CARLOTA BOTO
The Portuguese Elementary School Teacher as an intellectual: "I teach, therefore I am"

The present paper is an historical reflection on the intellectual dimension of the elementary school teacher's job. As a mind, soul and heart-shaping agent, he deals directly with the transmission - and possibly the production - of values, knowledge and prescribed behavioural rules. The elementary teacher educates the individual for civic and patriotic duties. Thus, in the structuring of the modern school model, the teacher plays the role of a privileged agent in forging worldviews, which are translated into consensuses for the common man. Therefore, the text here presented addresses some depictions of the social place occupied by the Portuguese elementary school teacher, basically in the period that encompasses the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century (immediately before the Proclamation of the Republic in Portugal). We have tried to weave some theoretic and conceptual considerations on the specific meaning of the word intellectual ; the documentation collected raises controversies and ambiguities concerning this professional, who was responsible for teaching children the rules of reading, writing and arithmetic, and of best behaviour. The conclusion is that the elementary school teacher is, therefore, the vehicle for intellectual propagation of the civilizing values of the West.