Education in the liberal period

First period. 1833 - 1843• Period of the construction of the liberal state

• Period of civil war: first Carlist war: 1833 – 1840. It started when Elisabeth II, three years old, the daughter of Ferdinand VII and María Cristina of Bourbon, ascended to the throne under the regency of her mother. Carlos María Isidoro of Bourbon, who had been the heir until the Salic law was overthrown, was not willing to accept the succession of Elisabeth, and so the Carlist War started. According to the Salic Law, imported from France by Philip V, female succession to the throne was not possible.

• It was also an ideological conflict: – Country versus city, feudal agrarian society versus the urban society– Absolutism versus liberalism

María Cristina depended on the liberals. In this period the confiscations of church property took place. This period was also characterized by anticlerical riots.

The Liberal party was divided in two factions: the moderates (formed by the afrancesados and the doceañistas) and the progressives.

Versus the political and administrative centralization of the moderates, the progressives proposed decentralization. Against bicameralism, unicameralism. The progressives came to power after the coup of 1836, known as the “Motín de la Granja”. From that moment on liberal politics were emphasized, with the suppression of the manors and the power of the religious orders, and thanks to the land confiscations. The new society converted free and individual property in one of its basic principles.

• Confiscated lands could be bought with debt securities, a debt which the State contracted with an investor, the richer bourgeoisie. The state had a lot of debts, now with the selling of the confiscated lands, it tried to reduce them. The confiscation did not lead to an increase of small property owners. The new landowners wanted to increase the productivity of their lands and expulsed the peasants who had been tilling the ground during generations, or forced them to pay a much higher rent.

Plan of the Duke of Rivas• The ideal of universal education, free in all of its levels, was

abandoned. This had been proposed during the so called trienio liberal, between 1820 and 1823. The plan of the Duke of Rivas

Period of the Moderates

• Period starts in 1843. For the next ten years the strong man is Ramón María Narváez. The moderates try to find a political comprmise between liberalism and Carlism.

• A. Alcalá de Galiano: the political régime should be in the hands of the social groups who have the capacity to govern: the elites.

• The moderates speak of the sovereignty of the intelligentsia, which they identify with the social elites

Plan Pidal• Subjects as physics and modern languages are promoted. Also the

humanities are reforced.

• The humanities are important as via these patriotism can be stimulated

• Centralization of the universitites

• The plan provoked a lot of criticism of the conservative catholic sectors. They accused Pidal of imposing the secularization of education.

• Concordat of 1851 the Church rgained some influence on education. They were allowed to appoint inspectors.

• 1854: the mdoerate period ends with the Vicalvarada.