Las Cartillas Rústicas: educación a favor del campo a fines del siglo XVIII

Abstract

During the second half of eighteen, in the context of the intellectual revolution brought by the illustration and the Bourbonic Reforms, some economic projects of economic an educational kind arose supported by The Sociedad Económica de Madrid, with the task of spreading the new scientific knowledge through the printing of cartillas or books, to productive sectors like craftsmen, farmers and landowners of the New Spain. The content of the cartillas rústicas (rustic books) tried to eradicate the vulgar knowledge and the ignorance about the growing of the blackberry and to increase the silk industry. These books are included in the context of the informal education and into the popular education field of the time and, like the first antecedent of the agricultural teaching in Mexico.