Military training to train citizens useful to the nation at the Military Industrial School of San Luis Potosí during the Porfiriato

Abstract

During the Porfiriato, various pedagogical practices were established within the educational project, one of them was military instruction, a subject that has been little explored. The analysis on the function of military instruction brings new approaches to the historiography of education and to the study of the State project aimed at the formation of disciplined and moralized citizens. This article analyzes the implementation of military training within the Porfirian educational project, highlighting the following axes of analysis; what was its function and use within public education, how military training put into practice, and what was was the interest of the government of San Luis Potosí, in educating children and young people under the disciplinary devices of instruction military. In the first part, we analyze the Porfirian pedagogical project, based on positivism, which permeated the implementation of devices aimed at forming good citizens, with love for the country and useful to the industry. In the second part we examine daily life within the disciplinary methods of military instruction, and in the third part we analyze the role of space as a punitive, disciplinary and teaching place.