ABSTRACT:
The intellectual production influenced by modern thinking, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has highlighted the propositions about the study methods and their role in the development of ideas about social behavior and desirable education for different social groups. They influenced the political process of reforms that took place in several European states in the second half of the eighteenth century. Education was given the mission of "shaping a new humanity" according to Condorcet's expression. In this universalist and enlightened perspective, education would be an instrument for the harmonious organization of society through the dissemination of values and behavior standards. Based on these principles, the purpose of this article is to analyze the circulation and appropriation of educational concepts in the American Portuguese world, between the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, through works of the enlightenment thinking and current teaching manuals of that period. It is intended to confront these texts from the conceptions of education, instruction and civility, seeking to verify their presence in administrative and educational fields in colonial Brazil, particularly in the context of the spread of illustrated thinking and the Pombaline education reforms from 1759 and on.
Keywords:
Enlightenment; Education; Colonial Brazil; Civility; Teaching manuals.