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We have limited information on individual Portuguese schools. We have found a few school portraits which we have archived here. Many schools did not have names, but were known just by the name of the town or village where they were located. Until after World War II, most schools were single gender schools. Parents especially in the villages were less lkely to send their girls to school. The Portuguese were the poorest country in Western Europe and this is reflected in their schools. Portugal was not always so far behind the rest of Europe. And of course led the European maritime outreach, accumulating enormpous wealth. It is not entirely clear why Portugal fell so far behind and became a European backwater. A situatiion which contnues today. And a backward society was a factor in the reluctance to parent's educate their girls. This is somethig that has changed significantly. Hopefully our Portuguese readers will send along information about their schools which we can add to our list of schools.
We note a press photo of President António Óscar Fragoso Carmona visiting an unidentified girls' school, we think in Lisbon. The President played a key role in Salzar's rise to power. The girls wear a uniform with soft white caps, white blouses, and suspender skirts cut at along length. We are not sure about the color. The girls look to be about 10-years old. They seem to be about the same age, so thry are probably a class, positioned to greet the President. They are giving the Fascist salute to President Carmona and throwing confeti as he passed . Notice how perfectly tey are giving the salute. They clearly were well driled. Unfortuntely we do not know the name of the school. We suspect it is a prstigious private school. Perhaps a Portuguese reader will recognize it.
The Liceu Camões (nowadays Escola Secundária Luís de Camões) is one of most prestigious secondary schools in Lisbon, founded in 1902. The photo, taken in 1933, shows the pupils leaving school after class. It is not clear to me if the barefoot boy in the front row is a pupil at the school, but we believe he probably was. It seems strange for a so prestigious school to have barefoot boy, but he is the only one. It was very common for Portuguse children, especially the boys, to go barefoot even into the Post-World War II era. The man behind him could be a driver coming to pick a pupil up from school.
This school portrait shows what looks like a small village primary school. It was taken suring World War II in 1942. The school was located at Albergaria dos Doze in central Portugal. This was not a class, but the entire school. In the class there are 35 boys and only 2 girls. The Portuguese had mostly single gender schools, even primary schools. In the villages, however, especilly small villages, there were mixed classes. This photograph suggest that many parents were not sending their girls to school. We are nt sre how representative this was.
We note another village primary school located in Ameal, a village about 10 km west of Coimbra, in central Portugal. The photo is undated, but was probably taken un the 1950s. In this photo the children do not wear smocks or shoes. It is also a coeducational class which was not common in Portugal at the time, except in small village schools.
This class photo was taken on December 10, 1952 in Paço dos Negros, a little village about 100 km north of Lisbon (figure 1). The children wear immaculate white smocks of varying length. One boy has tucked is smock inyo his pants. There seem to be both front and back buttoning smocks. Although the photo was taken in winter, some children were barefoot.
We see photos were taken in Santo Isidro de Pegões, a village about 50 kms from Lisbon. It is located on a pennsula near Setúbal. The region is now best known for marvelous red wines--promoted as wines with character. The Portuguese government established a model farming community (1952-58). The Government took a pre-existing settlement and totally rebuilt it. Every family received a brand new home. A new school were built where boys and girls could be taught separately. A dispensary was set up and physician made regular visits. A Catholic Church was opened. The model village and schools were for landless peasant familiess and the goal was to put the Salazasr regime in a better light. The curiculm was a little different than the generall more academic with practical casses. We see the girls given lesson about house care and the boys about agriculture, specifically about different sorts of ground. This is not unlike schools in the United States which included practical skills in the curiculum. Here agriculture is in the curiuculkm. In American schools, shop (mechanics) and carpentry were more common.
We note one village primary school in the district of Setúbal, located in southern Portugal. It shows a 4th grade class during the 1954-55 school year. The kids would be about 10 years old and they were attending the last year of the compulsory school program at the time in Portugal. All but one boy are wearing white smocks, however there were children that attend the school in bare feet. To go barefoot was very common for Portuguese children at the time.
These photos shows two school classes at Valado dos Frades, a village in the municipality of Nazaré. Both are all-boys classes, according the ministerial guidelines about separation of boys and girls at the primary school.
In the photo taken in 1950s, the boys look very poor. All the pupils are barefoot. Also note that the voys all wear long pants. In most European countrues, many boys this age would have worn short pants. We suspect that msny more prosperous boys in city schools did commonly wear short pants. A few of these boys may be wearing white smocks, but this is difficult to tell as many boys wear white shirts. The boys look much more prosperous and are better dressed in the 1968 portrait. And,only a few boys are coming to school barefott. Several boys wear short pants, but long pants are more common. None of these boys wear smocks.
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