The «Gramàtica» of Salvador Puig (1770), textbook of the Episcopal School of Barcelona

Abstract

This is intended to be a contribution to the pedagogy and school practice of the Enlightenment, in the design and use of manuals or text books. This is carried out by focusing on a «promptuari» [handbook] of the time – the episcopate of the Enlightenment bishop, Josep Climent, in Barcelona –in the seventies of the 18th
century. We are speaking about: Gramática castellana –actually a bilingual text Catalan/Spanish– by Dr Salvador Puig, professor and close collaborator with Climent, at the headquarters of the Episcopal School. Gramática contains a prologue by the author which is valuable, not only for its didactic suggestions or formal declarations regarding the pedagogy of the time, but also due to the bibliographic reference to the driving force behind the publication: Dr. Climent i Avinent, who had since his time as professor of Thomist philosophy at the Estudi General de València stood out for his love of study and books. Even though Salvador Puig attempts to present the publication as a modest one –«Obrita» [small work] he calls it– by arguing the short
time he had to write it –due to the «hurry» Climent was in to have it– and the fact that the grammatical study of language was not what, as a professor of rhetoric, he mastered, Gramática became, finally, an emblematic and significant publication, in
accordance with the Bourbon proclamation of the official status of Spanish and the effort of some –Climent included– to preserve the survival of Catalan.

KEY WORDS: Josep Climent, pedagogy of the Enlightenment, bilingualism, Didactics, grammatical study of language, Pragmatics, Catalan Language.