La concepción ilustrada de la educación en el proceso de reformas de la Universidad Salmantina en el siglo XVIII

Abstract

In the University of Salamanca, around the middle of the XVIII century, a group of Enlightened teachers realises how far behind the situation has fallen in regard to the rest of Europe. The means by which they approached its transformation consisted mainly on the introduction of new programmes for the Faculties of Medicine and Arts. The internal opposition of the privileged groups belonging to the leading Faculties forced the process to be slow. Those changes open the way to a new understanding of the University’s role. This process could only culminate at the beginning of the XIX century when political and cultural circumstances fostered the possibility of freedom of expression. How that change took place, the goals proposed, and who the main protagonists were, are the unifying threads of this article; and, finally, it is important to analyse where the Enlightened concept of University and education, and its reason for being, lies.