Valentín Letelier: the Influence of positivism on Chilean Educational Thought

Summary

This article examines the influence of Positivism on Latin American educational thought. It argues that while this influence is significant for the number of institutions that it inspired, little attention has been paid to perhaps the most elaborate presentation of positivist educational ideas: Valentín Letelier’s Filosofía de la Educación (1892). Building on national experience concerning the development of education, Letelier used Positivism to reform the curriculum of secondary education and was a primary force behind the foundation of the Instituto Pedagógico (1889). His view of the school can be summarized as a philosophy based on a rational and systematic hierarchy of the sciences, which he applied to the educational field. As a result, the curriculum reflected a progression from the study of the most general to the most specific sciences. The training of professors at the Instituto was geared precisely to steer students to achieve a systematic and comprehensive view of society based on scientific criteria. Letelier’s work created a new sensitivity, and provided a significant link to subsequent efforts to reform national education.