The teaching of the development of the practice of nursing implies the analysis of the relationships of the health system of which nursing is an essential part with the social structure considered from a dynamic point of view and consequently always in process of change. In order to attain this purpose, the functionalist approach revealed itself inadequate in contrast with the efficacy of the historic structural approach. On these basis, it has been conducted a teaching program in the Graduate Course of the Department of Nursing at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco whose analysis from the point of view of motivation and learning for a period of five years - 1978 through 1983 - showed satisfactory results thus pointing out the importance of the History toward an adequate professional education of the nurse.