TO PLANT, TRANSLATE, MINE: ANÍSIO TEIXEIRA (1935-1947) ¹

ABSTRACT:

We take Anísio Teixeira as a hub, from which we aim to design the configuration of networks, linking subjects and institutions. We choose the period from 1935 to 1947, scrutinizing the editorial work he carried out for Companhia Editora Nacional (CEN), based on documentation from the publisher’s collection at the Center for Memory and Historical Research of the History of UNIFESP; as well as documents about Anísio’s brief stay at UNESCO, form July 15, 1946 to February 15, 1947, existing at CPDOC-FGV and at the UNESCO Archives. The text is structured in two: in the first part, we highlight Anísio's work in CEN: in the second one, the focus shifts to his career at UNESCO. In both, it is the mobile web of networks that drives the writing, guided by an argument based on the transnational history of education. It is important to highlight that when we address the reflection to a transnational perspective, we are not neglecting the national space, nor placing Brazil in a peripheral position with respect to a supposed center that disseminates knowledge. On the contrary, we intend to reconfigure the territory based on the experiences of the subjects, the exchanges established, problematizing the confinement of physical borders in the organization of the educational field, in a time marked by the spread of authoritarian governments, war and reconstruction efforts on a global scale.

Keywords:
UNESCO; Companhia Editora Nacional; Biblioteca do Espírito Moderno; Transnational History of Education; Network theory

RESUMO:

Tomamos Anísio Teixeira como um hub, a partir do qual almejamos desenhar a configuração de redes, enlaçando sujeitos e instituições. Elegemos o período entre 1935 e 1947, esmiuçando o trabalho editorial que realizou para Companhia Editora Nacional (CEN), a partir da documentação do acervo da editora, depositado no Centro de Memória e Pesquisa Histórica da Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp); bem como os documentos sobre a breve passagem de Anísio pela Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (Unesco), entre 15 de julho de 1946 e 15 de fevereiro de 1947, existentes no Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC-FGV) e no Unesco Archives. O texto está estruturado em duas partes: na primeira parte, ressaltamos a atuação de Anísio junto à CEN; na segunda, o foco se desloca para sua trajetória na Unesco. Em ambas, é a trama móvel das redes que conduz a escrita, guiada por uma argumentação alicerçada na história transnacional da educação. É importante realçar que ao endereçarmos a reflexão para a perspectiva transnacional, não estamos descurando do espaço nacional, nem colocando o Brasil na posição periférica com respeito a um suposto centro difusor de saber. Ao contrário, pretendemos reconfigurar o território a partir das experiências dos sujeitos, das trocas estabelecidas, problematizando o confinamento das fronteiras físicas na organização do campo educacional, em uma época marcada pela disseminação de governos autoritários, guerra e esforço de reconstrução em escala mundial.

Palavras-chave:
Unesco; Companhia Editora Nacional; Biblioteca do Espírito Moderno; História Transnacional da Educação e Teoria das redes

RESUMEN:

Tomamos a Anísio Teixeira como hub, desde donde pretendemos diseñar la configuración de redes, vinculando sujetos e instituciones. Nosotros elegimos el período comprendido entre 1935 y 1947, escudriñando la labor editorial que realizó para la Compañía Editora Nacional (CEN), a partir de documentación del fondo de la editorial, depositada en el Centro de Memoria e Investigaciones Históricas de la UNIFESP; así como documentos sobre la breve estancia de Anísio en la Unesco, entre el 15/07/ 1946 y el 15/03/1947, existentes en el CPDOC-FGV y en el Archivo de la Unesco. El texto se estructura en dos partes: en la primera parte destacamos el trabajo de Anísio en la CEN; en el segundo, la atención se centra en su carrera en la Unesco. En ambas, es la red móvil de redes la que impulsa la escritura, guiada por un argumento basado en la historia transnacional de la educación. Es importante resaltar que cuando dirigimos la reflexión a una perspectiva transnacional, no estamos descuidando el espacio nacional, ni colocando a Brasil en una posición periférica respecto de un supuesto centro difusor de conocimientos. Por el contrario, pretendemos reconfigurar el territorio a partir de las experiencias de los sujetos, de los intercambios establecidos, problematizando el confinamiento de las fronteras físicas en la organización del campo educativo, en una época marcada por la expansión de gobiernos autoritarios, la guerra y los esfuerzos de reconstrucción a escala mundial.

Palabras clave:
Unesco; Companhia Editora Nacional; Biblioteca do Espírito Moderno; Historia Transnacional de la Educación; Teoría de redes

INTRODUCTION

The biographical production about Anísio Teixeira is substantial² and quite comprehensive about his work as an educational politician and philosopher of education. However, despite the diversity with which they retrace the educator’s trajectory, we can identify a double gap.

The first is factual and refers to the interstice between 1935 and 1947. Indeed, the authors refer to Anísio’s self-exile in Bahia, when, after passing through Argentina, he returned to Ituaçu to dedicate himself to translation of books and, in the following years, the family business, alternating between Caetité and Salvador running, together with the brothers Jaime and Nelson, the Sociedade Importadora e Exportadora (SIMEL), a mineral export company and importer of locomotives and railway material. Biographers also highlight the invitation made by Julian Huxley for Teixeira to become an Advisor for education at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1946. However, there is nothing more than brief mentions in a narrative whose central focus is the participation of the educator in the national educational and political scene before and after these years.

The second gap is historiographical and is influenced by what Martin Lawn (2014) call methodological nationalism. It cannot be denied that references are made to trips abroad, such as to Europe in 1925 or to the United States (USA) in 1927; that particular emphasis is given to receiving the title of Master of Arts from the Teacher’s College of Columbia University (TC/UC), after two years of study between 1928 and 1929; and the period spent as an Advisor at UNESCO, between 1946 and 1947; or even highlighting his time as a professor at American universities in the 1960s. The episodes emerge as elements of Anísio’s professional life. They are interesting insofar as they inform the constitution of the educator’s thinking and reiterate the internationally important position that was raised, legitimizing its importance for Brazilian education. Therefore, Teixeira’s international transit does not appear within the scope of a transnational history of education, in which the circuit of networks offers clues to the perception of how the educational arena was configured, interweaving national and international initiatives in mutual fertilization.

It is this panorama that we aim to outline in this article. We do not intend a biographical immersion. Differently, we propose to take Anísio as a hub, from which we aim to design the configuration of networks, linking subjects and institutions. In network theory, hubs are “attractive nodes” that have the potential to disseminate trends and information, with numerous personal contacts and the ability to influence connections. They can designate individuals, groups, corporations, or any type of collective (BARABÁSI, 2003). However, in the dynamics of networks, what is considered a hub may also present itself as a node, shifting the analysis perspective. Thus, alternating between the position as a node or hub, Anísio Teixeira catalyzes our vision in understanding the interconnections in the educational field.

We analyze the period between 1935 and 1947, scrutinizing the editorial work he carried out, in particular for Companhia Editora Nacional (CEN), in the letters exchanged between editors, in the translated books, and the translation procedures, based on the documentation of the publisher’s collection, deposited in the Center for Memory and Historical Research at the Federal University of São Paulo - UNIFESP (TOLEDO, 2013). The sources include documents about Anísio’s brief stay at UNESCO, between July 15, 1946 and February 15, 1947, existing at CPDOC-FGV and at the UNESCO Archives (Preparatory Commission for UNESCO (Prep. Com.), 1945-1946, and Anísio Teixeira Personal Dossier (DPAT)).

To achieve this purpose, the text is structured in two parts: in the first part, we highlight Anísio’s work with CEN; in the second, the focus shifts to his career at UNESCO. In both, the mobile web of networks drives the writing, guided by an argument based on the transnational history of education. We emphasize that when we address the reflection from a transnational perspective, we are not neglecting the national space nor placing Brazil in a peripheral position concerning a supposed center that disseminates knowledge. On the contrary, we propose, as suggested by Doreen Massey (2008), to reconfigure the territory based on the experiences of the subjects and their exchanges, problematizing the confinement of physical borders in the organization of the educational field in a time marked by the spread of authoritarian governments, war and reconstruction effort on a global scale.

EDITING NETWORKS: SOCIABILITY AND READING PROGRAMS

One of the places of power from which the nodes of an extensive network, with national and international threads, can be formed is that of the large publishers. Articulators of authors, texts, translators, institutions that produce, diffuse, or finance transnational cultures, publishers constitute a field (symbolic, economic, political) in which places of emission, circulation, and reception of what has been produced in terms of literate culture are distributed. These places, not always continuous or without accidents, are organized according to discursive regimes that classify, define, and distribute knowledge according to their location in a cultural geography configured by different editorial strategies, consistently in dispute (TOLEDO, 2013). As a “master” of the cultural geography of publishing, the editor designs projects, gets ahead of the market, creates a variety of products in new territories, as well as scrutinizing the captive public, canonizing authors and works, feeding back into already established territories (TOLEDO, 2013). Their catalogs are accurate maps of the cultural geographies they establish over time.

If, on the one hand, the cultural geography of publishing is the result of the editor’s choices, on the other, it depends on a specific accumulation of social capital that editorial practices must be able to mobilize: the offer of texts by renowned authors or new authors; access to support lines from cultural institutions; the release of disputed translation rights, the appointment of translators or illustrators, access to different printers and paper producers, among other situations, are examples of the networks that publishers create throughout the existence of their label. The various social relations allow publishers to move through the spaces of book production and establish specific editorial policies for their catalog. The editor’s place is at the intersection of the capitalist production networks of written culture, he is the creator of symbolic networks of authors, and cultural mediators from different fields of knowledge. This condition was widely mobilized by Monteiro Lobato and Octalles Marcondes Ferreira — owners of CEN³.

Among the main strategies to ensure the supply of texts and authors to targeted audiences and disseminate throughout the cultural geography territories that promote what they produce, editors invite renowned intellectuals to organize book collections within their specialties. The “collection” genre marked the business development style of many international publishers (such as Hachette and Presses Universitaires de France) and Brazilian publishers, such as CEN or Cia. Melhoramentos. This editorial genre presupposes the standardization of the materiality of books, as well as the establishment of an order of books — an editorial formula — aimed at target audiences: books for children, for scientific dissemination, for young women, for intellectuals, etc. The collection, from its name, reveals the prescription of its readers and their uses. In this sense, it is materially inscribed as a flexible commodity, which allows it to adapt to market conditions, whether to win new readers or to expand consumption by the regular public. Collections can be associated with well-known figures in the fields of knowledge or entertainment they are intended for. Collection organizers — especially authorial collections — invite writers, select manuscripts, mobilize knowledge from other collections on similar subjects and audiences and reorganize texts by adding paratexts or adapting typographic paraphernalia to the forms of their reception. The collections are used for educational and literary dissemination projects of cultural renewal. For this reason, they are also places of engagement for cultural groups or political movements: they depend on networks of sociability and the dissemination of particular representations (TOLEDO, 2020).

This place of power was quickly observed by the “education renovators” who associated themselves with large publishers to publish editorial lines that disseminated authors and texts considered fundamental to the new education in Brazil. For example, Lourenço Filho and Fernando de Azevedo partnered with major publishers in São Paulo to market their editorial projects and author networks and choose and translate reference texts from the international Escola Nova movement. Thus, the large publishers and their authorial education collections combined national and international networks to circulate the production of new educational knowledge and the referential names that began to authorize practices and discourses. Exemplary is the participation of Anísio Teixeira in the publication of volume 12 (1930) — “Vida e Educação de John Dewey” - in the Biblioteca de Educação, directed by Lourenço Filho. The editor invites Teixeira to choose, translate, and prepare an introductory study of Dewey’s texts for the Brazilian public. On the other hand, Teixeira negotiates the release of translation rights for the texts, mobilizing his relationships with professors at Columbia University, especially Suzzallo, built during his stay at that institution in 1927 (TOLEDO E CARVALHO, 2017).

It can be said that Teixeira’s role was central to Fernando de Azevedo’s collection at CEN. As Director of of Public Instruction/Department of Education of the Federal District (DF) (1931-1935), Teixeira participated in the Atualidades Pedagógicas Collection as author, translator, and reviewer. His name appears in several volumes of the Collection. Atualidades Pedagógicas edits the group of professors from Columbia University of Teixeira’s relations, such as Paul Monroe⁴, I.L. Kandel, and Dewey. However, this was not the only way he participated in Marcondes Ferreira’s publishing house. Teixeira played a central role in the various deals that CEN made with the Federal District City Hall and the political group of educational activists. CEN publishes as a book Reconstrução Educacional no Brasil: Ao Povo e ao Governo. Manifesto dos Pioneiros da Educação Nova⁵, in March 1932, financed by the document’s signatories. It also publishes books that disseminate the Primary School Programs produced by the Teixeira administration of DF. The same Department acquired children’s books and books for teachers from the publisher for its institutional libraries, in addition to providing, as mentioned, authors and texts linked to the reform for the Azevedo Collection (TOLEDO, 2020; VIDAL, 2000).

CEN has become one place where meetings occur and cultural projects are created. With the projection that the publisher itself acquired in the 1930s, with its commercial success and its reputation as a promoter of culture, it transformed its collection management positions into places of intellectual and symbolic prestige: producing an editorial program meant interfering in the publishing universe of authors and titles imposing, in a certain way, their representations of what would be fundamental for culture and for the reader, prescribing themes, approaches, problems, etc. This prestige was materialized in the contractual forms with which the publisher worked⁶.

CEN incorporated an entire network of intellectuals with political and cultural affinities and circulated their representations in the collections and books it edited. If, at the beginning of the publishing house, Lobato was the epicenter of this network, acting as an intermediary between the “brothers” and Octalles, introducing them and asking the partner to publish them or shelter them in the publishing house, the “brothers” start to move around, gaining new connections and expanding the reach of CEN’s editorial action. For example, Teixeira introduced Hermes Lima to Lobato in 1931⁷. Lima was soon incorporated into the publishing house, organizing a collection: the Biblioteca de Cultura Jurídica e Social. The publisher reinforces the bonds of solidarity between the brotherhood members, even in times of crisis, becoming a haven for those who need it.

Teixeira himself dreamed of a collection that presented the new “modern” mentality for Brazilians. In a letter to Lobato, he outlined what he intended to bring together as a collection: “I dreamed here of Octalles — the great — the humble— educator — national — the dream of going to work with you. First job: today’s story. I found all the material in Wells: work, wealth, and happiness of mankind. When can we do this?” (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 72).

In this sense, the editor’s activity is evaluated as an essential hub in the careers of the intellectuals of the period: it was a private activity, independent of political tides, and a place of prestige, articulation of names and texts, and distribution of capital (financial and cultural).

Life in the backlands of the country of idleness

I remember when I saw you in Rio de Janeiro, traqué by the police, hidden by your friends like a big criminal - and on that occasion, I also cried. To whom the bells toll? We were all persecuted, on the run, hiding with you, while outside the tumor Vargas smiled with his cigar and handed over Brazilian Culture to the bedbugs of the Roman Thing. (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 101).

From Buenos Aires, Lobato recalls how terribly Teixeira left the DF Department of Education to hide from his tormentors in Ituaçu and Caetité. The conflict that triggered Teixeira’s dismissal is well known: shortly after the Communist Intentona (November 1935), he was accused of being responsible for communism in the DF City Hall and of Americanizing the city’s education, with his arrest being demanded by some (NUNES, 2000, p. 488). Under these conditions, he went to Buenos Aires and then to São Paulo, awaiting the outcome of the State’s repressive reaction (SÁ MOTTA, 2002).

At late April, Teixeira confirmed to Azevedo that he would take up space at CEN, given the lack of conditions to return to public service: “This, however, will not stop me from settling, for now, in São Paulo, to try to make a living albeit with private work. Our good Octalles promises to provide me with what I need to cover the minimum monthly expenses” (VIDAL, 2000, p. 34). Work at the publishing house began immediately: to Nelson, in a letter dated 01/16/1936, he warned that he had already translated a book by Dewey and had started another by Wells, The Ouline of History, “which should take a long time to finish.” However, what appeared from the publisher were still “practically translations” (TEIXEIRA, 1936).

In mid-1936, accusations and possibilities of arrest resurfaced, and the police were still a threat to Teixeira, so he gave up São Paulo and went to Bahia (TEIXEIRA, 1937). From 1937 onwards, he began to combine the life of a countryman with that of a CEN translator: “You know country life”, he wrote to Nelson, “Our rural activity is a promise of income for a few years from now. Because while it hasn’t been given to us, all that remains are the translations that only give very little” (TEIXEIRA, 1937). Waiting for cotton, debts accumulated. For this reason, Teixeira relied heavily on Ferreira’s support: “Octalles, however, has made himself entirely available to me, in his generosity as a friend. So, if you need any amount, as I think you do, just telegraph me so that I can have it delivered to you” (TEIXEIRA, 1937). In 1938, the financial issue weighed on Teixeira, above all, due to the debts he had acquired when he was still Director of Education. Once again, he wrote to Nelson, discussing the issue: “My situation is as follows: I am translating The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind by Wells and associated with Peres and Altino into an ox business with Reunidas Farm, I bought it on credit, so this postpones my need for capital at least until February” (TEIXEIRA, 1938).

A collection to Wellsify Brazil⁸

In 1938, parallel to his country life, Anísio launched the Biblioteca do Espírito Moderno (BEM) by CEN under his direction.

There is little evidence of why BEM was so delayed by Ferreira since, as we will see, it had been designed by the brotherhood since 1936. However, it is possible to infer that the complex situation in the DF at the end of 1936 had an overwhelming effect on the publisher, which had supported and disseminated the Anísio Teixeira Reform of Education. On March 19, 1936, Ferreira received a letter from its Rio de Janeiro branch — Editora Civilização Brasileira. In the letter, the “frog“ reports the blow that CEN was suffering from Lourenço Filho:

Otalles,

Complementing our telephone talk, please find attached the article⁹ that gave rise to yesterday’s events. Chateaubriand indeed took advantage of a situation in which I see oil, the need for the Minister of Education to remove Fernando, and the interest of Companhia Melhoramentos and Lourenço Filho taking part.

You know that Lourenço Filho runs Melhoramentos’ Pedagogical Library. As he is a friend of the Minister and Father Elder Câmara, he is allied with both of them. Therefore, following Church policy and against Anísio’s work, he threw Melhoramentos at us.

Suspicious of his warning that we should approach the Minister (…) I developed a frog [informant] work on Lourenço Filho’s way of thinking regarding Lobato’s books.

People I trust, who are members of the teaching profession and have an important position, revealed to me that the book Geografia de D. Benta was criticized and handed over to the Minister by Lourenço. (…)

At the same time this was happening, it was necessary to review the programs to organize them in new ways. Here is the big blow against us. Lourenço made it appear that these programs had Bolshevist tendencies to create confusion. (Letter from Civilização Brasileira to Marcondes Ferreira, 03/19/1936, folder 23 - Biblioteca Monteiro Lobato - original emphasis).

The complaint exposed the political-editorial dispute established between CEN and Melhoramentos, which was implicated in the services to be provided to the State, educational projects, and, above all, the networks of relationships and intrigues that allowed the advancement of the hegemonization of the Catholic Church’s positions in that moment of crisis.

Political pressure on CEN possibly froze BEM’s publishing plan for at least two years. In any case, its editorial lines had been established since 1936. The resumption of the proposal would have been triggered by Teixeira’s own financial needs — pressed by debts — and by his dependence on his editor.

Understanding this project requires returning to 1936 and Teixeira’s plans for São Paulo. As we indicated, Anísio reported to Lobato the invitation received by Ferreira to visit CEN:

After a month of living in Santos, I feel like I was born new. (…) And then I dreamed of that old dream of collecting fundamental books. With one modification. The Brazilian foolishness, which only “reflects” telegrams and brochures, thinks there are only German hospitals and the Russian sanatorium in the world to cure humanity. Now, it is necessary to show them that there are healthy people in 4/5 of the earth and very healthy people in some Anglo-Saxon and Nordic countries. And that these people are healthy because they are well nourished. And that intellectual nutrition is as precise as material nutrition. Special diets are indispensable when there is no intellectual nutrition - and we have Italy, Germany, and Russia… Now, today’s nutrition is thought to be elaborated given the advancement of science and democracy… The collection would, therefore, be of foods of this species. Contemporary civilization collection. To say the corollaries of science and democracy (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 73).

He completed the proposal by indicating how this type of editorial territory would be in the Publisher’s sights:

Start with Wells and the brilliant contemporary “exorcists” and, from time to time, to show the continuity with the forest of human thought, a secular jequitibá - Montaigne, Plato, etc. What do you think? A collection for Brazil’s supernutrition. Isn’t it nutrition that the country really needs? And is it not 200% following Companhia’s policy? (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 73)

As a last argument, he compared his proposal to Azevedo’s collection - Bibliotheca Pedagógica Brasileira (BPB):

F.A.’s collection is very interesting but somewhat domestic, with no international horizon. A collection would be needed in which pedagogy would be a chapter, not a title. Pedagogy is nonsense if it is not the whole of human culture. (…) I spoke to Afrânio, and he agreed. (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 73).

The strategy mobilized by Teixeira encouraged the idea that the international location of the new collection would be an asset to the success of the venture and the seduction of the CEN director. On the one hand, he distanced himself from the politics of those violent days; on the other hand, he worked with translations — always a good deal for the publisher (TOLEDO, 2020). In this representation, an international bibliography would allow the practice of disseminating new cultural bases to confront a reactionary government, described by Lobato in 1932, as:

Let the government teach the people whatever it wants: religion, ditto. From the top of our Education-City, we will hover over the country like a cloud of light, served by all existing machines and those to come. A body of brains, directed by you, prepares, multiplies, disseminates. (…) Our education will fall like snow on the country, without knowing and without wanting to know where the flakes will land (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 69).

The Brazilian Wellsification project¹⁰, despite emerging from Teixeira’s defeat in DF, would encourage the country’s update with the modernization of its culture and the universal spirit so propagated by H. G. Wells.

The new Library would begin with Wells’ texts, which Teixeira and Lobato had already translated between 1936 and 1938. The duo was sure of the need for Wellsification during those dark times. In a letter to Lobato, Teixeira counted his days, reaffirming this need:

It’s also cold here (850 m above sea level) but not as noisy as there. And that fine wool¹¹ is modern and restless and all frizzed up by the prolonged monotony of the country of idleness (…) My books comfort it: I live in having Dewey, Russel, Wells, and Lobato. And those men of tomorrow do it good. I live with them immersed in the future. Many people miss the past; we, wool and I, miss the future. It’s a weird and much more euphoric feeling. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come is one of my manuals, the continuation of Outline, with the same method and penetrating accuracy, until the year 2106. The last recorded event is that of the new year 2106. I don’t know if you read it. It is no longer a utopia; it is the reality of the Outline of the future. I wanted to translate it. And I will still do so in such a way that the book “worked.”… I know of nothing more convincing, persuasive, fulminating against current stupidities, and inspiring for hopes for the future. (VIANNA; FRAIZ, 1986, p. 81).

For Fonseca (2010), the initial project of the collection articulated education, science, and democracy to engender modernization in culture and guarantee antidotes against the totalitarian regimes established in the 1930s. These three points would be strategically articulated by the editorial genre of scientific dissemination, whether through fiction literature or the dissemination of biographies of great scientists, the circulation of knowledge about universal culture, and the dissemination of pacifist values. These were the fundamental bases of Wellsian pedagogy (ELZINGA, 2004). In the conjunction of titles on education, science, and democracy, the collection could provide its reader, with the conditions for reflection: reflection supported by knowledge of the world.

The collection’s presentation text indicated this type of reading program:

OUR TIME, marked by the singular mental turmoil that accentuates its character of transition and change, is, for this very reason, one of the most notable periods of intellectual and moral reconstruction in history. Despite the lack of perspective in which we find ourselves judging its outstanding scientific, literary, and artistic achievements, some of his modern works have received praise from the public that amounts to immortality. The unprecedented cultural diffusion of today’s world allows for miracles that the ancients did not know about. The BIBLIOTECA DO ESPÍRITO MODERNO aims to coordinate for the Brazilian reader, among the works consecrated by public acceptance, those that more directly seek to condense, clarify, and popularize the cultural heritage of the species, making it truly and without losing any of the fine and rare values that always characterized it when it was nothing more than a legacy attributed to privileged scholars, a common inheritance shared by all (CEN, 1943, p. 1).

As a starting point, the recognition of the chaotic situation in the world and in contemporary times: current characteristics that could be resolved precisely with scientific and literary knowledge contained not so much in the institutions of each country but in the myriad of works forged by global cultural diffusion. The modern spirit itself would result from this cultural heritage of the shared species: the universality of this heritage stands out as opposed to the superiority of races or nations. As Wells (from Teixeira and Lobato) predicted, having a modern spirit meant being the bearer of a common heritage, sharing the universality of science, education, and democracy.

The plan description continues:

Furthermore, the library will include biographical documents that familiarize us with the great men and great women who knew how to make their lives a spectacle of beauty or height and, in this way, contributed to making life more meaningful and human civilization more dignified (CEN, 1943, p. 1).

Finally, BEM’s plan highlights the architect of the strategy of attuning the Brazilian reader to the global reader.

COMPANHIA EDITORA NACIONAL, taking upon itself the great responsibility of editing BIBLIOTHECA DO ESPÍRITO MODERNO, sought out, to guide and direct it, the great Brazilian educator ANÍSIO TEIXEIRA, one of the most illustrious spirits of our time and so rightly suited to take on the direction of a library of such purpose. Library of civilization and culture, readers will have in its volumes the richest documentary with which they can try to understand and follow the extended effort of human thought to beautify, enrich, and direct life (CEN, 1943, p. 1).

For Fonseca (2010, p. 38-39), it is impossible to ignore the meaning of choosing the name BEM, considering who its organizer was. Returning to Vidal’s work (2005, p. 9), Fonseca recalls that in 1934, at the Institute of Education, the term “education and modern spirit” topped a list of ten topics from the course offered by Teixeira at the school. The course aimed to demonstrate the concern of relating education to the modern world, science, and the understanding of society with the philosophical bases of education, and even used the term “experience” to relate education and the lived experienced world. “What’s the point of school if it’s not to rebuild human life on a better basis?” (FONSECA, 2010, p. 39).

The BEM comprised four series, organized by editorial genres: 1^st philosophy; 2^nd sciences; 3^rd history and biographies; and 4^th literature. Its editorial program opted for translations of “excellent quality” texts, mainly from English, complemented by one or another from French. The authors came from the United States and England, but there were also French people, especially André Maurois, Charles Seignobos, and Jacques Maritain (FONSECA, 2010, p. 37). The reading program featured very few national titles, marking its position as the world’s library.

The network constituted by the relationships between the collection director and authors spread across a double territory: international authors marketed by major English, American, and French publishers, and the home territory of translators¹². Anísio and Lobato used the collection as an underground gallery to maintain the project of modernizing the Brazilian spirit, strategically seeking to elevate it to the status of the modern world spirit. They mobilized their favorite author, Wells, transforming what they thought was his pedagogy into a reading model and the formation of a society of Brazilian average readers¹³. This model included the publication of Will Durant, Bertrand Russell, Charles Seignobos, Julian Huxley, and H. G. Wells from the História Universal series.

It can be said that the Wellsian internationalist ideal marked BEM, widespread since the end of the First World War. For Elzinga (2004), Wells’ perspective, especially concerning a less belligerent world — built on internationalist scientific and cultural cooperation — had been circulating among British (and Anglo-Saxon) scientists since at least the end of the First World War. Worldwide. Thus, science would be a “common product of the human race,” and “scientific knowledge would be a public good that would exist for the benefit of all humanity” (ELZINGA, 2004, p. 91). Being director of this collection put Teixeira on the same wavelength as other scientists of the period, such as Julian Huxley and Paulo Carneiro. This harmony would be fundamental for the invitation received by Teixeira to UNESCO.

At the end of 1941, Teixeira left the direction of the collection, although, in the years that followed, most of the published titles were chosen and negotiated by him (FONSECA, 2010, p. 70). With a regretful tone, he said goodbye to what had been his (partial) job in previous years:

Dear Lobato,

Since I left you in São Paulo, after an eight-day stay - which I knew what it meant to me - I entered a disconcerting phase… I’ve never missed my friends so much. You must have noticed that my visit was a visit to complete the layoff that had been taking place despite my will due to the force of circumstances and the obscure purpose that arises within us to obey contingencies. When I went to Bahia, I felt that you, Otalles, and Fernando were much further away from me than before. I don’t know how to participate without taking responsibility. And the fact that I could no longer take it before you threw me into an embarrassment that explains my silence (VIANNA; FRAIZ, 1986, p. 89).¹⁴

From then on, Teixeira became involved in SIMEL, abandoning, according to himself, intellectual life (VIDAL, 2000, p. 53). According to Lima, World War II benefited the company’s business, and Teixeira made some money (LIMA, 1978, p. 142). With the end of the armed conflict, new opportunities in the educational arena emerged for Anísio.

PERFORMANCE AT UNESCO

Just like publishers, organizations, and in our case, international organizations, are constituted as hubs. They are structured based on the constitution of networks and establish governance principles based on a set of values, goals, intentions, and sociability. Their study allows us to escape analyses based on the center-periphery relationship, encouraging a transnational approach, as they attract subjects from various parts of the world and aim to produce effects that transcend national borders. In this sense, they encourage a focus on the participation of actors, leading to interpretations that interweave micro and macro analyses, inviting the exploration of paths, trips, and exchanges.

For Fuchs (2007, p. 187), networks consist of condensed and intense relationships in a given space. Understanding them requires paying attention to “the meaning, the shape, and the duration of its existence as well as the intensity, frequency, balance, prominence and speed of contacts, exchanges and transfers.” Correspondence is one of the privileged sources that guide navigating the relationships and events that unite Teixeira and UNESCO.

The invitation to join UNESCO came in a letter from Julian Huxley in New York on June 12, 1946 (HUXLEY, 1946)¹⁵. Although Anísio was in that city that day, Huxley left for London, and the face-to-face meeting was postponed. Through the letter, we know that, as Executive Secretary of the UNESCO Preparatory Commission, Huxley called Teixeira to, in his capacity as Advisor on Education, assist the Education Section in preparing the report or agenda for the First UNESCO Conference to take place in November, in Paris. The contract would be temporary (from July 1 to the end of the year), with the first month being probationary. Anísio would work under the leadership of Kuo Yu-Shou, receiving an annual salary of 1,500 pounds plus a residence allowance of 1.10 pounds per day¹⁶.

The following day, Anísio responded by telegram, expressing his perplexity, readiness to serve UNESCO under Huxley’s leadership, and surprise at the invitation, asking for a few days to consider the proposal, which he accepted in a letter dated June 19. Teixeira took over UNESCO on July 15. Difficulties with purchasing tickets, travel authorization, and visas led Howard Wilson, assistant executive secretary, to contact the Brazilian ambassador in London, George Álvares Maciel, to ask the Passport Department in Rio de Janeiro to speed up the process. Such difficulties delayed the arrival in London and installation in the office at 46-47 Belgrave Square¹⁷. On July 22, 1946, Anísio, on UNESCO letterhead and signing as Advisor to the Education Section, reiterated his acceptance of the offer (DPAT) to Huxley.

In social networks… again, the educator

What paths would Huxley have taken to consider Teixeira’s name? In the invitation letter, he stated, “Everyone has assured me that you would be the best possible person we could obtain from Latin America for the Education Section” (Prep. Com.). Who was he referring to? A carbon copy of a possible telegram from Huxley to [Howard] Wilson read, “No foundation whatever for suggestion de Filho or Dantas. STOP Only Brazilian approached or desired is Teixeira. STOP Most anxious to obtain him” (DPAT). The reference to Filho seems to refer to Lourenço Filho. More uncertain is the mention of Dantas. I could perhaps designate Francisco Clementino San Tiago Dantas, who at the time was teaching at the School of Law in Paris, as a lecturer¹⁸.

Five years earlier, in 1941, Julian Huxley’s Essays in Popular Science was published in CEN’s Biblioteca do Espírito Moderno, translated by Octávio Domingues. However, the interest did not seem to derive from commercial relationships with the collection’s curator but from a network of intellectuals of which both could be part.

To map this network, the first train of thought is Huxley himself. Born in London in 1887, he dedicated himself to Biology, receiving a doctorate in science from the University of Oxford. His professional career includes stints in Germany, the USA, the Belgian Congo, and the Soviet Union. He worked at the Rice Institute, Texas (1912-1916); New College of Oxford (1919-1925); King’s College (1925-1927); and Royal Institution (1927-1931). In 1927 and 1929, he retired from academic life to write, with G. P. and H. G. Wells, the three volumes of The Science of Life, originally published in 1931, 1934, and 1937 by the Waverley Publishing Company Ltd. From 1931, he left university and dedicated himself to writing books, being elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1938. During the Second World War, he was part of the Brain Trust of the British Broadcasting Corporation (MAUREL, 2012).

In the autumn of 1941, he received an invitation from the Rockefeller Foundation to lecture in the USA. In addition to visiting universities, the proposal discussed how England continued to do business in times of armed conflict. The stay, which was supposed to last six weeks, lasted until May 1942 due to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the consequent entry of the USA into the armed conflict. As a result, Huxley remained in New York longer than expected (HUXLEY, 1970, p. 256-261).

In this brief account, the most immediate connection that emerges between Teixeira and Huxley is that of the British writer H. G. Wells. In the project of Wellsifying Brazil, BEM published no less than six volumes of his authorship: The Outline of History (Three volumes) (1939), The Shape of Things to Come (1939), The Fate of Homo Sapiens (1941), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1943). The Fate of Homo Sapiens and The Shape of Things to Come were translated by Lobato. However, Anísio translated The Outline of History and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind into Portuguese. An indication of the closeness between Wells, Huxley, and Teixeira emerges in a letter from Anísio to George Counts, in which he comments on having been in London in 1946, on the occasion of Wells’ death (August 13, 1946) and hearing from a common friend about the British writer’s desperate state in the last months of his life (TEIXEIRA, A. 1960). Indeed, at that time, Teixeira was already working for UNESCO, but the reference to a common friend led to the interweaving of these three characters in our narrative.

Another significant aspect is that the trip to the USA in 1941 was made at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation, and the stay in New York was more extended than expected. In both cases, contact with Columbia University was favored. Although in this excerpt from the memoirs, Huxley did not mention any trip to the university, one cannot fail to mention the friendships he had made there during his connection with the Rice Institute between 1912 and 1916 (HUXLEY, 1970, p. 90 and 95). Nor can one minimize the importance of the Rockefeller Foundation in supporting the International Institute of the Teacher’s College from 1923 to 1938 and the circulation of international students at the institution (CREMIN; SHANNON; TOWNSEND, 1954). It cannot be forgotten that Anísio attended TC/UC between 1928 and 1929. The connections are more fluid here, but they indicate the circulation of Huxley and Teixeira in the same academic community over 30 years.

Returning to BEM titles may offer other clues to identify this international network. Two elements authorize the route. The first is related to the objective of the editorial enterprise itself. The letter to Lobato mentioned previously, in which Anísio distinguished his new initiative from that carried out by Azevedo, was considered “very interesting, but somewhat domestic, without an international horizon” (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 73). The second, indicated by Fonseca (2010, p. 37-38), refers to the importance that American literature assumes for the Collection due to Lobato and Teixeira’s appreciation for the USA and their admiration for the country’s democratic culture.

The question takes shape when we analyze the nine titles published in the Philosophy series in the first phase between 1939 and 1943. The first three works, The Story of Philosophy (1938), The Mansions of Philosophy (1938), and Great Men of Literature (1939), are written by American William James Durant. Born in the USA, we also have James Harvey Robinson, author of The Mind in the Making (1940), and William James, The Philosophy of William James (1943). Also participating in the series are the Englishmen Bertrand Russell, author of Education and the Good Life (1941), and John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1942). Frenchman Jacques Maritain, Humanisme Intégral (1941) author, and the Portuguese Fidelino de Sousa de Figueiredo, Espanha - Uma Filosofia de Sua História (1943) complete the list. More interesting than noting nationality, however, is information that three of these seven authors — Durant, Robinson, and Maritain — were professors at Columbia University. Russel taught at the University of California, and Fidelino Figueiredo went to Berkley.

The prevalence of American and English authors in the series, as elsewhere in BEM publications, in the period is not exclusively due to the predilection of its founders, as one might suppose, but to the changes that took place in Europe from 1933 onwards and that led to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The New Education Fellowship (NEF) example, known in Brazil as the International League for New Education (LIEN), is relevant. While in the initial years, the NEF/LIEN Congresses spread across European territory (Calais, France, in 1921; Montreux, Switzerland, in 1923; Heidelberg, Germany, in 1925; Locarno, Switzerland, in 1927; Elsinore, Denmark, in 1929; Nice, France, in 1932); in later years, they concentrated on English-speaking countries, whether international (England, in 1936; and USA, in 1941) or regional Congresses (South Africa, in 1934; New Zealand, in 1937; Australia, in 1937 and 1946) (VIDAL, 2021, p. 10). The change in global geopolitics accompanied, and was accompanied by, the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon literature in academia, in general, and in education, in particular.

The example of the NEF is significant because it refers to the construction of UNESCO itself and the articulated networks. The circumstance of the French section of the NEF, in cooperation with the London headquarters, organized a conference at the Sorbonne and Cité Universitaire in Paris from July 29 to August 12, 1946, with the theme Educational Reform and New Education¹⁹, was not fortuitous. It united the two cities involved in hosting the organization’s work. The move of UNESCO offices from London to Paris would occur practically a month later (09/16/1946). The correspondence between Claire Soper, international secretary of the NEF, and members of the Preparatory Commission also denotes the intertwining of these organizations in the immediate post-war period (Com.Prep.). Joseph Watras (2011) recognizes that several groups participated in the creation of the Organization and highlights, in particular, NEF’s involvement with UNESCO’s fundamental education program, bringing into actors associated with TC/UC and the Institute of Education at the University of London, among other institutions, and multiplying the characters in this network in which Huxley and Teixeira moved.

One last train of thought is Paulo Carneiro. After all, when it became clear that Anísio would not return to UNESCO in 1947, on March 31, Huxley wrote to Carneiro, requesting the appointment of “a really good Brazilian candidate for a post in the Organization” (DPAT). The episode corroborates Vianna Filho’s (2008) statement that the contact to collaborate with the organization came at Carneiro’s suggestion. Carneiro graduated in industrial chemistry from the Polytechnic School of Rio de Janeiro and received a scholarship to pursue his doctorate in Paris at the Sorbonne. He returned to Brazil in 1932 and again to France in 1938, where he worked until 1944 as a technical assistant at the Brazilian Office of Propaganda and Commercial Expansion and, later, deputy director (MAIO, 2004, p. 312-313). Although he returned to Brazil with the liberation of France, he returned to Paris in 1945 to “resume his work and soon received an invitation to participate in the Brazilian Delegation to the United Nations Conference in London” (BURIGO, 2021, p. 14). “In 1946, he was chosen as Brazil’s delegate to the first United Nations Assembly” (BURIGO, 2021, p. 14). In the same year, he was

invited by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, João Neves Fontoura, to become Brazil’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, a position he held until 1958, later serving as ambassador until 1965. (…) One year after the coup overthrewing João Goulart, Paulo Carneiro was removed from UNESCO representation. (…) UNESCO immediately summons Paulo to its Executive Council, a role he played for 28 years, the longest tenure of anyone on the council, and even after the mandatory dismissal of the Brazilian delegation from the organization, he could participate in subsequent general conferences (BURIGO, 2021, p. 17).

Both Huxley and Carneiro participated in the first meetings that gave rise to UNESCO. According to Danielle Burigo (2021, p. 17-18), Carneiro proposed including science in the nascent organization’s mandate in conversations with Needlham and Huxley. It is essential to highlight that Carneiro is among the intellectuals linked to the Brazilian Education Association (ABE) in the initial years of its creation (ABE, 2024), having remained in Rio de Janeiro between 1932 and 1938, during the period in which Teixeira led his reform of public instruction (1931-1935) and in which the educator was actively engaged in ABE actions. Among the reform initiatives implemented by Teixeira, the creation of the University of the Federal District was included in 1935, perhaps the reason for inviting Anísio to take on work related to higher education in the UNESCO Education Section.

Having attended TC/UC for two years and led a vital education reform in the capital of Brazil, having held the advantageous role of curator of BEM for CEN and supporting a circuit of translations of works in English into Portuguese, Teixeira had several credentials that made him known to the actors of the new geopolitical axis with the end of the Great War. The USA and its partner, England, would take on the task of rebuilding the world, an agenda for which education was a fundamental item and addressed with the creation of UNESCO in 1946.

The international recognition that Huxley’s invitation gave him allowed Teixeira to return to the Brazilian education scene in a highly prestigious situation. Significant was the statement from the University Council of the University of Brazil, sent to Huxley on July 12, 1946, in which the rector Ignácio Azevedo do Amaral expressed “the satisfaction and pride” with which the learned council welcomed the Brazilian’s appointment to a post at UNESCO. This also occurred with the telegram sent by Raul Jobim Bittencourt, president of ABE, to Huxley, congratulating the committee on choosing Anísio (DPAT).

Joys and miseries of working at UNESCO

In a handwritten document, a possible draft of the invitation letter sent to Anísio, Huxley informed that the educator would be responsible for higher education, joining the work carried out by the Preparatory Commission, composed of, in addition to Kuo Yu-Shou (China), senior advisor, Ravnholt (Denmark) adult education; Elena Torres (Mexico) primary and mass education; Lawverys (England) general consultant; and possibly Guiton (France) secondary education (DPAT). In the staff circular, no. 60, of October 30, 1946, we have the composition of the team: Kuo Yu-Shou, G. Cowan, X. E. Gabriel, M. J. Guiton, H. Holmes, Leonard Kenworthy, Henning Ravnholt, S. Soully, Anísio Teixeira, and Elena Torres.

The main tasks of the Preparatory Commission were:

to convoke the first session of the General Conference; to prepare the provisional agenda for the first session and prepare documents and recommendations relating to the agenda; to make studies and prepare recommendations concerning the programme and budget; and to provide without delay for immediate action on urgent needs of educational, scientific and cultural reconstruction in devastated countries.

In a lengthy memorandum sent by Howard Wilson to Kuo Yu-Shou on April 1, 1946, the scope of the Education Section, its specific objectives, the work schedule, the most urgent tasks, and the expected configuration of the team were outlined. Wilson stated, regarding the first element:

To summarize all this: the scope of your section is broad and long, and the programme to be envisioned for the future must be extremely flexible and comprehensive. We cannot afford to ignore any level or aspect or agency of education in conceiving the over-all pattern for UNESCO. At the same time we must be highly practical and far-sighting in choosing a few aspects of this total area for immediate attack. These selected aspects should be (a) of immediate and obvious educational consequence, and (b) of importance as affording UNESCO opportunity for successful growth in the right direction. (Prep. Com. 2009).

The idea was to encompass education for life, or in the formula adopted by Wilson, “from the cradle to the grave” in all areas of knowledge. The section should collaborate with the others: Literature and Philosophy, Art, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Museums and Libraries, and Mass Communication Media. While it was not expected that a minimum standard of education would be established for the world, the aim was to understand how education was practiced in various countries and provide examples of good educational practices. It also suggested some lines of action: reducing illiteracy and educating the masses through visual and auditory resources; health and hygiene education; vocational education, not restricted to professional training, but as a way of overcoming the distance between vocation and culture, the ferment of “liberal education”; and civic education for “one world,” which would involve “education for international respect and understanding.”

The document outlined the specific objectives of the section: (a) prepare a 25- to 30-page outline of UNESCO’s program of action, indicating the initiatives that should be launched immediately and their expected development over the next five years; and (b) prepare the treatment of a selected topic, which might be illiteracy, for consideration by the First Assembly. The issue should be discussed at the Preparatory Commission meeting scheduled for July. The first item was expected to be ready for printing in September. As for the second, it would be perfected at a meeting in August or September and would be ready by October 10, to be announced in advance of the First Assembly in November 1946.

To achieve the objectives, Wilson proposed two lines of action: making a summary of all suggestions received so far from governments, organizations, and individuals, compiling a list that was as complete as possible, initiate a process of collecting additional suggestions by sending (a) a questionnaire to the Ministers of Education; (b) letters of inquiry to organizations and agencies; (c) personal letters to experts around the world.²⁰

Despite Wilson insisting on qualifying the terms of the memorandum as his conception of what the Education Section’s program should be, open to changes following Kuo Yu-Shou’s proposals, the inquiries were actually carried out. On May 29, the letter signed by Kuo and Wilson and addressed to organizations inquired about their characteristics and how UNESCO could assist their work, asking them to offer suggestions for the general program of the Education Section. The letter was followed by a long list with the names of more than 50 organizations (Prep. Com.).

The theme of literacy was reformulated as Fundamental Education. Furthermore, on June 12, in a letter addressed to James Yen (China), Margaret Read (United Kingdom), Ismail el Kabbani (USA), R. M. Chetsingh (India), Frank Laubach (USA), B. H. Easter (Jamaica), Thomas Jesse Jones (USA), C. K. Ogden (United Kingdom), Margaret Mead (USA), I. A. Richards (USA), Labouret (France), Rheinallt Jones (South Africa), Lucas Ortiz (Mexico) and Nieto Caballero (Colombia), Kuo requested the participation of these experts in a survey, the basis for the report to be presented to the Preparatory Commission, published in English and French. At the latest, he asked for feedback by July 26 and offered a “25 guineas” fee for the manuscript’s copyright (Prep. Com.).

In this circuit, Anísio settled on July 15, 1946, when he joined the staff of the UNESCO Education Section. In addition to the contact with entities and subjects, Teixeira was part of a broad Preparatory Commission that, in October, had a team of 167 members, plus representatives from each of the 43 countries that had signed the instrument adopted by the Conference for the Creation of UNESCO in 1945 in London (Prep. Com. 2009).

In the six months he worked with the organization, he had the opportunity to interact in person or through correspondence with educators worldwide. On the cover of the dossier folders, Teixeira’s name appears listed among those who handled the “Requests to Educationalists and Educational Organizations Reports” dossier. The folder came into his hands on August 28, 1946, and remained with him until October 10 (Prep. Com.). Another dossier to which he had access, on October 5, 1946, was “Education — Soviet Union — Handbook for entrants to the Higher Educational Establishments of U.S.S.R (1944-45)”, which consisted of a publication on the subject (Prep. Com.). If the second mention is episodic, the first demonstrates the educator’s involvement with the inquiries promoted by the Preparatory Commission, which gave substance to the proposals made by the Education Section to the General Assembly.

Between November 20 and December 10, 1946, the First Assembly of the General Conference occurred in Paris. “Following the election of the Director-General on December 6, the mandate of the Preparatory Commission expired, and the Commission was dissolved, but its staff continued to work as the UNESCO Secretariat” (Prep. Com. 2009). In this condition, on January 25, 1947, Anísio left France to vacation in Brazil. At that moment, he was still pondering his future in the organization. The trip included a visit to New York. His wife, Emília Ferreira Teixeira, accompanied him. In a letter dated January 29, 1947, to Lobato, written aboard the Queen Elizabeth, Anísio highlighted his hesitation:

At the same time, UNESCO is a late work and a premature work. This is its essential contradiction. It was late because, for a long time, the world asked for an intellectual center to unify its experience and direct its progress. (…) Instead of UNESCO, we had, however, national and nationalist science and intelligence until the final Hitlerian apoplexy. (…) But… with the victory - what irony! - the men returned to their old divisions. And, within these divisions, UNESCO, which they intended to create, is something extremely premature.

If Wells were still alive, I believe he would stigmatize the little UNESCO we are building. (…) It’s horrible to think these things and even more horrible to cooperate in frustrating projects. (TEIXEIRA, A. 1947a).

However, he said he was infected by the enthusiasm expressed by Lobato in a letter received before leaving France, and stated: “I will return to UNESCO for a new experience.” He had given up on continuing his journey. He would return from New York to Paris after resolving the SIMEL business that had taken him to the USA. However, the resolution was revised for family and financial reasons. Anísio wrote to Lobato on February 13, 1947:

I wrote the letter to him on board. I was in a state of complete impartiality and had reached those conclusions. In N.Y., I set foot on land. And I felt they didn’t have the lightness I had assumed in the middle of the sea — five “cobblestones” — tied him to the ground. The wife and four children. These decisions collapsed. I telegraphed to UNESCO that I considered my return impossible, and I am waiting for… the reaction.

It is a shame. It’s a pain. But what should I do? (TEIXEIRA, A. 1947b, emphasis in the original)

The cement and gypsum businesses prospered and were joined by other initiatives related to research into manganese and chromium. “It was with such projects that I decided to return to Brazil, resigning from UNESCO,” recalled Anísio in a letter to his brother, Nelson, dated November 3, 1947 (TEIXEIRA, A. 1947c). In the same letter, he assured: “Dr. Octávio Mangabeira caught me in Belém. I couldn’t resist the temptation to return to the ‘civic’ and the commercial projects entered the twilight”. In fact, between 1947 and 1951, Teixeira joined the Bahian government as Secretary of Education and Health, remaining only partially in SIMEL’s business.

UNESCO’s resignation request was made on February 15. Upon receiving it, Huxley, in a letter dated February 28, asked Anísio to reconsider and remain in the position until at least the end of the year. In a telegram dated March 17, Teixeira ruled out any possibility of resuming his duties at UNESCO. In response to him on April 3, Huxley regretted the decision and declared his intention to maintain contact with him as a (volunteer) consultant, continuing the established collaboration (DPAT). Other attempts, in fact, were made to associate Teixeira more decisively with UNESCO.

On May 28, 1948, a telegram sent to Teixeira offered him the Head of the Education Section position with an annual salary of US$ 7,450.00, plus US$ 2,000.00 per year in residence allowance, and covering expenses and transportation for him and his dependents. The telegram was issued after Huxley received a letter from Carneiro, in which the latter assured the satisfaction with which the Brazilian government welcomed Anísio’s appointment to the post.

However, in a telegram dated June 24, 1948, addressed to Samuel Selsky, acting chief of staff, Anísio informed that he had not been able to obtain a license from the government of Bahia to dedicate himself to UNESCO and asked him to send his apologies to Huxley. On the same day, in a letter to Huxley, Carneiro reported the impossibility of Teixeira leaving the Bahia Department of Education and Health despite having previously announced that the educator would arrive in Paris on July 1 to begin activities with the organization. The exchange of correspondence and the mismatch of information reveal Teixeira’s hesitation in evaluating the new invitation.

The proposed salary was substantially better than that of an advisor. However, commitments with the government of Bahia and family issues weighed on the decision. As he confided to Azevedo, in a letter dated July 22, 1948, Anísio said: “After all, I didn’t go to UNESCO either. A vague but profound feeling of duty kept me here, for immolation, perhaps, but I was unable to overcome it… We owe Brazil, at least, the presence” (emphasis in the original) (VIDAL, 2000, p. 37).

Again, in 1953, Teixeira would be invited to take on the position of Head of the Education Extension Division²¹, to be held in Paris. Another attempt was made on July 22, 1954, when he was offered the position of Associate Head of the Western Hemisphere Regional Office in Havana, tasked with broadly developing the UNESCO program in Latin America and the Caribbean²². In both cases, the educator declined the invitation.

Despite not returning to positions at UNESCO, he maintained constant relations with the organization. In 1950, he was called to participate in the assembly held in Florence (VIDAL, 2000, p. 43). In 1951, he developed a testimonial survey on interracial relations at the Bahia Foundation for the Development of Science in agreement with UNESCO (VIDAL, 2000, p. 45). In 1956, he attended UNESCO meetings in Lima (TEIXEIRA, A. 1964). In 1957, he began collaborating with the organization to create a training course for education specialists at the São Paulo Regional Center for Educational Research (VIDAL, 2000, p. 62), inaugurated in 1958 with the presence of Malcolm Adiseshiah, deputy director of the organization (VIDAL, 2000, p. 73). The contacts would continue in the 1960s, demonstrating that the networks created in the short period as Higher Education Advisor had been solid enough to feed new projects, whether on the initiative of UNESCO or Brazilian bodies.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

We took publishers and organizations as hubs, points of intersection in webs of personal, academic, economic, and political relationships at a time marked by the rise of authoritarian governments, war, and reconstruction. In the narrative, the subjects’ agencies assumed prominence, with the figure of Anísio Teixeira as the focal point. The educator was, therefore, simultaneously perceived as a node in the many networks outlined here (family, educational, commercial, political) and as a hub and articulator of subjects and initiatives in various fields.

The texture we proposed moved us between personal, commercial, and professional correspondence, associated with other sources, mostly gathered from institutional collections, whether from CEN or UNESCO, and personal ones, such as the Anísio Teixeira Fund of CPDOC. Indeed, a quantitative treatment of the data would allow us to produce dynamic maps of these networks that we could only outline in this text. However, the procedure attempted to demonstrate the importance of network theory in shaping the educational field in Brazil and abroad. In the same way, the continent’s explosion of geographic borders made it possible to recognize the transnational circuit in which Brazilian educators moved and the mutual fertilization that benefited the national and international scenario from this circulation of subjects and ideas.

The analysis, however, does not end in this article. On the contrary, the elements mobilized by the writing raise paths for understanding the subsequent actions led by Anísio in the Brazilian educational arena in the interweaving of networks constituted inside and outside the country. Along this path, Teixeira’s agency is of interest; it is less their biography that encourages investment and more the crossed exercise of the many agencies of subjects in the process of continuous (re)faction of education, as policy and social intervention.

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• MAUREL, Chloé. Huxley, Sir Julian Sorell. In: REINALDA, B.; KILLE, Kent J.; EISENBERG, Jaci L. (ed.). Biographical Dictionary of Secretaries General of International Organizations Nijmegen: Radboud University, 2012. Disponível em: www.ru.nl/fm/iobio. Acesso em: 16 ago. 2023..
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• NUNES, Clarice. Anísio Teixeira Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Editora Massangana, 2010. (Coleção Educadores Brasileiros).
• PROPAGANDA criminosa. Diário da Noite, Rio de Janeiro, p. 1, 16 mar. 1936. Disponível em:Disponível em:https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=221961_01&pasta=ano%20193&pesq=Geografia%20de%20D.%20Benta&pagfis=25998 Acesso em: 19 ago. 2023.
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• TAXAS de câmbio em 1946. Revista do Empresário, Rio de Janeiro, ano 3, n. 14, p. 88, 14 jan. 1947. Disponível em: Disponível em: http://docvirt.com/docreader.net/DocReader.aspx?bib=acrjrevistas&pagfis=46438 Acesso em: 14 ago. 2023..
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• 1
  Article published with funding from theConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico- CNPq/Brazil for editing, layout and XML conversion services.
• 2
  Cf., among others, GOUVEIA NETO, 1973; GERIBELLO, 1977; LIMA, 1978; FERRO, 1984; SCHAEFFER, 1988; VIANA FILHO, 1990; ROCHA, 1992; NUNES, 2000, 2010; CURY, 2000; BRANDÃO; MENDONÇA, 2008.
• 3
  For example, see Lobato’s letter to Fernando de Azevedo introducing Anísio Teixeira (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 8).
• 4
  In a letter to Nelson Teixeira from 1929, Anísio comments that he would have tea with Paul Monroe, one of the leading figures in the History of Education/Comparative Education at Columbia University. (TEIXEIRA, A. 1929).
• 5
  See the correspondence in which Ferreira explains that each author of the Manifesto must pay 50$000 to receive ten copies. Letter from Octalles Marcondes Ferreira to Anísio Teixeira of 12/22/1932). Arquivo Anísio Teixeira/CPDOC AT1928.04.27. In the correspondence mentioned above, there is a letter from Teixeira - as Director of Public Instruction of the Federal District - agreeing with CEN the edition of the Boletim de Instrução Pública do DF (Letter from Anísio Teixeira to Octalles Marcondes Ferreira, 03/15/1932). Arquivo Anísio Teixeira/CPDOC AT 1928.04.27.
• 6
  Azevedo, for example, received, to direct the Biblioteca Pedagógica Brasileira, a monthly salary in addition to a fixed percentage on each title edited (Companhia Editora Nacional - Contract of 12/14/1930 CMPH Coleção CEN).
• 7
  See the letter from Teixeira to Lobato of July 8, 1931 (FRAIZ; VIANNA, 1986, p. 62).
• 8
  BEM lasted until the 1980s, with variations in its direction. See FONSECA, 2010.
• 9
  On March 16, 1936, O Diário da Noite published an article attacking the book Geografia de D. Benta (PROPAGANDA, 1936).
• 10
  The term we invented refers to Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), a British novelist, journalist, scientific visionary, and encyclopedist. His thinking seeks a synthesis of evolutionism, pragmatism, and various types of socialism. According to Elzinga, Wells sought to participate in the leading international discussions that followed the First World War. Although Wells was a critic of the League of Nations, he defended the idea of world unification as the only alternative to a devastating conflict (ELZINGA, 2004, p. 138, note 4).
• 11
  Teixeira refers to the wool of his caramel overcoat in New York.
• 12
  BEM translators were some of the Vargas regime’s persecuted politicians, such as Teixeira himself, Lobato, and Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça. Nelson Teixeira, Godofredo Rangel, Afrânio Coutinho, and Edson Carneiro, among others, also worked on the collection.
• 13
  Fonseca describes publishers’ contemporary representations of what they conceived as the territory of the average readership. See chapters 1 and 2 of his dissertation (FONSECA, 2010).
• 14
  Teixeira forwards this same message to Azevedo (VIDAL, 2000, p. 52).
• 15
  The documentation from the UNESCO Archives - Preparatory Commission for UNESCO (Prep.Com.) 1945-1946 and the Anísio Teixeira personal dossier are not organized. Therefore, references used here will only be Prep.Com. or DPAT if they refer to the Preparatory Commission or the Anísio Teixeira Personal Dossier, respectively.
• 16
  According to Revista do Empresário (TAXAS, 1947), the pound exchange rate fluctuated from Cr$ 77.33 (on January 3) to Cr$ 74.555 (on December 31). The dollar fluctuated between Cr$ 19.60 and Cr$ 18.50 in the same period. This implies that the proposal was around Cr$ 55,000.00 for six months, plus approximately Cr$ 83.00 per day, something around Cr$ 11,700.00/month. For comparison purposes, according to Decree-Law 5,977 of November 10, 1943 (BRASIL, 1943), the monthly value of Cr$ 380.00 for the minimum wage was established in Brazil for three years. In other words, the contract corresponded to a monthly payment equivalent to 30 minimum wages.
• 17
  UNESCO offices moved to Paris on September 16, and the staff was installed at the Hotel Majestic, located at 19 Av. Kléber.
• 18
  About the trajectory of San Tiago Dantas, see (DANTAS, 2009).
• 19
  NEF Paris Summer Conference. The New Era, fevereiro de 1946, p. 44.
• 20
  All information mentioned regarding the memorandum is available at Prep.Com.
• 21
  Letter from B.W. Pringle of the Office of Personnel and Administration, dated August 21, 1953, PEM/APS/IA/1222. DPAT.
• 22
  Letter from B.W. Pringle of the Office of Personnel and Administration, dated July 22, 1954, PEM/APS/IA/1818. DPAT.

FINANCING

• This article presents partial research results within the scope of the Thematic Projectfrom FAPESP: Educational knowledge and practices at borders: for a transnational history of education (1810-…), Process No. 2018/26699-4.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  02 Aug 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  13 Feb 2024
• Accepted
  18 May 2024
• Preprint posted on
  12 June 2023
  10.1590/SciELOPreprints.7557