L'Ensenyament a la Universitat Lliure de Girona (1870-1874) = The education in the Free University of Girona (1870-1874)

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century, the way in which the principles of equality and freedom of education were regulated by Spanish law shows us those areas where church and state, conservatives and revolutionaries, faced off for the control of youth; it also shows us how education was crucial to the future of society for the men who lived in these ages. Among the first legal provisions in the Spanish revolutionary sexennium (1868-1874), we can find the decree of freedom to teach on October 21, 1868, which declared free education at all levels: freedom to establish schools and universities, the freedom to use textbooks and educational methods, freedom of students to attend lectures, enrolling in the subjects they want, and the possibility that all universities could provide the degree of doctor. In this context, and under the revolutionary educational policy of liberal sexennium, a university was born and lived for four years from 1870 to 1874, the Universitat Lliure de Girona (The Girona Open University). This University claimed to be the heir to the ancient university closed down by the king Felipe V, and it tried to find its place in the complex ideological Catalan and Spanish map in the sexennium. In this article, through the general profile of the Universitat Lliure de Girona students, we'll see whether higher education really extended to more popular layers; analysis of the geographical origin of students we'll show us the impact of Universitat Lliure de Girona in a map focused in Barcelona; number of students will explain us the need for the existence of such educational institution; academic performance of students, number of failures, degrees and doctorates will explain if this university was able to maintain standards of higher education; finally, the career of some of the students who studied at the Universitat Lliure de Girona will give us a good sample of the results of this educational institution. Along this analysis we'll see whether or not it was possible to establish a university far from the canons of scientific and academic orthodoxy settled in the precedent Elizabethan ages. After this reading we should be able to determine whether or not Universitat Lliure de Girona could meet the educational needs in Girona of the last third of the nineteenth century, while maintaining the requirements and demands of higher education. Concluding, it will deliver us the chance to define the borders between the formal and real freedom of the education policy of the revolutionaries of the liberal sexennium.