Science, technical training and the making of Portuguese Liberalism: the case of Escola Politécnica de Lisboa (1837-1911)

Description

Since the publication in 1937 of Escola Politécnica de Lisboa: Primeiro Centenário da Escola Politécnica (1837-1937), intended to commemorate the first centenary of the institution, no global analysis has been produced on the history of the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa (Lisbon Polytechnic School, hereafter EPL). A few case-studies have focused on the teaching of a specific scientific discipline and/or on the work of a particular professor while other studies simply regret what their authors perceive as the absence of a research school at the EPL. Nevertheless, no comprehensive study has been carried out on science teaching and learning as a whole at the EPL, the relationship between pedagogy and scientific practices or the political and social values inculcated by the scientific and technical training promoted at the EPL.

This project aims at filling in this historiographical gap, by joining a multi-disciplinary team of historians of science, including international consultants and PhD's and masters' students, and promoting a variety of historiographical approaches, which can range from the study of a specific scientific theory to research focussing on the technological and social context of science teaching and practice at the EPL.

The case of EPL is a telling one. Like in other Southern European countries, the nineteenth century in Portugal is a key period for the modernisation of the State apparatus and the development of infrastructures and technology. At the same time, it is the period in which Portuguese society took decisive steps towards an effective secularisation. Although economic historians have tended to stress the fact that Portuguese industrialisation failed in the nineteenth century, the State initiative in launching infrastructures such as railways, a cartographic basis or the institutionalisation of a unified tax system required the existence of technical and scientific staff that ought to be available in the country. In a great extent, the training of such personnel took place in the EPL.

Established in 1837 and inspired in the French École Polytechnique, EPL was planned to provide preliminary training in science to future officers, military, navy and civil engineers, physicians and pharmacists. Not surprisingly, mathematical disciplines were at the core of EPL's curricula, being complemented by training in astronomy, physics, chemistry and natural sciences. Former students of EPL (the Portuguese 'polytechniciens') became the State technical staff, turning into civil servants or engaging in the military career, and enlivening key State institutions such as the various offices of the Ministry of Public Works, Trade and Industry 'Direcção-Geral das Obras Públicas e Minas'.

Citizenship was a crucial outcome of the Liberal Revolution of 1820. As a consequence the State technical staff began to play an important role in politics and struggled for social recognition. The technical and scientific skills of these “scientific bureaucrats” (the majority former students of Politécnica) enabled them to secure their position in State apparatus. They became what Pierre Bourdieu has called the “noblesse d'État” (Bourdieu, 1989). As opposed to the nobility of aristocratic birth, the Portuguese “noblesse d'État” was also distinct from the traditional intellectual elite whose university education was more philosophical and meditative-based.

The institutionalisation of technical teaching in Lisbon and the social preponderance reached by scientific technocrats had further consequences with respect to the organisation of scientific knowledge in Portugal. Undoubtedly, it played a role in shaping the intellectual contours of some scientific areas such as mathematical disciplines, astronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, zoology, botany and economics. For instance, the characteristics of practical teaching in astronomy were intimately associated with the acquisition of in geodesy.

This project assumes that scientific knowledge and practice is historically constructed and socially coded. Hence, it will also perceive science teaching not as a passive transmission of knowledge, but rather as an active pedagogical activity which involves communicating a body of knowledge, training technical procedures, and transmitting a system of values, behavioural norms and practical skills.