El Jordán que ha de purificarnos: La reforma educativa de Germán Gamazo en 1898

Abstract

The colonial defeat in the summer of 1898 unleashed a strong urge for deep educational changes in Spanish public opinion, as the shortages in this field were considered one of essential causes of the Disaster. Germán Gamazo, the Developement minister at that time, undertook this demand and promulgated several hasty decrees riddled with deficiencies in September and October of that year. Nevertheless, the response to them was at first very favourable due to the yearning for regeneration that existed in the Spanish society. Only from the first week of October onwards did criticisms, until then very limited, increase considerably, becoming even severer in the third week when several cases of corruption, which stained the reform, were published. That situation finally led Gamazo to resign at the end of that month and wrecked his reform shortly after. This paper analyses the various motives behind Gamazo's reform, its reception in the diverse types of press (professional, political, conservative, liberal or independent), the reasons for its lack of success and the consequences that resulted from this failure.