How “beneficial” virus of popular education “contaminated” Sardinia island, in the first half of the 19th century

Popular education has played an important role in order to build the national Italian
identity. Many researchers show that, after unification of Italy (1861), the
government paid attention to primary schools: teachers not only taught reading,
writing and calculating but also spread new values such as patriotism, positivism,
rationalism. The aim of my paper is to study this kind of schools in the first half of
19th century, when Italy was shared in many States, everyone with different
education policies. I’m going to concentrate my attention on an independent and
isolated region: Sardinia.
In natural history, islands are quite interesting because scientists can study
autochthon species and understand when local environment keeps in contact with
outside ecosystems. I think historians can do what scientists do, if they want to
investigate the beginning of popular school in Sardinia.
After four centuries of Spanish domination, in 1720, the island passed under the rule
of Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoia, prince of Piemonte, member of the Sabaudi
dynasty. Only after a century of Savoia domination, the kings Carlo Felice and Carlo
Alberto could begin a systematic program of reforms that was continued after the
unification of Italy in 1861. The popular school called “scuola normale” arrived in
Sardinia with the school reforms in 1822-1824.
The aim of my paper is to show how and when models, coming from abroad, mixed
with the presence of congregations of teachers, not only Jesuits, who were very
active in the education of the ruling classes, but also Piarists who settled in many
villages, giving life to an efficient school system made up of boarding schools,
seminaries and private teaching posts.
My research is founded on letters sent between: Francesco Cherubini and Antonio
Manunta in the early XIX century. The first translated education books coming from
Austria into Italian and tried to use simultaneous education methodology in a
popular school that he founded in Milan; the second learnt from Cherubini new
didactic models to instruct a maximum number of pupils at the same time and made
many efforts to import them to the island.
My study case is interesting such as a laboratory test: according to me, Sardinia - set
in the middle of Mediterran - is a good point of view to analyze the impact of the
“beneficial” virus (popular education) that “contaminated” all Europe from the end
of 18th century.