José Pedro Varela Pedagogical Museum

Here we are, around the Plaza Cagancha in Montevideo, ready to enter the "José Pedro Varela" Pedagogical Museum. This is a unique place, dedicated to the history of education and the Uruguayan national educational system. Its foundation, on January 25, 1889, took place within the framework of the transcendental Varelian Reform, promoted by José Pedro Varela. This reform was a milestone in national history, establishing the principles of free, secular and compulsory education in Uruguay. Its objective was to guarantee universal access to education and consolidate a modern, inclusive and republican public system. The founder and first director of the museum was Mr. Alberto Gómez Ruano, who was inspired by the Pedagogical Museum of Paris. In fact, the museum maintained fluid communication with its Parisian counterpart in its beginnings. The purpose of the museum, since its inauguration, was "to make known the progress achieved by pedagogy, the progress that public education in the country has followed and continues to follow in the past and present...". In its first years, the institution was installed on the middle floor of the Normal Boarding School for Ladies, a building inaugurated in 1886. Today, the museum continues with that mission, seeking to disseminate and preserve the museographic collection related to the area of ​​education. One of its objectives is to carry out an efficient extension cu…

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