Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (review)
- Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City
Patience Schell has produced a thorough study of the convergence between the Catholic Church and the Mexican government in matters of educational theory and practice from 1917 to 1926. She uses a wide variety of archival sources, including manuscripts from the Archivo General de la Nación, the Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP), the Archivo Plutarco Elías Calles, the Bancroft Library, and the rarely consulted Archivo del Secretariado Social Mexicano. Her work elucidates how both Church and state confronted the dramatic social dislocations of the revolutionary period with surprisingly similar focuses on practical education for children and vocational training for adults.
Schell begins with the observation that most historians of Church-state relations in twentieth-century Mexico have unjustifiably "projected the tensions of the [1926-1929] Cristero Rebellion backward, looking for telltale signs of the violence to come" (p. xx). But as she demonstrates, government and Catholic schools in the late teens and early twenties addressed the same social problems of poverty, vice, and illiteracy via their curricula. Further, they occasionally co-operated, as when Catholic schools voluntarily followed SEP programs and government inspectors turned a blind eye to infractions like crucifixes displayed in classrooms.
A background chapter details the educational centralization of the Porfiriato (1876-1911) and the oscillation between government anticlericalism and unofficial tolerance during the military phase of the Revolution (1911-1917). Then Schell presents the specific programs, personnel, and social texture of postrevolutionary Mexico City's diverse school system. She sets out the societal problems this system had to address in a wonderful descriptive passage: "An increasingly militant working class, recent migrants fleeing violence, revolutionary generals looking to consolidate their positions, prostitutes catering to sexual needs, and Catholic ladies determined to save souls all jostled for position in the capital" (pp. xxiv). [End Page 834]
In an examination of primary school curricula, Schell shows that both government and Catholic institutions shared a practical emphasis, attempting to provide children with marketable skills and physical exercise. Adult education also emphasized the vocational, with a clear gender bias: technical classes for men (e.g., auto shop) and domestic economy for women (cooking and flower arranging). These adult schools, including ample night programs, assumed strict class stratification; wealthier families could afford to send their children to universities or specialized institutes for professional preparation.
Beyond her study of curricula, Schell details the SEP's upgrading of teacher training and the mobilization of women in organizations like the Unión de Damas Católicas Mexicanas (UDCM) to engage in educational and political reform projects. Both the government and lay Catholic groups played crucial roles in inculcating civic loyalty and moral conformity in the city's working class. Libraries, film series, and field trips were all part of the parallel system. SEP inspectors, though sometimes resented, linked both secular and religious schools to the central administration. The author finishes her study with a discussion of the escalating tensions of the mid-twenties, as the Calles government (1924-1928) began to enforce the Mexican constitution's laic education requirement, Article 3. By this time, however, Church and state had established such a modus vivendi that a combination of popular protests and unofficial toleration allowed Catholic schools to weather the storm.
Perhaps the book's greatest strength is Schell's skillful use of archival data on parallel programs and co-operation to show the common role of government and Church in managing the social conflict that threatened both entities. She provides an excellent case study of how the SEP's free breakfast program not only attracted students, but provided an opportunity to improve manners (pp. 98-99). Another fascinating example of the reconciliation of government and Catholic values is provided by the controversy over birth-control pamphlets, initially distributed but eventually suppressed, at one federal school (pp. 118-120). She provides a detailed exposition of day-to-day pedagogy and of the involvement of lay Catholic women's organizations, such...
