Apart from the 10th subject and the 1st. part of the 26th. - Mineral and organic raw materials, their transformation and respective technology; The physical and chemical character of merchandise and its commercial value; Falsifications and practical means of recognizing them, specifically dedicated to the chemical -analytical study of the merchandise, to make the subject of Chemistry complete, as a higher course subject, it is necessary to include also General Chemistry, that is, the 9 th subject - Mineral and Organic Chemistry; Chemical Analysis.
At the beginning of the 2nd half of the XIX century, in the educational system of Portugal, the teaching of Chemistry in the Industrial Institute was the so called "other chemistry, "the non-superior", a chemistry that was not taught to the future Army or Marine Officers or to students at the Medical-Surgical Schools, that is, one that was built on knowledge obtained from generations and generations of artisans. The action of operating chemists (BENSAUDE-VINCENT; STENGERS, 1996, pp.153 - 156), - a concept of professional training that would accompany the 2nd Industrial Revolution managed sometimes to rationalize and improve - and the union (sometimes merely annexation) with other information, that of scientific knowledge, projected chemical production away from the limits of secrets and art and drew it closer and closer to the industrial sphere.
"Chemistry applied to the arts", cannot therefore be considered within the model of generality. It is much more to the taste of the more favoured professional classes, incorporating all sources of information on scientific and laboratory activity, stripped of its utilitarian facet. Thus, General Chemistry brings together all the inorganic knowledge and some organic, and also analytical methods, which were the base, the noble didactic nucleus of Chemistry, where a very descriptive study of the subject led to the classification of the properties of groups such as metals, metalloids and salts and left well behind, at last the reason why society was so receptive to Chemistry.
However, as we advance into the 2nd half of the XIX century, a number of aspects associated with the development of the Institutes in Lisbon and Oporto start to converge, to introduce changes into this first subject of Chemistry and give it to a more industrial nature, thus bringing it closer the General Chemistry. We would like to be able to enumerate the group of factors that, in our view, explain this transition, however the time allowed for this communication does not allow it, therefore we will refer only to the reform of Emídio Navarro of 1886/88, which was, in the Institutes, the corollary to the model that made it possible to understand Chemistry outside the Industrial Universe, and expand it to other didactic dimensions, placing it in a fundamental position in the constellation of existing curriculum . In this way, the situation of Chemistry in the Industrial Institutes was resolved in an efficient and rational way: the oldest subject of Chemistry was no longer Chemistry for industries and became General Chemistry (with Chemical Analysis also included) and its scope covered almost all courses existing in the establishments in question ( see the case in Attachments III-a e III-b). Another interesting result was that the "Chemical Technology" eventually substituted the primitive subject of Chemistry applied to the arts.
Just like any General Chemistry should be - and here general should be taken as meaning common (thereby nuclear) to many specialties - the 9th.subject of the Industrial and Commercial Institute is essentially Inorganic Chemistry. This is perceptible not only in the programme of the subject ( see Attachment IV), but also in the programme of the "practical course" ( see Attachment V) which with the reform of Emídio Navarro is obligatory for students taking the 9th subject.
The practical classes of the 9th, subject began in accordance with the Regulatory terms published by the Government in August 1889, which determined six hours of obligatory laboratory practice for those taking the 9th.subject - Mineral and Organic Chemistry; Chemical Analysis and access to exams was dependent on grades obtained and assiduity, only in the school year of 1889-1890 (PEGADO, 1889, p.13). The fact that Alfredo da Silva took the exams of some of his subjects before these new regulations were introduced does not in any way minimize his essentially practical expertise and his great vocation for Chemistry. "Confined" to the space of the laboratory (see Attachments II-c and Print I and II), with his students, on the same level as if they were his peers, professor Virgílio Machado shared more than he could demonstrate, he shared his experience - as quoted by Pinto Basto: «It could be said that our professors were almost re-born, filled with a new spirit and ready to abandon the strict attitudes dictated by their counterparts from Coimbra (.)The professors were almost like fellow students » (cf. BASTO, 1952, p.16) - teaching, finally, what could be called «good chemistry, great chemistry » which is «the excursion beyond frontiers, the transgression of rules ( cf. LAZLO 2002). |
