Spanish Enlightenment: Education and Societal Transformation Under Charles III

Spanish Enlightenment: Education as the Cornerstone of Progress

Antecedents

Francis Bacon and Empiricism

The basis of Empiricism is that our knowledge comes from experience. It does not come from the principles and dogmas of authorities. Bacon wrote The New Atlantis, a utopia based on the practice of the new science of the House of Salomon.

René Descartes and Rationalism

Born in France, he passed away in Sweden. "I think, therefore I am." The "mind" or "reason" was the main source of truth. Only facts that are clear to the mind are true (rationalism). As a result, the "rational ethic" appeared.

Isaac Newton

He was English. His Universal Law of Gravitation, published in 1687, changed the conception of the Universe. The world can be explained through mechanical laws. "Natural religion" is based on experience and attention.

John Locke and His Empiricism: The State of Nature

In the state of nature, people lived with total freedom, without laws or authority. The origin of society is the social contract. The Social Contract, a book written by Rousseau in 1762, is an agreement by its members, acquired in a State in relation to its rights and duties of its citizens. Man is born with a naked mind (tabula rasa). He does not have innate principles that make him virtuous. The mind is moldable through education; 90% of a human being is due to education, and humans learn from experience (sensitive perception). Locke was influenced by the empiricism of Bacon. Sensitive perception is the source of knowledge. He extended the ideas of Newton to education in Concerning Human Understanding (1690).

Educational Reform Under Charles III

The difference between enlightenment in Spain and in France is that the ideas came from the people in France, and in Spain, from the government. Charles III was the one who introduced the ideas of the Enlightenment in Spain.

Charles III tried to diminish the control of the Church over education. Educational reforms were implemented at all levels:

• Expulsion of the Jesuits (1767), somehow replaced by the "State."
• Stimulated the construction of schools of "first letters."
• Secondary education was developed without religious control.
• Reform of the universities with new curricula, secularization, and centralization.
• Limited reforms of the universities, as tradition opposed the "new sciences" and conception of education, but there was progress in the foundation of schools of "first letters."
• Foundation of technical schools was a success.

Alternative Institutions: Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País

Friendly Economic Societies of the Country focused on practical things because they created the basis of national wealth. During the reign of Charles III, when enlightened ideals were changing the order of the old regime, prominent figures of Spanish society gave an impulse to the modernization of society, promoting the creation of societies that would contribute to economic and social development.

The first Friendly Economic Society of the Country was the Vascongada Friendly Economic Society of the Country, founded by the Count of Peñaflorida in 1765. Ten years later, Campomanes constituted the Real Friendly Economic Society of the Country. At the beginning of the century, there were already 63 constituted societies.

Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes

He was the author of Discurso sobre la educación popular de los artesanos (1775). An important minister and advisor of Charles III, he proposed reducing the influence of the Church to "religious" matters. Education was committed to the State. He trimmed down the privileges of the Mesta and the guilds.

Jovellanos

Born in 1744, he had contact with "ilustrados" at Oviedo's University.