Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (review)

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 255 most cases, have already left an indelible mark in Latin American literature. Gerardo T. Cummings Bowling Green State University Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City The University of Arizona Press, 2003 By Patience A. Schell Mexico's Liberal reforms of the 1850s and the 1870s as well as those of the revolution of 1910 to 1940 in part consisted of attacks on the Catholic Church's power and privileges. During the latter period, some of the main disputes were over education, which the Constitution of 1917 stipulated be free and secular. In 1926, the Cristero Rebellion erupted, as church leaders encouraged their parishioners to take up arms and defend Cristo Rey against a hostile government. Previously, historians have written about pre-1926 church-state relations apparently with this bloody schism in mind, classifying the two entities as separate, even dichotomous (xx). However, as Patience Schell shows in Church and State Education, the goals of these institutions, especially when it came to education, overlapped greatly. In fact, after examining a wealth of primary sources, including newspapers, educational publications, and other archival documents, the author finds that religious and secular educators considered themselves unofficial allies in the attempt to moralize Mexico's lower classes (xix). Both before and after the rebellion, public officials frequently ignored the violations of Catholic schools. Thus Schell provides evidence of the inter-connectedness of the church and the state in Mexico, even during the height of revolutionary anti-clericalism. Schell claims that secular and religious educators shared a desire to use schooling to mold their countrymen. Teachers taught students to resist the temptations of alcohol and other vices, to appreciate national culture, and to exercise regularly (22, 27-28, 90-93). Educators offered gender-specific lessons to children and adults, so that women learned to be better wives, mothers, or domestic servants, and men gained the technical skills necessary to be "industrial artisans" (32, 39-40, 43, 48-56, 5961 ). Although they may have differed ideologically , Schell demonstrates that church and political leaders both saw education as a means of social mobility and control, a contradiction inherent in many reformist movements. Furthermore, the author posits, secular and religious education extended beyond the schoolhouse. Both institutions sponsored libraries , movie nights, and student field trips, as well as publications and exhibitions that displayed class projects (132, 149-64). Pious upper-class women, or damas, participated in charirable Social Action networks, and rhe church strongly encouraged the linkage of Catholic unions and schools (81, 137, 140, 164-71). Both groups, then, conceived of education as part of their larger goals of social justice and national unity. An additional similarity between the two types of education was that the realiry of rhe classroom could deviate significantly from curricular ideals. For instance, although the church frowned on women's work, especially in factories , religious teachers delivered lectures that would be useful to their female lower-class students , who undoubtedly would be working (74, 115-17, 129). Students successfully demanded practical lessons and skipped classes, showed up late, or wrote letters to the principal if unsatisfied (86, 135, 140-46). Finally, due to family ties, their personal religious beliefs, and a lack of funding, school inspectors and other public officials often ignored infractions of school codes (94, 114). These examples show that a much more flexible, conciliatory system existed than historians have previously claimed. On the whole, Schell has made an important contribution to the literature. First, she demonstrates that contrary to the argument of previous scholars, religious and secular officials were not constantly at odds with one another during the Mexican revolution. Second, following in rhe footsteps of Elsie Rockwell and Mary 256 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Kay Vaughan, she further proves that education was not imposed from above, but was constantly in a state of negotiation. Third, much as Temma Kaplan's study of Barcelona does, Schell shows that conservative women such as the damas should not be disregarded by feminist scholars, for often their actions had unintended revolutionary consequences by promoting social justice through community service, politicizing the role of motherhood, and gearing female education to the realities of...