Paedagogica Historica

International Journal of the History of Education

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The photography and propaganda of the Maria

Montessori method in Spain (1911–1931)

Francesca Comas Rubí & Bernat Sureda García

To cite this article: Francesca Comas Rubí & Bernat Sureda García (2012) The photography and
propaganda of the Maria Montessori method in Spain (1911–1931), Paedagogica Historica, 48:4,
571-587, DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2011.633924

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2011.633924

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Paedagogica Historica
Vol. 48, No. 4, August 2012, 571–587

The photography and propaganda of the Maria Montessori

method in Spain (1911–1931)
Francesca Comas Rubía and Bernat Sureda Garcíab*
a
Pedagogía y didácticas específicas, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Palma de Mallorca,
Spain; bPedagogía y didácticas específicas, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Palma de
Mallorca, Spain
(Received 25 February 2011; final version received 11 October 2011)

This article analyses photography as a tool for reinforcing textual discourses in

the written press and supporting the popularisation of certain methods and
practices in the illustrated press and magazines. The photographs will not be
analysed as educational documents or testimony to educational activities but
rather in an effort to explore the attempts to illustrate a message graphically so
as to influence public opinion and change society’s perception of schools’ role
and the functions of education. The way in which the Maria Montessori method
was graphically disseminated in Spanish illustrated magazines between 1911
and 1931 is the focus of this paper.
Keywords: photography; new education; illustrated press; illustrated magazines;
Montessori method

Introduction
A recent monograph on photography and the history of education published in the
journal Educació i Història has redefined the debate that originated a number of
years ago on photography’s role as a source for education history.1 This publication
reviews a controversial historiographic trajectory that aims to use photography to
further knowledge of the evolution of schools and academic practices. This line of
research and debate has its roots in the study published by Gaulupeau, Chassagne
and Bassargette in Issue 30 of the journal Histoire de l’Education in 1986 and was
expanded at the 20th International Standing Conference of the History of Education
held in Leuven in 1998, which addressed how the visual has helped shape educa-
tion throughout history. Two years later, in 2000, the journal Paedagogica Historica
devoted a monograph to the topic of The History of Education and the Challenge

*Corresponding author. Email: sureda.bernat@gmail.com

This article has been written as part of the framework for the project Cambios y continuida-
des en educación a través de la imagen: una mirada distinta sobre el proceso de renovación
educativa. El caso de Baleares (1900–1939). Ref. HUM2007-61420, financed by the Span-
ish Ministry of Science and Innovation within the National I+D+i (Scientífic Research
+Development+Technological Innovation) Plan.
1
Educació i Història 15 (January–June 2010).

ISSN 0030-9230 print/ISSN 1477-674X online

Ó 2011 Stichting Paedagogica Historica
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2011.633924
http://www.tandfonline.com
572 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

of the Visual, which contained a number of papers submitted at Leuven.2 And in

2001, the journal History of Education published a series of reflections on this
subject, which were presented at the annual conference of the European Educational
Research Association in Finland.3
The publication of Peter Burke’s work Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as
Historical Evidence was even further motivation for researchers to use sources that
had remained at the margin in many cases of what Burke himself dubbed the invisi-
bility of the visual.4
Researchers’ initial enthusiasm for photography’s potential as a source in educa-
tion history has given way to a certain scepticism, or, at least, a critical stance that
takes into account the need to contextualise information gleaned from photographs
and complement the data obtained from them with other sources.5
The analysis of photography in education history has hitherto been used, above
all, to seek a better understanding of the culture of school and educational practices.
The aim has been to “visualise” the changes and continuities in how classes are
organised, to group students together or to detect relationships between teachers and
students. This article employs a complementary approach to the above: the analysis
of photography as a tool for reinforcing textual discourses in the print media and
supporting the popular dissemination of certain methods or practices in the illus-
trated press and magazines. Beyond analysing photographs as testimony to or docu-
mentation of educational activities, the objective is to ascertain the way in which a
message is illustrated graphically in order to influence public opinion and change
society’s perception of the role of schools and functions of education.
In this case, the article focuses on the graphic dissemination of the Maria
Montessori method in Spanish illustrated magazines between 1911 and 1931.

Maria Montessori and education in Catalonia’s national reconstruction project

By the start of the 1920s, Maria Montessori was well-known all over the world.6 In
January 1907, commissioned by the Instituto dei Beni Stabili, the first Casa dei
bambini had been founded in a working-class neighbourhood in Rome. From 1909
to 1911, a number of works that disseminated Montessori’s thought were published:
Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica applicato all’autoeducazione infantile nella
Casa dei bambini came out in 1909, and her Antropologogia pedagógica was pub-
lished the following year. In the meantime, she had been offering courses for teach-
ers at Città di Castello since 1909 and writing articles in Italian and English to
2
Paedagogica Historica 36, no.1 (2000).
3
History of Education 30 (2001).
4
Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2001).
5
See the different stances in this regard: Francesca Comas Rubí, “Presentació: Fotografia i
història de l’educació,” Educació i Història 15 (January–June 2010):11–17; Marc Depaepe
and Frank Simon, “Sobre el treball amb fonts: consideracions des del taller sobre la història
de l’educació,” Educació i Història 15 (January–June 2010): 99–122.
6
Rita Kramer’s now classic biography of Montessori, Maria Montessori: A Biography
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) can be consulted in relation to the dissemina-
tion of her work. See also Peter Cunningham, “The Montessori Phenomenon: Gender and
Internationalism in Early Twentieth-century Innovation” in Practical Visionaries: Women,
Education and Social Progress 1790–1930, ed. M. Hilton and P. Hirsch (Harlow, England;
New York: Longman/Pearson, 2000), 203–20.
 Paedagogica Historica 573

publicise her method and thought. By 1912, there were schools following her
method not only in Europe, but also in New York and Boston; other schools were
organised in cities in Asia and Central and South America. Between 1913 and
1915, Montessori travelled more and more to the US and places in Europe, such as
Germany, Great Britain, Austria, Holland, Sweden and, as will be addressed in
greater depth here, Barcelona in Spain; she later travelled to China and India. In the
meantime, her works were being translated into a host of languages. Maria Montes-
sori represented a new model of woman and was an example for international femi-
nism.7 At the same time, her thought was gradually infused with the religious
inspiration and mystic orientation that flourished in her earliest works. In many
places, such as Rome, Barcelona and the US, Montessori had the support of cultural
elites who were attracted by her personality and placed powerful tools – including
the press and photo-journalism – at the service of disseminating her method.8
In Spain, the regenerationist ideals that had been clamouring for the country’s
modernisation since the late nineteenth century – for which improving education
was essential – were widely propagated in Catalonia by very different ideological
sectors that ranged from Catholicism to Republicanism and worker movements. The
monarchist parties that took turns governing Spain and the oligarchs who supported
them were incapable of putting into practice the structural reforms needed for
Spain’s social and economic development.9 In Catalonia, where an advanced indus-
trialisation process was underway and a powerful bourgeoisie existed, the feeling of
backwardness, of distance from Europe, was widespread from the late nineteenth
century onwards, and the conviction grew among the ruling classes that the mod-
ernisation needed and progress the new century demanded would only be achieved
by promoting a regenerative project of its own, driven by Catalonia itself. During
the first decades of the twentieth century, a broad movement came together in Cata-
lonia that called for national reconstruction and political, social, cultural and educa-
tional modernisation, a movement Eugeni d’Ors, one of its leading sources of
inspiration, dubbed noucentisme. The movement found the support it needed to
develop in the politics of the conservative bourgeois nationalism of the Lliga
Regionalista, which had become the dominant political party in Catalonia, espe-
cially after the victory of the Solidaritat Catalana coalition of Catalan nationalist
parties in the 1907 elections.10
The modernisation of pre-school education in Catalonia in the early decades of
the twentieth century should be framed within this broad movement, which aimed
to build a new country, a new, more civic, cultured, cosmopolitan and liberal citi-
zenry and an inclusive, structured and cohesive society. The movement was very

7
Valeria P. Babini and Luisa Lama, Una “donna nuova”. Il femminismo scientifico di Maria
Montessori (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2003).
8
Renato Foschi, “Science and Culture Around the Montessori’s First ‘Children’s Houses’ in
Rome (1907–1915),” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 44 (2008): 238–257.
9
María del Mar del Pozo Andrés, Currículum e identidad nacional. Regeneracionismos,
nacionalismos y escuela pública (1890–1939) (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2000).
10
Josep González-Agápito et al., Tradició i renovació pedagògica. 1898 –1939 (Barcelona:
Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat/Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2002).
574 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

utopian in the broadest sense of the word and was reaffirmed by having to face the
violent riots of the so-called Tragic Week of 1909, which led to the trial and
execution of the Escuela Moderna’s creator, Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, among other
consequences.11
Mass education and training from pre-school education onwards became a key
tool in modernising society. Until the 1930s, efforts to modernise education, in gen-
eral, and early education, in particular, in Catalonia were also bolstered by other
schools of thought, such as Republicanism and Anarchism, which valued the impor-
tance of early childhood education from the vantage point of their own political and
social proposals, which had differences but also points in common. The spread of
early education and its modernisation were also supported by the emerging Catalan
feminist movement, which advocated women’s incorporation into social, cultural
and professional life.12
This reform movement in the field of education, which was promoted by public
Catalan institutions, such as the Barcelona Provincial Council, the Mancomunitat
(the association of the four Catalan Provincial Councils) and the Barcelona City
Council, found the many contributions of the Escuela Nueva – which had become
increasingly popular since the turn of the century – ideal for providing consistency
and a scientific grounding for modernising schools.
To disseminate new educational ideas, the Barcelona Provincial Council, pre-
sided by Prat de la Riba, created the Consell d’Investigació Pedagògica in 1913;
this was taken over and renamed the Consell de Pedagogia a year later by the
Mancomunitat. The Consell de Pedagogia, led by Eladi Homs, published the jour-
nals Quaderns d’estudi and Butlletí dels Mestres, which were powerful tools for dis-
seminating Escuela Nueva ideas. To ensure ongoing teacher training, the Escoles
d’Estiu (summer schools) Homs promoted also played an important role in dissemi-
nating new ideas in education as of 1914.
In 1913, the Barcelona Provincial Council, led by the Lliga Regionalista party
and presided over by Prat de la Riba, began to promote an ambitious project to
reform the Casa de Maternidad in Barcelona and change it from a gloomy
orphanage to an institution where the most advanced scientific principles inspired
by Montessori’s ideas would be applied to improve the care of the youngest,
most economically disadvantaged children. Although the project could not be
developed in its entirety, the nursery at the Casa de Maternidad would become a

11
It should be recalled that Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia’s Escuela Moderna functioned in
Barcelona from 1901 to 1909. The Escuela Moderna was one of the best-known anarchist-
based educational experiences in the world. Prominent among the most recent studies of Fer-
rer i Guàrdia, his pedagogy and his environment, is the monograph coordinated by Dr Pere
Solà on this subject, which was published in Issue 16 (July–December of 2010) of the jour-
nal Educació i Història. In 1905, María Montessori was one of the founders of the women’s
association “Pensiero e Azione” (Thought and Action), an organisation that primarily aimed
to promote women and demand their voting rights. One of the most important measures
taken by “Pensiero e Azione” was the support it provided Francesc Ferrer when he was
arrested for the first time in 1906 and accused of conspiracy. Foschi, “Science and Culture,”
242.
12
González-Agápito et al., Tradició i renovació pedagògica.
 Paedagogica Historica 575

frame of reference for disseminating Montessori’s pedagogical ideas from 1914

onward.
As Jordi Monés stated several years ago,13 Maria Montessori’s scientific peda-
gogy found a fertile field for dissemination in Catalonia in the early decades of the
twentieth century. The influence of sensuality in Montessori’s pedagogy – which
was a perfect fit with the individualistic attitude the method reveals in the impor-
tance it places on sensory activity and the spirituality implicit in sensualism – were
features that squarely matched the ideological schemes of the bourgeois idealism
that advocated noucentisme. The emphasis Montessori placed on children’s activity
and channelling the youngest children’s free spontaneity as a form of education was
interpreted as the ideal scientific way in which to bring order, harmony and disci-
pline to the chaotic, uncontrolled primal impulses natural to children. Striking a bal-
ance between freedom, order and discipline, both at the individual as well as social
levels, was at the core of the Catalan noucentista reform movement. The interest
the Montessori method sparked among Catalan nationalist groups was also rein-
forced by the importance attached to the mother tongue, which provided nationalists
with an argument to justify the introduction of the Catalan language in private edu-
cation and circumvent the ban in place on its use in official education. Joan Palau
Vera, a teacher influenced by the ideas of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and
member of the Consell d’Investigació Pedagògica who was firmly committed to the
noucentista education reform movement, played an important role in disseminating
the Montessori method. Palau Vera attended the first International Montessori
Course in Rome in 1913 on a grant from the Barcelona Provincial Council and
returned from it even more convinced of the excellent qualities of a method he had
already admired after reading Montessori’s book Il metodo della pedagogia scientif-
ica, which had been published in 1909. As a result of this trip, the Montessori
method was launched in two schools: Mont d’Or, a private school for children of
the bourgeoisie ran by Palau Vera himself, and the school at the Casa de Materni-
tat, an orphanage attached to the Barcelona Provincial Council.
In 1914, while the first pilot projects were being launched, Inspector Leonor
Serrano and seven teachers received grants from the Barcelona Provincial Council
and the Barcelona and Lerida City Councils to attend the second International
Montessori Course. Upon their return, they gave lectures on the method and taught
a course on Montessori’s ideas at the Summer School that year under Palau Vera’s
direction.14 Palau Vera also added to knowledge of Montessori’s method by translat-
ing her work into Spanish: El método de la pedagogía científica, La autoeducación
en la escuela and Antropología Pedagógica were first published in 1915. Earlier
that year, the Barcelona Provincial Council had created the Casa dels Nens as an
experimental school for applying the Montessori method. Anna Maccheroni, who
had worked with Montessori from the start, moved to Barcelona to direct it. In
1915, the Barcelona City Council also created the first Casa dels nens, which

13
Jordi Monés, El pensament escolar i la renovació pedagògica a Catalunya (1833–1938)
(Barcelona: La Magrana, 1977). Jordi Monés, “Some Aspects of the so called Pre-school
Education in Catalonia after 1939” (paper presented at the 4th Session of the International
Standing Conference for the History of Education, Budapest, 7–8 September 1982), History
of Pre-School Education 1: 281–94.
14
The Summer School to train teachers sponsored by the Mancommuniat of Catalonia as of
1914 was an alternative to the teaching offered by official teacher training colleges. It was
very open to Escuela Nueva influences and became a powerful tool in education reform.
576 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

followed Montessori’s teaching methods. In charge of this school was Mercè Cli-
ment, one of the retired teachers who had attended the course in Rome.
The method became popular very quickly, especially among private schools. By
1915, there were some 13 schools that followed the Montessori method in Barce-
lona. At this time, Maccheroni gave several courses on the method and published
articles in the journal Quaderns d’Estudi to disseminate it.15
Maria Montessori moved to Barcelona in late 1915 to prepare for the third Inter-
national Montessori Course, which was held early the following year. The course
had 185 attendees from Portugal, Italy, England, Scotland, Australia, Canada and
the United States as well as teachers from Catalonia, Mallorca and Navarre, most of
whom were subsidised by public agencies. It included theoretical and practical clas-
ses at the experimental school Maccheroni ran for the Barcelona Provincial Coun-
cil.16 As a result of this course, the Association of Friends of the Montessori
Method was created; it would be banned, along with the Provincial Council’s
Montessori school, by Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship in 1923 and restored in 1931
with the inauguration of the Second Spanish Republic.
Although the method’s educational aspects received widespread support, the use
of them by conservative Catalan nationalists raised eyebrows in official Spanish cir-
cles, on the one hand, and in the political sectors that opposed the Lliga Regionali-
sta’s policy, on the other. Non-Catalanist progressivism criticised the method’s
spiritualist aspects and the importance it attached to teaching religion and accused
its promoters of aiming to religiously indoctrinate children; at the same time, it
denounced the elitist nature of the pilot projects in private schools and the exclusive
use of Catalan in the courses organised to teach the method.17 The method’s dis-
semination was also criticised by the most reactionary sectors, which accused it of
turning against the Spanish educational tradition and serving the interests of Catalan
nationalism.
In 1917, the Barcelona City Council created another Montessori school, which
was run by Dolors Canals, who had attended the second International Montessori
Course in Rome. The following year, Montessori moved to Barcelona and was
appointed to several positions of a scientific nature by public Catalan institutions.18
Schools promoted by public institutions or civil or religious initiatives that applied
the Montessori method steadily grew in number until the start of the Second Repub-
lic in 1931. The study grants offered to educators by the Junta para Ampliación de
Estudios, an official body created in 1907, also helped disseminate the Montessori
method in Spain during this time.19
15
Quaderns d’Estudi was a pedagogy review published by the Barcelona Provincial Coun-
cil’s Pedagogy Council between 1915 and 1924. Its basically theoretical content aimed to
make the pioneering contributions of the pedagogy of the time available to teachers.
16
Alexandre Galí, Història de les institucions i del moviment cultural a Catalunya, 1900–
1936. Llibre II. Ensenyament primari. Tercera part (Barcelona: Fundació Alexandre Galí,
1979).
17
C. Cañellas and R. Toran, Política escolar de l’Ajuntament de Barcelona 1916–1936 (Bar-
celona: Ed. Barcanova, 1982), 71.
18
Josep González-Agápito, “Educación infantil e industrialización en Cataluña,” Historia de
la educación. Revista interuniversitaria 10 (1991): 135–54; Milagros Sáiz and Dolors Sáiz,
“La estancia de María Montessori en Barcelona: la influencia de su método en la psicopeda-
gogía catalana,” Revista de Historia de la Psicología 26, no. 2 (2005): 200–12.
19
Teresa Marín Eced, La renovación pedagógica en España (1907–1936): los pensionados
en pedagogía por la Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (Madrid: CSIC, 1990).
 Paedagogica Historica 577

Photo features on the Maria Montessori method

Photojournalism in Europe was born in the 1840s and developed hand in hand with
technical progress in reproducing print images and the evolution of the newspaper
and magazine industry.20
With the incorporation of colour engraving and photography, illustrated maga-
zines underwent huge changes in the late nineteenth century. In any case, the use of
engraving continued to prevail and photography was very rarely employed until the
early twentieth century. The use of photography spread quickly in magazines such
as La Ilustración Española y Americana and Blanco y Negro. One of the first pho-
tographers in Spain to work as a professional photojournalist was José Brangulí,
who, among his many other photos of early twentieth-century Barcelona, managed
to secretly photograph the trial that condemned Francesco Ferrer i Guardia to death;
the photos were published in La Campana de Gracia on 16 October, 1909.21 Pho-
tography embedded in reporting, which apparently was a faithful copy of reality,
would soon become a powerful means of persuasion and propaganda.22
On 10 April, 1912, Alrededor del Mundo magazine, a colourful, popular publi-
cation founded in Madrid in 1899 by Manuel Alhama Montes, sparked readers’
interest by paying special attention to reports about foreign countries and published
the first article with photographs on the Montessori method we have been able to
locate. Entitled “La Escuela Montessori” and subtitled “Donde se educan los niños
jugando,” it covered two pages and included six photographs of the Casa de Bam-
bini in Rome.23
The magazine that paid the most graphic attention to the Montessori method in
those years was Feminal, a women’s supplement in La Ilustració Catalana, a
monthly magazine published in Catalan in Barcelona, which had been directed by
impresario Francesc Matheu since 1883. Feminal first came out in April 1907 under
the direction of Carmen Karr i Alfonsetti (1865–1943), a journalist, writer, feminist,
musicologist and publicist.24 Karr, who belonged to Barcelona’s haute bourgeoisie,
was a representative of an active group of feminists with conservative positions
20
A review of the illustrated press has been conducted on the basis of the digitalised collec-
tions of the Biblioteca Nacional de España, http://www.bne.es/es/Catalogos/HemerotecaDigi-
tal/index.html, the Biblioteca de Cataluña, http://www.bnc.cat/digital/index.php, the local
publication collections of the Barcelona Provincial Council, http://www.diba.cat/xbcr/default.
htm, and the digital newspaper archives of ABC, http://hemeroteca.abc.es/, and La Vanguar-
dia, http://www.lavanguardia.es/hemeroteca/.
21
Dolores Sáiz, “Propaganda e imágen: los orígenes del fotoperiodismo,” Historia y comu-
nicación visual 4 (1999): 173–82.
22
Peter Szto, “Documentary Photography in American Social Welfare History: 1897–1943,”
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, Volume XXXV, n°2 (June 2008): 91–110.
23
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España:http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Madrid/Alrededor%20del%20mundo%20(Madrid)/1912/191204/
19120410/19120410_00000.pdf#page=1. In 1911, a number of articles that publicised the
Montessori method were published in McClure’s Magazine in the US, which was directed by
Samuel McClure. These articles were reproduced in other English language newspapers. Cunn-
ingham, “The Montessori Phenomenon”, 216–17.
24
M. Isabel Marrades, “Feminismo, prensa y sociedad en España,” Papers: revista de socio-
logía 9 (1978): 89–134. Carme Arnau, “Carme Karr i Feminal,” Revista de Catalunya 221
(October 2006): 85–96. Carme Panchón and Josep González-Agápito, “Carme Karr i el
feminisme com a problema d’educació social” in Pedagogia del segle XX en femení, ed.
Pilar Heras and Conrad Vilanou (Barcelona: Facultat de Pedagogia, Universitat de Barcelona,
2000), 31–6.
578 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

who did not question women’s traditional roles as mothers and wives, yet called, at
the same time, for women to take their place in professional fields, culture, society
and politics. To achieve this, they advocated a solid, wide-ranging education for
women that would allow them greater independence.
Possibly the first article on the Montessori method to appear in a Spanish maga-
zine was published without illustrations in Feminal on 24 September, 1911. This
first article, entitled “Costures moderns” and signed by magazine contributor Josep
Alemany i Borras,25 presented the method’s characteristics and highlighted the fact
that by giving children freedom, Montessori managed to maintain a high degree of
discipline among them.26 Feminal published another article on Montessori, entitled
“Una obra mundial femenina”, also without photographs, on 28 April, 1912.27 The
second illustrated report on the Montessori method (after the one published in Alre-
dedor del Mundo magazine in 1912) did not come out until Feminal’s issue on 26
July, 1914. As mentioned, the method’s first pilot projects were launched in Barce-
lona in 1914, and a contingent of Catalan teachers attended the second International
Montessori Course that year and taught various conferences on the method upon
their return. The application of the Montessori method, the congress and the Catalan
teachers who attended it, were the central motifs of Feminal’s seven-page article.
Montessori can be seen in the accompanying photographs teaching a practical class
in front of a large audience of women, some of whom are sitting on the floor and
others standing, while some infants are sitting on a mat on the floor forming words
with an alphabet of cut-out letters. Another group of children is wearing pinafores
and holding hands as they go outside to play. A third photograph was taken of sev-
eral children looking at a pond in the garden. Two photographs show a boy and a
girl working together in the kitchen. This series of photographs of activities at the
Montessori school in Rome is completed with photos of small children playing in
the garden and eating outdoors. The article also reproduces a full-page photo of the
group attending the course, with Maria Montessori in the centre and a group of tod-
dlers sitting on the floor, plus a photo of all the Catalan teachers who attended the
course. The text accompanying the photos extols the virtues of the Montessori
method, emphasising its innovative nature and highlighting the warm reception it
had been given in Catalonia. It also provided a summary of the conference courses
the attendees taught upon their return.28
On 27 September, 1914, Feminal magazine again devoted a lengthy article to
the Montessori method, this time in relation to the experiences at the Casa de la
Maternidad in Barcelona. The article included several photos of classrooms with

25
In colloquial Catalan, the word “costuras” refers to basic schools and is a term that derives
from the household tasks that made up the traditional curriculum in basic schools for girls.
26
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España:http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3%20catalana,%20La/1911/191109/
19110924/19110924_00433.pdf#page=1.
27
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España:http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3%20catalana,%20La/1912/191204/
19120428/19120428_00464.pdf#page=1.
28
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España:http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3%20catalana,%20La/1914/191407/
19140726/19140726_00581.pdf#page=1.
 Paedagogica Historica 579

students engaged in writing and rhythm exercises, playing with building blocks or
setting tables for lunch.29 Figure 1 and 2
On 28 June, 1915, a separate article appeared in La Ilustración Artística,
another illustrated magazine from Barcelona, to mark the beginning of the applica-
tion of the Montessori method in Barcelona’s municipal infant school, run by tea-
cher Celestina Vigneaux i Cibils, who had attended the Montessori International
Course of 1914. The article included photographs of the official event and children
engaging in various activities indoors and outdoors under their teacher’s watchful
eye.30 This event was also publicised in newspaper articles in the Madrid press and
in La Esfera magazine, which published on 3 July a chronicle with photographic
documentation that included some of the same photographs of the event as those
published by La Ilustración Artística.31
Feminal paid graphic attention again to Maria Montessori on 30 January, 1916 in
an article on her visit to Barcelona to prepare the international course on her method
that would be held there that year. This time, the photographs showed Montessori
herself watching a child engaged in sensory exercises, and there were several photo-
graphs of the Casa dels nens founded by the Barcelona Provincial Council.32 On 22
May, 1916, La Ilustración Artística reproduced a photo of the banquet held in Barce-
lona in tribute to Montessori at the close of the international course.33 On 30 July,
1916, in keeping with its line of presenting prominent professional women, Feminal
published a photograph of the studio of young Ernestina Corma, who had finished
her teaching training and obtained a diploma as Specialist in the Montessori Method
at the international course in Barcelona.34 On 10 December, 1916, Ilustració Catala-
na published an article with photographs on the free school in the Catalan town of
Rubí, in whose infant school the Montessori method was applied.35
As of 1917, interest in photographically reproducing events related to the appli-
cation of the Montessori method waned. This may have been due, in part, to the
demise of Feminal as a result of economic problems created by the outbreak of the
First World War. From 1920 onwards, interest in images of the method revived
somewhat, and a number of photos of social events related to Montessori’s presence
29
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España:http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3%20catalana,%20La/1914/191409/
19140927/19140927_00590.pdf#page=1.
30
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España:http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3n%20art%C3%ADstica/1915/191506/
19150628/19150628_00000.pdf#page=1.
31
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Madrid/Esfera,%20La%20(Madrid.%201914)/1915/191507/
19150703/19150703_00079.pdf#page=1.
32
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3%20catalana,%20La/1916/191601/
19160130/19160130_00660.pdf#page=1.
33
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3n%20art%C3%ADstica/1916/191605/
19160522/19160522_00000.pdf#page=1.
34
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3%20catalana,%20La/1916/191607/
19160730/19160730_00686.pdf#page=1.
35
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Barcelona/Ilustraci%C3%B3%20catalana,%20La/1916/191612/
19161210/19161210_00705.pdf#page=1.
580 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

Figure 1 and 2. Montessori experiences at the Casa de Maternidad in Barcelona.

Note: Feminal, supplement of Ilustració Catalana, September 27, 1914, digital newspaper
archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España.
in Barcelona came out in magazines – for example, the article in Mundo Gráfico on
31 March, 1920.36 On 28 August, 1920, La Esfera published an article entitled
36
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Madrid/Mundo%20gr%C3%A1fico/1920/192003/19200331/
19200331_00000.pdf#page=1.
 Paedagogica Historica 581

“Petición a los ayuntamientos. ¡cread la ‘casa del niño’” that included photographs
of children engaged in Montessori exercises; the source of the photos was not
cited.37 On 11 July, 1920, Blanco y Negro, one of the most widely circulated
illustrated publications of the day, published an article by R. Cordoba entitled
“Las escuelas de párvulos Montessori” on the method’s growing popularity in other
countries. The photographs in the article, which showed children engaged in exer-
cises with Montessori materials in Montessori schools apparently outside of Spain,
have not been located.38 Although, on 6 July, 1928 an article by writer Concha
Espina on the infant school in Madrid, published in Nuevo Mundo, referred to the
Montessori method;39 the establishment of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship in 1923
had halted its dissemination, and articles on it in the print media did not re-appear
until the last months of the dictatorship. Two reports came out in May 1929: one in
La Esfera on 4 May40 and another in Mundo Gráfico on 29 May. The first included
an interview with Montessori dated the month before in Barcelona and conducted
by Escuelas Normales teacher and Catalan Inspector Carmen Isern Galceran, who
had been delegated by the Spanish government to attend a number of international
conferences on child protection. The interview was illustrated with photos of
Montessori schools in the Netherlands and India and a few others whose location
was not indicated. Journalist Braulio Solsona’s article in Mundo Gráfico focused on
the forest schools in Guinardó Park in Barcelona, where Montessori elements were
also applied together with the Decroly method. Photographs signed by Gaspar
(Gaspar Josep i Serra) show the school facilities and children engaged in activi-
ties.41 Figure 3.
After the inauguration of the Second Republic in 1931 – a brilliant stage for
education in Spain – the Montessori method was still in use, but the leading role it
had enjoyed during the previous two decades, above all in Catalonia, was lost in
favour of other Escuela Nueva methods.

The photographic iconography of the Montessori method in the Spanish

illustrated press
The features of the iconic discourse on the Montessori method in those years can
be reconstructed by analysing the photographs and accompanying texts of the illus-
trated reports mentioned above within their particular historical contexts and specific

37
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Madrid/Esfera,%20La%20(Madrid.%201914)/1920/192008/
19200828/19200828_00347.pdf#page=1.
38
ABC newspaper archives:http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/
blanco.y.negro/1920/07/11/003.html.
39
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Madrid/Nuevo%20Mundo%20(Madrid)/1928/192807/19280706/
19280706_00000.pdf#page=1.
40
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Madrid/Esfera,%20La%20(Madrid.%201914)/1929/192905/
19290504/19290504_00800.pdf#page=1.
41
Digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España: http://hemerotecadigital.
bne.es/datos1/numeros/internet/Madrid/Mundo%20gr%C3%A1fico/1929/192905/19290529/
19290529_00000.pdf#page=1.
582 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

Figure 3. Article on the Forest Schools at Guinardó Park in Barcelona, where elements of
the Montessori method were applied along with the Decroly method. Note Mundo Gráfico,
May 29, 1929, digital newspaper archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

ideological coordinates. As Joseph Coquoz noted, the proponents of Escuela Nueva

ideas used images very consciously to convey their break with traditional educa-
tion.42 Escuela Nueva apologists preached their faith in a sometimes simplistic man-
ner through all the resources they had at hand. This simplicity is even more evident
when we analyse the dissemination of their ideas for a lay audience, as in this case.
The advocacy of children’s autonomy, children’s capacity for learning and assimilat-
ing values without the need for external pressures, freedom as a fundamental educa-
tional tool, the importance of exercise, play and free spaces and the teacher’s
discreet intervention are ideas that come up time and time again in the texts and are
illustrated in the images. These principles are sacred in Montessori’s case. Her con-
fidence in the innate goodness of the young was so strong that she trusted that their
intellectual, physical, emotional and religious training would come as the result of a
natural process that merely required the removal of obstacles in the way. The educa-
tor only needed to create a propitious environment and climate and provide tools
and materials to develop children’s skills.
The political and social discourse of the Catalan bourgeois reformers who sup-
ported the spread of the method was strengthened by the simplistic interpretation of
Montessori principles disseminated in the texts and photographs. Discipline in the
classroom could be achieved without coercion in the same way that social
discipline – at a time convulsed by social tensions and clashes with the labour
movement – could be achieved by educating the masses. Furthermore, the

Joseph Coquoz, “Un modèle suisse ‘d’Ecole active’ durant l’entre-deux-guerres: images et
42

mirages,” Paedagogica Historica 36, no.1 (2000): 369–88.

 Paedagogica Historica 583

reformers’ educational projects, tinged with the reformist tone of a pedagogy that
proclaimed its scientific basis, could compete more successfully and prestigiously
with a traditional state education that was a poor match for their economic and cul-
tural interests. The modernisation of education by applying scientifically endorsed
principles was another way to vindicate a general modernisation demanded by an
industrial economy such as the one that drove the Catalan bourgeoisie, which the
oligarchies who controlled the Spanish central government did not provide. In
recounting the method’s introduction, even Alexandre Galí, one of the advocates of
the educational project of Catalan noucentisme in those years, said: “The creation
of the Montessori School stirred a world of enthusiasms, suspicions, jealousies or
envies and ironies and malicious insinuations, all under an unfortunate propaganda
born of immoderate enthusiasm.”43 His chronicle of events, related to the Montesso-
ri method’s introduction, spoke a little ironically of the magic halo that surrounded
the first experiences and how some had expected at each step – as if at the sanctu-
ary of Lourdes – the miracle of seeing children playing freely and suddenly, com-
posing the word “mother” with letters on felt. In an article published in Quaderns
d’estudi in 1920, Palau Vera, who was in charge of the first pilot projects with
orphans at the Casa de Maternidad, also provided examples of how the discourse
on freedom and this discourse’s ideological background was magnified within the
context of a society with strong social tensions; he stated that although he had
always relied on human capabilities, he never would have thought that by giving
freedom to children who had never had any, they would go spontaneously from
unfettered, uncoordinated impulses to order, harmony and discipline44 – the order,
harmony and discipline that the Catalan bourgeoisie of those years would have
liked to have enjoyed in society as well.
The way in which photography was used to build this discourse is revealed by a
photo montage of two photographs included in Palau Vera’s article.
The picture at the top of Figure 4 shows infant school students sitting tidily and
quietly on benches (gallery)45 with a caption that added the phrase “The false disci-
pline of sterile quietism” under the title of “Traditional infant school”. The picture
at the bottom of Figure 4 is a snapshot of the same children, spread across the floor
in front of the blackboard or sitting at small tables engaged in typical Montessori
activities. In this case, the photo’s caption indicates that it is the same class trans-
formed by the Montessori method and adds the phrase “The true discipline of free
activity applied to self-education work”. In both cases, the scene is being watched
by Paulist nuns in their bulky habits and robes, so uncomfortable for participating
in childhood activities. The opposition between the two photographs is clearly exag-

43
Galí, Història de les institucions, 52.
44
Joan Palau Vera, “Un assaig d’aplicació del métode Montessori a la casa de Maternitat de
Barcelona,” Quaderns d’Estudi, no. 39 (April 1920): 17.
45
The images recall the classroom organisation and space devoted to the simultaneous teach-
ing introduced by Samuel Wildespin in the English infant schools that were especially dis-
seminated in Spain by Pablo Montesino, an author who included prints of this classroom
arrangement in his book Manual para los maestros de escuelas de párvulos, escrito en vir-
tud de acuerdo de la Sociedad encargada de propagar y mejorar la educación del pueblo
(Madrid: Imprenta Nacional, 1840). In many cases, the Montesino method had already been
replaced by Froebel’s method, but the photograph clearly aims to underscore how innovative
the Montessori method was in relation to more traditional systems.
584 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

Figure 4. Photography montage published in the article by Joan Palau Vera: “Un assaig
d’aplicació del métode Montessori a la casa de Maternitat de Barcelona” Quaderns d’Estudi,
no. 39 (April 1920): 17. Note Image on loan from Biblioteca Rosa Sensat.

gerated, and in both cases, their compositions were studied carefully to achieve the
desired effects.
In the end, the “immoderate enthusiasms” of which Galí spoke took their toll;
the method’s image deteriorated and its application was eventually criticised by
 Paedagogica Historica 585

Inspector Leonor Serrano herself, who had participated in the Montessori introduc-
tion in Catalonia, which M. del M. del Pozo Andrés has studied in depth.46
The photographic iconography of the introduction of the Montessori method in
Spain and throughout Europe and the United States always combined the same ele-
ments: the children’s individual or collective autonomy – children focused on han-
dling Montessori materials on their own or under the watchful eye of their teachers,
who let them work by themselves – order, discipline and cleanliness; and land-
scaped outdoor spaces or well lit, aesthetically decorated indoor rooms. This ico-
nography reinforced the sacred value of respect for children’s freedom as a means
for achieving their development. It was a graphic discourse that translated a certain
“method-centric focus” that considered the method capable of achieving the best
results, silencing those, even Maria Montessori herself, who emphasised the need
for trained teachers to properly implement the method’s pedagogical principles. This
mythology eventually included the belief that the mere invocation of the Montessori
name would produce the miracle of children developing their skills fully and freely.
The first pilot Montessori projects at the Casa de Maternidad in Barcelona ended
up in the hands of Paulist nuns, and in many cases, Montessori’s name was used to
give the gloss of modernity to traditional infant schools run by religious congrega-
tions. Only when the method was applied by well-trained teachers was it able to
deliver its full benefits.
The above analysis can be completed with a reflection on the symbolism of the
photographs of the Montessori experience displayed in the Catalan press during this
time, of which only a few examples have been shown here. Many more photo-
graphs in digital format can be downloaded from the journals cited herein at the
websites indicated in the footnotes.47 In general, in Montessori’s case, the dissemi-
nation of the new pedagogical ideas that were reaching Spain from the early twenti-
eth century onward would clearly introduce its own iconography and a new graphic
grammar that would be promoted by the popularisation of photography. If groups
of students formed a unit of identity and activity in images of traditional schools –
an image represented by photographs of the entire class group presided over by the
teacher or professor – in contrast, the individual student is discovered and portrayed
alone or in groups engaged in activity in the new symbology of the active school.
In the case of the Montessori method, the importance attached to students’ individ-
ual work is especially evident. If order and immobility were symbolic elements of
traditional schools, activity and movement become elements that could be photo-
graphed without calling into question a school’s reputation or teacher’s professional-
ism with the dissemination of new educational ideas. While traditional school
spaces clearly marked the difference between inside and outside, in photographs of
innovative schools, especially Montessori’s, the space outside the school, as well as
open spaces, become as important as traditional indoor spaces and were at least
equally worthy of hosting educational activities. Furthermore, outdoor spaces –

46
María del Mar del Pozo Andrés, “La escuela nueva en España: crónica y semblanza de un
mito,” Historia de la Educación. Revista Interuniversitaria 22–23 (2003–2004): 317–46.
47
Not only were photographs of the Montessori experience published in the press, but books
such as the following also included them: Mútua Escolar Blanquerna, Escola Montessori
escola graduada plans, programes, organització, sistemes d’ensenyament i resultats
(Barcelona: Tipografia Catalana, 1925). También: Ajuntament de Barcelona, L’Escola públi-
ca de Barcelona i el mètode Montessori (Barcelona : Ajuntament de Barcelona, Comissió de
Cultura, 1933).
586 F. Comas Rubí and B. Sureda García

courtyards, gardens, nature itself – were educational spaces par excellence on many
occasions. The outdoors as a space for experiences – academic and extracurricular
– became new education’s privileged symbolic setting.
We can also broach the value of these photographs as historical sources. Even
from a positivist view of history, they tell us about how the introduction of the
Montessori method went hand in hand with the use of airy, spacious, well-decorated
spaces that incorporated flowers and plants. We also show the wide range of materi-
als the method used and more flexible distribution of children in the space in vari-
ous positions: sitting in chairs in front of child-sized tables, playing on the go or
sitting on the floor. But the photographs analysed are not only “objective” or “sub-
jective” testimonies to the reality they represent as written documents, but, rather,
their use demonstrates how certain groups wished to reinforce the written discourse
and “impress” readers by highlighting the novel, valuable nature of the method they
aimed to introduce.

Conclusion
Aside from the debate on the reliability of photographs as historical evidence, this
article analyses photography as an element in the modernising discourse in the field
of education and the use made of it to disseminate and popularise certain practices
based on the interests of particular social or political groups. In this case, the
photographs’ value does not lie in their ability to provide objective information on
historical events, but, rather, their precise potential to reinforce a subjective,
ideology-laced discourse that intended to influence public opinion. Photography,
which would gradually be introduced as an important complement to texts in illus-
trated magazines during the 1920s, provided a new code with the capacity to com-
pose meanings that supported the discourse and text messages. In this case,
studying the photographs in illustrated articles on the dissemination of the
Montessori method in Catalonia in the first decades of the twentieth century helps
us understand that the education reform represented by the Escuela Nueva and
varying degrees of attention paid to its different methods were not based exclusively
on scientific grounds, independent of collective interests and power groups.

Notes on contributors
Francesca Comas Rubí is an associate professor of theory and history of education at the
University of the Balearic Islands and a member of the History and Education Studies
Group at the UIB. Her research has focused on topics related to the education reform
movement in the twentieth century (pedagogical trips, teacher biographies, didactic
innovations, etc) and she has published numerous books and articles on these topics in
specialised scientific journals. Comas Rubí is currently vice-president of the Association of
Education History in Catalan-Speaking Lands and secretary of the Spanish Society for the
Study of Educational-Historic Heritage). Address: Faculty of Education. Edificio Guillem
Cifre de Colonya (UIB Campus). Ctra. Valldemossa, Km.7.5, Palma de Mallorca (07122).
Balearic Islands (Spain). e-mail: xisca.comas@uib.es

Bernat Sureda García is a professor of theory and history of education at the University of
the Balearic Islands and the director of the History and Education Studies Group at the UIB.
His research career in the past thirty years has focused on themes such as the origins of the
education system in Spain, textbooks, youth movements, education reform in the twentieth
century and images as a source in education history. He has published numerous books and
articles on these topics in specialised scientific journals. Sureda García is a member of the
 Paedagogica Historica 587

editorial boards of the journals Historia de la educación. Revista interuniversitaria and

History of Education & Children Literature and director of the journal Educació i Història.
Address: Faculty of Education. Edificio Guillem Cifre de Colonya (UIB Campus). Ctra.
Valldemossa, Km.7.5, Palma de Mallorca (07122). Balearic Islands (Spain). e-mail: bernat.
sureda@uib.es