Las colecciones de instrumentos científicos de los institutos de enseñanza secundaria del siglo XIX en España

Abstract

This paper provides an overview on the history of scientific instrument collections in Spanish secondary schools, focusing especially on the period around their establishment in the mid-nineteenth century. It describes their most important features as well as their promoters and main users. Attention is also paid to the teaching practices which encouraged different uses of scientific instruments in nineteenth-century classrooms and the reasons that lead to the progressive abandonment of nineteenth-century collections along with the advent of new pedagogical ideas. First, we briefly describe the collections created at the end of the 18th century. Then we evaluate the mid nineteenth-century situation, when the Spanish Government supported several projects to provide the new secondary schools with comprehensive physics and chemistry cabinets. Finally, we offer a general overview of the current state of the collections and of several projects and proposals aimed at their use as historical sources, pedagogical tools and objects with great patrimonial and museum value.