Escoltisme, lleure i educació a Menorca (1913-1936) = Scouting, leisure and education in Menorca (1913-1936)

Abstract

Scouting was introduced to Minorca in 1913 in the form of Exploradors d'Espanya: a body created just one year before by the Spanish State. The aim of this paper is to offer an initial insight into activities carried out by scouts on the island in the educational fields of nature and recreation from the creation of the organization through to the beginning of the Spanish Civil War within the framework of the general development of scouting in nearby areas and, more specifically, the form that was adopted in Minorca. By way of a summary, both in its initial stage between 1913 and 1921 and second stage between 1925 and 1936, scouting in Minorca was closely related to the Ateneu Científic, Literari i Artístic de Maó; the association through which it was introduced to the island, in whose headquarters the Comitè Local de Maó d'Exploradors d'Espanya was based. This was because, wishing to exert an educational influence on the young that went further than school education, the Ateneu raised the possibility of a programme of free-time educational activities in the countryside through the introduction of a scout movement on the island, with the creation in 1913 of the Comitè Local d'Exploradors d'Espanya, at the request of military officer Llorenç Lafuente Vanrell. Soon personalities associated with the Ateneu de Maó who belonged to Minorca's military corps, took the movement over, clearly militarizing it. This was more than evident if we bear in mind the scout system that was adopted, since the Exploradors d'Espanya represented the militarist Spanish nationalist modality of the scout movement in Spain. Despite this, its initial development in Minorca should be understood within the context of a spirit of educational renewal, since other people associated with the movement from the world of education, like Antoni Juan Alemany and Mateu Fontirroig Jordà, brought scouting to schools. Indeed, the first two groups of scouts that were created in Maó were run by the two teachers. Consequently, together with school camps, they might be considered the first signs of new educational practices in Minorca outside the boundaries of schools. This first period of the scouting movement in Minorca should perhaps be considered the most fructiferous and interesting, from an educational point of view. Whatever the case, the movement entered a decline and disappeared in 1921, and scouting activities did not recommence until 1925, in the midst of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, under the auspices of the authorities back then. During this second stage of scouting in Minorca, some primary and secondary school teachers were also involved in it (like the aforementioned Mateu Fontirroig Jordà, Francesc Cardona Carreras, Emiliano Castaños Fernández, Joan Hernández Mora and Francesc Seguí Coll). The scout movement in Minorca disappeared when the Spanish Civil War broke out. It must be remembered that many of its heads and scout leaders at the time were military officers associated with conservative-thinking circles in Maó, which meant that the movement did not count on the approval of the authorities.