulo took place through debates that are not explained or restricted to local and national boundaries. Baragiola was a teacher who assumed the role of passeur between different cultures, according to Gruzinski (2001a; 2001b) and his idea of mestizo. He did not only influence the place as a foreigner, but was also influenced by the new place. Then, he became a mestizo mind agent – no longer a European from Turin or someone from Brazil or São Paulo. He was a new teacher who produced a mestizo system of gymnastics, which can only be interpreted and understood in connected histories, in this case between Turin, São Paulo and many other places. Finally, if a mestizo mind can be observed in Baragiola’s writings in future studies, it is likely the practices had other meanings in the perspectives of students from other mixed cultures in a city that is far from having references from being Italian only, but also black, indigenous, Portuguese, with influences from other Brazilian states like Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, etc.

Notes

• 1
  The authors thank Espaço da Escrita – Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa – UNICAMP - for the language services provided. This study was financed in part by the CNPq Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – Grant Number 304575/2021-6.
• 2
  Manoel Baragiola’s address can be found in Almanack administrativo, commercial e profissional do Estado de São Paulo para 1896 (Thorman, 1897).
• 3
  In this text, ‘Escola Normal,’ with capital letters, refers to Escola Normal de São Paulo.
• 4
  The Report of Escola Normal of 1895 is mentioned in Annuario do Ensino do Estado de São Paulo – 1907-1908 (São Paulo, 1908).
• 5
  Gymnastica nas aulas: manual theorico-pratico dedicado ao professorado para o ensino elementar de exercicios militares e gymnasticos was published in Paulo by J. B. Endrizzi & Comp. in 1895. It can be found for reference at Centro de Referência em Educação Mário Covas.
• 6
  To access this debate in Europe on the teaching methods of gymnastics and sports in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, see Krüger (1996), Lundvall (2015), Welshman (1998), Gori (2015).
• 7
  Angelo Mosso (1846-1910), professor of physiology at the University of Turin, was one of the main theoretical articulators of a reform of physical education, which advocated recreational gymnastics, where competitive and recreational activities were performing, ensuring protagonism to the “British games” (Guazzoni, 2017).
• 8
  Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910), anthropologist, advocate of outdoor games in gymnastics classes (Guazzoni, 2017).
• 9
  Alberto Gamba (1822-1901), physiologist and professor, close to Obermann, taught anatomy classes at the Magistral School of Gymnastics in Turin and at the Military Academy (Guazzoni, 2017).
• 10
  Emilio Baumann (1843-1917), doctor and teacher, was one of the founders of the Gymnastics Federation in Bologna, opposed the ethical-militarist tendency of the Obermann method and was a tireless advocate of a rational and educational method based on ‘natural and collective’ gymnastics movements (Guazzoni, 2017).
• 11
  Baragiola’s silence regarding Maria Moratti was also observed in the sources related to the pedagogical practices of Escola Normal de São Paulo, in the magazines A Eschola Publica and Revista de Ensino.

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Edited by

Editor-in-charge: Lodenir Karnopp

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  05 Dec 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  18 Nov 2021
• Accepted
  22 Aug 2022