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ABSTRACT
In this article we examine the book El estudio de la naturaleza en la escuela by the Danish pedagogue Vilhelm Rasmussen (1869–1939), published by Editorial Labor in Barcelona in 1933, and its influence on the pedagogical standpoint of Margarita Comas Camps (1892–1972). Comas, who translated the book into Spanish, was a member of the group of educators of trainee teachers that spearheaded the project for the renewal of science teaching during the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). In line with the pedagogical principles and ideas of the New School and Nature Study movements, Rasmussen – science writer, social democratic politician, atheist and Darwinist – proposed replacement of the textbook and the memorisation of concepts in natural science classes, by observation, dialogue and drawing, as well as studies of the relationships between living things in their natural environment through outdoor excursions and the use of aquaria and terraria in the classroom. We analyse Comas’s Spanish translation of Nature study in the school published in England in 1929 from the Danish original of 1909, as well as Rasmussen’s pedagogical proposals that Comas included in Contribución a la metodología de las ciencias naturales (1937), the last of her books to be published prior to her exile in England. In Rasmussen, an author from a country geographically and culturally distant from Spain, Comas found an outstanding reference for the teaching of natural sciences.
La influencia de El estudio de la naturaleza en la escuela (1933), del danés Vilhelm Rasmussen, en Margarita Comas Camps y el proyecto de renovación de la enseñanza de las ciencias naturales en la Segunda República española
En este trabajo analizamos el libro El estudio de la naturaleza en la escuela del pedagogo danés Vilhelm Rasmussen (1869–1939), publicado por Editorial Labor de Barcelona en 1933, y su influencia en los planteamientos pedagógicos de Margarita Comas Camps (1892–1972), que tradujo el libro al español y que formó parte del grupo de profesores normalistas que impulsaron el proyecto de renovación de la enseñanza de las ciencias durante la Segunda República española (1931–1939). Rasmussen, escritor de temas científicos, político socialdemócrata, ateo y darwinista, proponía sustituir el libro de texto y la memorización de conceptos por las observaciones, el diálogo, el dibujo y el estudio de las relaciones entre los seres vivos en su medio; en las excursiones, y los acuarios y terrarios en el aula, siguiendo los principios de la Escuela Nueva y el Nature Study. En este artículo estudiamos la traducción al español que realizó Comas a partir de Nature study in the school, la versión inglesa publicada en 1929 de la danesa original de 1909, así como las propuestas de Rasmussen que Comas recogió en Contribución a la metodología de las ciencias naturales (1937), su último libro publicado antes de exiliarse a Inglaterra. En Rasmussen, un autor procedente de un país alejado geográfica y culturalmente de España, Comas encontró un destacado referente para la enseñanza de las ciencias naturales.
Acknowledgements
This work was undertaken in the framework of the research project “Educational and scientific challenges of the Second Spanish Republic: internationalisation, popularisation and innovation in universities and institutes” [PGC2018-097391-B-I00], funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation in the national programme for Knowledge Generation and Scientific and Technological Reinforcement of the System of R&D&i 2017–2020. I would also like to thank Ricardo González-Haba and Andrew Peter MacCabe for their contributions in the preparation of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 The Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE, The Board for the Extension of Studies) was created in 1907 with the aim of connecting Spain with European culture and science as part of the project for the political, social and cultural regeneration of the country following the crisis caused by the loss of the last Spanish colonies, Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, at the end of the century. Its innovative programme awarded numerous travel fellowships to Spanish education professionals to enable them to work in Europe and America, and promoted unprecedented scientific and cultural progress in Spain. The JAE adopted the modernising ideals of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE, Free Institution of Education) (1876–1936), the most active progressive educational movement in Spain. The bibliography on the JAE is very extensive. We highlight: Teresa Marín Eced, La renovación pedagógica en España (1907–1936): los pensionados en pedagogía por la Junta para ampliación de estudios (Madrid: CSIC, 1990); José García Velasco and José Manuel Sánchez Ron, 100 JAE. La Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas en su centenario. Actas del II Congreso Internacional, celebrado los días 4, 5 y 6 de febrero de 2008, Residencia de Estudiantes (Madrid, 2010).
2 Leoncio López-Ocón, Víctor Guijarro and Mario Pedrazuela, eds., Aulas abiertas. Profesores viajeros y renovación de la enseñanza secundaria en los países ibéricos (1900–1936) (Madrid: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2018). See also JAEduca. Diccionario de profesores de instituto vinculados a la JAE, http://ceies.cchs.csic.es.
3 For information on the contribution of the Revista de Pedagogía to the teaching of geography see Juan Mainer Baqué, La forja de un campo profesional. Pedagogía y Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales en España (1900–1970) (Madrid: CSIC, 2009), 319–53.
4 Margarita Comas Camps developed a brilliant career as an educator and scientist. She began her studies by obtaining a teaching degree and became one of the first women to obtain a degree and a doctorate in science in Spain. Coming from a family committed to teaching and the ILE, Camps spent periods in France during her youth and later in England holding a scholarship from the JAE that enabled her to learn new methodologies in the field of natural science teaching, such as Nature Study, which is reflected in her publications.
Her international experience went beyond the field of education: for her doctorate she worked in the Laboratoire d’Évolution des Étres Organisés under the supervision of Maurice Caullery. In 1928 she obtained her doctorate from the Universidad Central de Madrid with her thesis “Contribución al conocimiento de la Biología de Chironomus humani y de su parásito Paramernis contorta”. She worked as a teacher educator and was deputy director of the Escuela Normal de la Generalitat de Cataluña (Teacher Training College of the Catalonian Government), a co-educational centre where she taught the Biology for Children course. In her book La coeducación de los sexos, Comas argued in favour of co-educational schooling and equal education for both sexes.
Her life and professional career were derailed by the coup d’état against the democratic government of the Second Republic in July 1936, which led Spain into a fratricidal civil war (1936–1939). Comas was forced into exile in France and later England, where she worked as a teacher at Dartington Hall School in Devon until her retirement in 1959.
5 María del Mar Del Pozo Andrés, “Educación para la ciudadanía democrática en la Segunda República: un intento de construcción de la identidad nacional desde la escuela”, Historia de la Educación 27 (2008): 105–35.
6 Vilhelm Rasmussen, Nature study in the school (London: Danish Rask-Orsted Foundation, Gyldendal, 1929), translated by George Godfrey Berry.
7 Rasmussen explains in Nature study in the school that the first Danish version of his work was published in 1909. Rasmussen, Preface to Nature study in the school. This date also appears in Vilhelm Rasmussen, Ruth: Tagebuch über die Entwicklung eines Mädchens von der Geburt bis zum 18. Lebensjahre [Diary of a girl’s development from birth to 18 years of age] (Berlin, Boston: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2019), 301–4.
8 Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, Histoire de la lecture dans le monde occidental, Éd. du Seuil (Paris, 1997). Roger Chartier, “Le Monde Comme Représentation”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 44, no. 6 (1989): 1505–20, https://doi.org/doi:10.3406/ahess.1989.283667.
9 María del Mar Del Pozo Andrés, “Introducción. (Ejemplar dedicado a: Books and education: 500 years of reading and learning)”, Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education 38, no. 1 (2002): 9–17.
10 María del Mar Del Pozo Andrés and Sjaak Braster, “El Plan Dalton en España: Recepción y Apropiación (1920–1939)”, Revista de Educación 377 (2017): 113–35, 116. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.4438/1988-592X-RE-2017-377-355.
11 María del Mar Del Pozo Andrés, “La Escuela Nueva en España: crónica y semblanza de un mito”, Historia de la Educación 22–23 (2003–2004): 317–46.
12 Rasmussen’s work, Child psychology, consists of three volumes: 1. Development in the first four years. 2. The kindergarten child: its conception of life and its mental powers. 3. The kindergarten child: thought, imagination and feeling, will and morale, with a preface by Harald Høffding. Gyldendal, London, Copenhagen, Christiania, 1921. It was published in Danish and translated into English, volume 1 by G.G. Berry and volumes 2–3 by David Pritchard. About 20 editions of these books have been published in at least three languages. In 1929 Gyldendal also published The Primary School Child and The Intermediate School Child. Rasmussen, Ruth, 301–4.
13 Among the short biographies of Rasmussen that have been published are those of Hans Henrik Hjermitslev, Debating Darwinism in Denmark, 1859‐1920. Appendix I. Danes Debating Darwinism, 1859‐1920: Biographical sketches (Denmark: Department of Science Studies Faculty of Science Aarhus University, 2009), 47–8; Ole Varming, “Vilhelm Rasmussen”, https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Vilhelm_Rasmussen; and Ellen Nordgaard, “Vilhelm Rasmussen”, https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Vilhelm_Rasmussen. See also Trine Oland, “A state ethnography of progressivism: Danish school pedagogues and their efforts to emancipate the powers of the child, the people and the culture, 1929–1960”, Praktiske Grunde. Nordisk tidsskrift for kultur-og samfundsvidenskab 1–2 (2010): 57–89, 81.
14 Casper Andersen and Hans Hjermitslev, “Directing Public Interest: Danish Newspaper Science 1900‐1903”, Centaurus 51 (2009): 143–67, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600–0498.2009.00145.x; Hans Henrik Hjermitslev, “Danes commemorating Darwin: apes and evolution at the 1909 anniversary”, Annals of Science 67, no. 4 (2010): 485–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2010.495316.
15 The use of drawing for botany teaching proposed by Rasmussen has been discussed by José Pedro Marín Murcia in “El material científico para la enseñanza de la botánica en la Región de Murcia (1837–1939)” (PhD diss., University of Murcia, 2011), 110.
16 Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig, Danish pastor, writer and politician, had a major influence on the history of his country and in particular on education. Carmen Rotaru, “The Triad: Grundtvig, Haret, Gusti. Outdoor education in the history of the international pedagogy”, Procedia. Social and Behavioural Sciences 142 (2014): 531–5, 532.
17 Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Teaching Children Science: Hands-On Nature Study in North America, 1890–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010); Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, “Nature, not books”, Isis 96 (2005): 324–52.
18 Antonio Jiménez Landi, La Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Madrid: Alianza, 1971), 157. See also Ana María Montero Pedrera, “Los paseos y las excursiones escolares: una práctica higiénica de influencia anglosajona”, in José María Hernández Díaz, Influencias inglesas en la educación española e iberoamericana (1810–2010) (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla. Departamento de Teoría e Historia de la Educación y Pedagogía Social, 2011), 251–9, http://hdl.handle.net/11441/36223.
19 Eugenio Otero-Urtaza, “Giner y Cossío en el verano de 1883: memoria de una excursión inolvidable”, Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza 55 (2004): 9–37, 9.
20 Nicolás Ortega Cantero, “Francisco Giner y el descubrimiento moderno del paisaje de España”, Anales de Literatura Española 27 (2015): 23–44, 24. doi:10.14198/ALEUA.2015.27.02.
21 Mavi Corell Domenech, “La naturaleza viva debe ocupar el primer plano. Un estudio sobre el Diccionario de pedagogía (1936) de editorial Labor y la enseñanza de las ciencias físico-químicas y naturales”, Historia y Memoria de la Educación 14 (2021): 451–86.
22 José Mariano Bernal Martínez, Renovación pedagógica y enseñanza de las ciencias. Medio siglo de propuestas y experiencias escolares (1882–1936), (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2001); Ma Ángeles Delgado Martínez, Científicas y educadoras. Las primeras mujeres en el proceso de construcción de la Didáctica de las Ciencias en España (Murcia: Editum, Ediciones de la Universidad de Murcia, 2009) and Margalida Comas Camps (1892–1972), científica y pedagoga, ed. María Ángeles Delgado Martínez (Palma de Mallorca: Govern de les illes Balears, Conselleria d’Innovació, Interior y Justicia, 2014); José Mariano Bernal Martínez and Ma Ángeles Delgado Martínez, “Margarita Comas y la introducción del nature study en las escuelas españolas”, s.f.; José Mariano Bernal Martínez and Francisca Comas Rubí, “La función social de la enseñanza de las ciencias de la naturaleza: una influencia europea en el currículum escolar de España”, Historia de la educación 24 (2005): 131–56, 141; Margarita Comas, Escritos sobre ciencia, género y educación, ed. José Mariano Bernal Martínez and Francesca Comas Rubí (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2001).
23 Juan Manuel Fernández Soria, “La destrucción de la modernidad republicana. (sin)razones del exilio pedagógico español”, Historia y Memoria de la Educación 9 (2019): 61–99, 64. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.5944/hme.9.2019.22520.
24 Bernat Sureda, “Coneixere i enssenyar: la nissaga del Comes”, in Margalida Comas Camps (1892–1972), científica y pedagoga, 31–7.
25 Comas was one of the JAE visiting fellows at Bedford College, University of London and the London Day Training College in England between 1920 and 1921 to study pedagogical practices and observe their application in the teaching of natural sciences. Delgado, Margalida Comas Camps, científica y pedagoga, 67.
26 Ellen Nordgaard, “Vilhelm Rasmussen”.
27 Apparently he was fired for his atheism. Ole Varming, “Vilhelm Rasmussen”.
28 He sought to make pedagogy and psychology the core subjects of this training and introduced professional practice in schools. He also tried to give teacher training the status of higher education and changed the criteria for admission to the school he directed, which had hitherto been based on examination results. He became involved with in-service teacher training, and introduced internships to link higher education with vocational training. Nordgaard, “Vilhelm Rasmussen”.
29 Andersen and Hjermitslev, “Directing Public Interest”, 156.
30 Nordgaard, “Vilhelm Rasmussen”. The Circular on curricula for Danish public schools (Sthyrske Circular) of 6 April 1900 had among its aims the development of children’s perception and imagination. Danmarkshistorie.dk, Aarhus Universitet, https://danmarkshistorien.dk/vis/materiale/cirkulaere-om-undervisningsplaner-for-de-offentlige-folkeskoler-sthyrske-cirkulaere-6 April 1900/.
31 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 226. The italics are from the English and Spanish versions of the book. Since Margarita Comas translated Rasmussen’s book from English into Spanish we have thought it appropriate to quote the excerpts using the original English version.
32 Ibid., 5.
33 Idem.
34 Ibid., 247.
35 Ibid., 247.
36 Ibid., 190.
37 Ibid., 78.
38 Ibid., 55.
39 Co-education was practised in some of the public schools in Copenhagen in which he taught.
40 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 63.
41 Luis Sánchez Sarto, Diccionario de pedagogía (Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1937), Dibujo II, 909.
42 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 79.
43 Ibid., 190.
44 Ibid., 17.
45 Ibid., 162.
46 Ibid., 246.
47 Ibid., 229.
48 Ibid., 228.
49 Andersen and Hjermitslev, “Directing Public Interest”, 162.
50 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 255.
51 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 229.
52 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 231.
53 Ibid., 255.
54 Ibid., 185.
55 Ibid., 186.
56 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 194.
57 Ibid., 247.
58 In 1909 Gyldendal published the second editions of the Danish translations of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and Descent of Man, and Autobiography. According to Andersen and Hjermitslev, the publishing war between Gyldendal and Norsk Forlag resulted in the popularisation of the theory of evolution and the merger of the two publishers in 1925 to form Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. Hjermitslev, “Danes commemorating Darwin”, 489.
59 Rasmussen, Ruth, 301–4.
60 The translation of the first volume of the Biblioteca de Pedagogía Contemporánea, Lecciones de Didáctica by the Italian pedagogue Giuseppe Lombardo Radice, was done by Pablo Martínez de Salinas, a colleague of Comas at the Escuela Normal de la Generalitat de Cataluña (Teacher Training College of the Catalonian Government) and one of the co-authors of Labor’s Diccionario de pedagogía. The second volume, Test para la primera infancia by Charlotte Bühler of the University of Vienna and Hildegard Hetzer of the Pedagogical Academy in Elbing, was translated by Alejandro Chleusebairgue and Antonio Vaquero and published in 1934. Emilio Mira y López, lecturer at the Instituto Psicotécnico de la Generalitat de Cataluña (Psychotechnical Institute of the Catalonian Government), wrote the foreword to the Spanish edition. In 1933, the volumes in press were Instrucción ética de la juventud, by W. Foerster, translation of the 5th German edition; Examen de la aptitud profesional, by Franziska Baumgarten; Posibilidades y límites de la Pedagogía, by Theodore Litt; and Teoría de la Educación and Teoría de la estructura de la educación, both by Georg Kerschensteiner. Rasmussen. Advertisement, El estudio de la naturaleza, the final pages.
61 Rasmussen. Advertisement, El estudio de la naturaleza, the final pages.
62 W. Platt. “The Primary School Child, The Intermediate School Child and Nature Study in School”, The New Era 11, no. 2 (1930): 32.
63 “Libros recibidos”, Revista de Pedagogía 143 (1933): 526.
64 Delgado, Margalida Comas Camps, 102. In 1933 the Revista de Pedagogía, which since 1927 had been the medium of expression of the New School in Spain, specified that the steering committee included Luzuriaga and Antonio Ballesteros as representatives of Madrid. “Noticias. España”, Revista de Pedagogía 144 (1933): 575.
65 Corell, “La naturaleza viva debe ocupar el primer plano”. Likewise, in the review of Labor’s Diccionario de pedagogía published in the Revista de Pedagogía in 1936, Luzuriaga alludes to the tension with Barcelona by lamenting the Catalan origin of most of the contributors to the work “and the almost total absence of those from Madrid”. Lorenzo Luzuriaga, “Libros. Diccionario de pedagogía Labor, tome I”, Revista de Pedagogía 170 (1936): 88–9, 89.
66 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, Prólogo, s.p.
67 Comas quotes the same as Pablo Martínez de Salinas in the translation of Lecciones de didáctica by Giuseppe Lombardo Radice, published in 1933 by Labor.
68 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 32.
69 Ibid., 155 and 156.
70 Ibid., 64.
71 Ibid., 57–60.
72 Rasmussen, Nature study in the school, 232, 240 and 248.
73 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 219 and 224. In Berry’s version this is specified below the image: Incomplete map of the world. Lines of latitude and longitude arbitrarily altered from Mercator, with equal distances between the parallels except 60°–70° N. L. Rasmussen, Nature study in the school, 217.
74 Modesto Bargalló, Metodología de las ciencias naturales y de la agricultura, Ediciones Sardá (Reus, 1932). For more information about Bargalló see Luis Moreno Martínez, “Modesto Bargalló en España (1894–1939): una biografía entre la historia de la educación y la historia de la ciencia”, Historia y Memoria de la Educación 13 (2021): 635–74.
75 Pedro Chico Rello, Metodología de la geografía (Reus: Editorial Reus, 1934). For more information on Chico Rello see Leoncio López-Ocón, “El interés de los educadores republicanos innovadores por los recursos audiovisuales: el aula-taller del didacta de la geografía Pedro Chico”, in Hernando García-Cervigón, A. (Coord.) Innovación en Comunicación. Retos docentes para la transferencia del conocimiento (Madrid: Editorial Fragua, 2020), 153–64.
76 Corell, “La naturaleza viva debe ocupar el primer plano”.
77 Bernal, Renovación pedagógica, 224.
78 Comas, “Dos palabras al lector”, Contribución a la metodología, s.p.
79 Ibid., 161.
80 Bernal, Renovación pedagógica, 226.
81 Margarita Comas Camps, “Las ciencias naturales en la escuela”, Revista de Pedagogía 171 (1936): 97–104, 104.
82 Comas, Contribución a la metodología, 162–4.
83 Ibid., 183–5.
84 Ibid., 174.
85 Ibid., 175.
86 Ibid., 183. See Rasmussen’s quote on page 223 of Nature study in the school.
87 Ibid., 182.
88 In 1926 Zulueta began to publish on genetics in the Revista de Pedagogía. See Antonio Zuleta, “Las leyes de Mendel”, Revista de Pedagogía 53 (1926): 193–203.
89 Comas, Contribución a la metodología, 185.
90 Ibid., 202–3.
91 Ibid., 205.
92 Ibid., 217.
93 Ibid., 205.
94 Rasmussen, El estudio de la naturaleza, 167.
95 Margarita Comas, La coeducación de los sexos (Madrid: Revista de Pedagogía, 1931), 9.
96 Ibid., 10.
97 Ibid., 14.
98 Comas, Contribución a la metodología, 161.
99 Herminio Almendros was forced into exile in 1939 in Cuba. For more information on this author see José María Hernández Díaz, “Un exponente de la pedagogía española en el exilio: Herminio Almendros y la educación en Cuba”, Revista de Educación 309 (1996): 217–37.
100 H. Almendros, “Libro: Contribución a la metodología de la enseñanza de las ciencias naturales, de M. Comas”, Revista de Pedagogía 176 (1938): 39–41, 40.
101 Chartier, “Le Monde Comme Représentation”.
102 Kohlstedt, Teaching Children Science, 229.
103 Bernal, Renovación pedagógica, 224.
104 Santos Casado de Otaola, Naturaleza patria. Ciencia y sentimiento de la naturaleza en la España del regeneracionismo (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2010).
105 Conrad Vilanou Torrano, “Joaquín Roura Parella (1897–1983) y los orígenes de la Pedagogía Universitaria en Cataluña”, in Pedagogía y Educación en el siglo XXI, ed. J. Ruiz Berrio (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 2005), 171–202, 190.
106 Corell, “La naturaleza viva debe ocupar el primer plano”, 458.
107 Pozo Andrés, “La Escuela Nueva en España”, 344. María del Mar Pozo Andrés, “La LIEN y los educadores españoles: una historia de desencuentros e infidelidades”, Sarmiento. Revista Galego-Portuguesa de Historia da Educación 25 (2021): 51–93, 86.
108 P. Bentsen, Udeskole: outdoor teaching and use of green space in Danish schools (Denmark: University of Copenhagen, 2010).
109 96% of secondary-education teachers indicate that they go out in the field and 56% state that they do so twice per school year. Ricardo del Toro and Juan Gabriel Morcillo, “Las actividades de campo en educación secundaria. Un estudio comparativo entre Dinamarca y España”, Enseñanza de las ciencias de la Tierra 19, no. 1 (2011): 39–47, 46.
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Mavi Corell Doménech
Mavi Corell Doménech holds a degree in biology and a PhD from the Universitat de València. Her doctoral thesis investigated the popularisation of science in the magazine La Ilustración Española y Americana (Madrid, 1869–1921). She currently teaches natural science didactics in the Department of Education at Florida Universitària (Catarroja, València). Her interests focus on the history of teaching of natural sciences during the Second Republic and the Spanish Transition.