The ideal of the practical : Colombia's struggle to form a technical elite / Frank Safford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Safford, Frank, 1935- author.

Series:

Latin American monographs (University of Texas at Austin. Institute of Latin American Studies) ; Number 39.

Latin American Monographs ; Number 39

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Technical education--Colombia--History.

Technical education.

Colombia--Economic conditions.

Colombia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (392 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Austin, [Texas] : University of Texas Press, 1976.

Summary:

The Ideal of the Practical is a study of efforts by a segment of the upper class in an aristocratic Latin American society to alter cultural values in the society, creating stronger orientations toward the technical and the practical. Frank Safford describes attempts by members of Colombia’s nineteenth-century political elite to use technical education as a means of nurturing energetic upper-class entrepreneurs and an industrious working class in a static agrarian economy. In the course of his analysis, Safford sketches the historical development of scientific and technical education and of the engineering profession in Colombia. The book opens with a description of the economic and social context of early nineteenth-century Colombia. It then discusses some early experiments with manual industrial training between 1820 and 1850. Later chapters deal with the careers of upper-class youths sent abroad for scientific and technical training, the growth of indigenous engineering education, and the crystallization of a Colombian engineering profession. While the book primarily explores the nineteenth century, it also touches on eighteenth-century Spanish Bourbon antecedents and provides an epilogue on the twentieth-century evolution of technical elites in Colombia. The author focuses on the reasons why the implantation of technical education and technical orientations proved difficult. He examines the interplay between various obstructions: on the one hand, a hierarchical social structure and aristocratic social values and, on the other, obstructions created by fundamental geographic and economic conditions. He concludes that, while Colombian leaders had hoped that technical education and the development of values oriented toward the technical would spearhead economic growth, in fact economic growth proved a prerequisite for the effective implantation of technical orientations and training.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Tables and Maps

Preface

Conventions Followed

Introduction

Part One Colombia: Its Geography and Society

Chapter 1 Opportunities and Incentives

Part Two Moral and Industrial Education

Chapter 2 Learning to Work

Part Three Academic Science for the Upper Class: Bourbons and Neo-Bourbons

Chapter 3 The Enlightenment in New Granada

Chapter 5 The Decline of Neo-Bourbonism

Part Four The Origins of a Colombian Engineering Profession

Chapter 6 Study Abroad

Chapter 7 The Colegio Militar

Chapter 8 Stumbling Progress, 1863-1903

Chapter 9 A Place for Engineers

Epilogue

Appendixes

APPENDIX 1. Prominent Public Figures Who Promoted Technical Education, 1821-1864

APPENDIX 2. Students in the Care of Gen. Pedro Alcántara Herrán, 1848-1863

APPENDIX 3. Careers of Prominent Alumni of Colegio Militar, 1848-1854 (for whom data are available)

Notes

Glossary

Bibliographic Note

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781477304839

1477304835

OCLC:

1286807366