The so called "Livro de Visitas" is a book in which schools inspectors register some general perspectives when visiting a Public School, writing down remarks on the schooling process as, for instance, the results of annual examinations and comments on the school, teachers and students. This paper studies the "Livro de visitas" of the Rural School "Fazenda Ponte Alta/Bela Vista", in Bariri, State of São Paulo. Based on the records of twenty years of activity (1928-1948), some educational elements are highlighted: the demands of the inspectors at that time, how such requirements were (or not) referred by teachers or the community. This allows to sketch a socio-historical scenario focusing on the practices that took place in a school that taught literacy and primary arithmetic. As a result, one can understand that the discourse of equal opportunities between rural and urban schools, so intensely proclaimed by politicians, was not complemented by efforts to guarantee equality of means.
Rural school; Initial schooling process; History of education; 1928-1948