This work intends to situate a Brazilian debate concerning body education in the primary school in the period between the late 19th century and early 20th century. To this purpose, we analyzed, jointly, a local educational context - in the Province of Paraná - and a national event on education - the 1st National Conference of Education, happened in 1927. Going through a variety of sources, we found a frequent emphasis on the need of body education for the schoolchildren as the main way to reach a modern and civilized society. Engaged with the approach from the history of curriculum, this work aims to debate and, thus, to refine one hypothesis, more than assert as definite the presuppositions here explored.
history of school; history of curriculum; history of school disciplines; body education; education of senses