THE LIÇÕES DE LER PRINT IN THE HISTORY OF LITERACY IN THE BRAZILIAN EMPIRE

Abstract

This paper aims to present the Lições de Ler print, published in 1832 by the Typografia Nacional and written by José da Costa e Azevedo, who, among many occupied spaces, would become the first principal of the Escola Normal de Niterói (Normal School of Niterói) and the first teacher of all subjects in this school. The location of this print was due to a complaint by Portuguese António Feliciano Castilho recorded in a letter to his wife, which accused Professor Costa and Azevedo as a plagiarist for having made an adulteration of Joseph Jacotot’s and of Portuguese António Araújo de Travassos’s words. In order to understand this context, we use sources such as letters, printed materials, journalistic sources, reading with Bittencourt (2004) and Batista and Galvão (2009). This scenario of clashes between different proposals of literacy methods in Imperial Brazil goes back to political, philosophical, and social disputes, among others that extrapolate the quarrels of pedagogical methods.