Eugenio Maria De Hostos

Articles
Eugenio María de Hostos and His Pedagogical Thought
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CARLOS ROJAS OSORIO University of Puerto Rico Humacao, Puerto Rico

ABSTRACT
Considered one of the forefathers of the social sciences and humanities throughout Latin America, Eugenio María de Hostos (1839–1903) also made important contributions to educational thinking, establishing important educational programsin places like Chile and the Dominican Republic. Hostos is also a key historical figure in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence and one of the visionaries behind the idea of Latin American unity. This essay offers a brief biography of Hostos and his influence situated in the historical context of Latin America in the 19th century, particularly the struggles for independence in Cuba and PuertoRico. I then discuss Hostos’s general views on the purpose of education, outline the key dimensions of his educational thought, and offer a brief discussion of Hostos’s views on the role of education for democracy. Throughout the discussion I highlight what Hostos saw as the fundamental role of education for liberation. In conclusion, I offer some reflections about the relevance of Hostos’s ideasfor contemporary educational thinkers. Education may be what saves us from disaster. Let us, like Hostos, prove able to face the reactionaries, to struggle for freedom and conscientiousness, and to think with boldness and creativity in the name of the noble ideals of human personality, of patria and civilization.1 José Emilio González (1989, p. 119)

In this essay, I offer a synoptic view of thelife, accomplishments, and thought of the Puerto Rican philosopher, educator, writer, sociologist, and political leader, Don Eugenio María de Hostos. I will give special emphasis to his views on pedagogy through a discussion of the ideas presented in the essays collected in Ciencia de la Pedagogía: Nociones e Historia, published in 1991. This Boricua2 thinker lived through the greater part of the19th century, during a period of Latin American history in which only Cuba and Puerto Rico had yet to win independence from Spain. Hostos was part of the struggle for
© 2012 by The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto Curriculum Inquiry 42:1 (2012) Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX42DQ, UK doi: 10.1111/j.1467-873X.2011.00576.x

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independence to the end of his days. For this, he armed himself with a theoretical framework of modern ideas that would advance his political, social, and educational objectives. He used rationalism as a weapon against scholasticism, metaphysics, and dogmatic religion. He drew on secularmorality to inspire values and ideals in the education as well as the civic life of Latin American nations. He built a social and political theory based on law, in opposition to the perpetuation of colonialism by force. Hostos made use of all these ideas to bring about the transformation of societies steeped in colonialism, and in the service of creating a new social order. EUGENIO MARÍA DEHOSTOS: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY Eugenio María de Hostos was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, on January 11, 1839. In 1852, he travelled to Bilbao, Spain, for his secondary education at the Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza, and began studying law in Madrid, though he never finished. From that moment forward, he was self-taught, a frequent participant at Madrid’s Ateneo, a cultural and intellectual centre where thegreatest and most progressive minds of the day gathered. In Spain, he devoted a great deal of time to the practice of a militant style of journalism in the service of the Antillean cause (specifically Cuba and Puerto Rico), and critical of Isabel II’s monarchical government, working toward a new democratic order in Spain. In 1868 the Spanish monarchy fell, and a new, liberal government took...