A 13th of October 1909, with the Montjuic Castle in the background, Francis Ferrer Guardia, founder of the Modern School and pioneer of rationalism in Spanish education, was executed in Barcelona.
Ferrer founded a mixed school to promote equality amongst the sexes; a rationalist school, based on the truths of science; a state school ( even anticlerical) at a time when the catholic school held the virtual monopoly in Spanish education; a social school, where everyone paid what he could; a totally new school, with new methods, its own books and magazines published by its own editor, a school without exams! Something revolutionary, unthinkable at the time and which must have appeared extremely dangerous to many, and indeed which cost the founder his life.
More than 100 years later, this Belgian postcard tells us once again about Francisco Ferrer and of how his execution caused a wave of outcry throughout the world against the Spanish goverment of the time.
It is no coincidence that the author of the postcard represented the official who gave the order to the firing squad, turning towards the public to enable us to discover his face, none other than King Alfonso XIII himself!
As an anecdote, one must remember that Alfonso XIII was the sponsor of the first porn cinema in Spain. Something less of an anecdote was his support to the dictatorship of the Primo de Rivera or equally that during his reign, chemical weapons were used during the Rif war. However, it was Francis Ferrer’s execution that won Juan Carlos I’s grandfather numerous enemies at international level and caused great unrest.
This article from the Chicago Tribune is an example , where social representatives from all spheres treated the Spanish Monarchy of nothing less than foolish and its clergy as corrupt.
Let’s return to our postcard, published in Brussels, epicentre of this wave of protests, and remember that Ferrer died “Victime de la réaction cléricale” and that the revolt was monumental and world-wide.
Monumental is without doubt the word, to the point that a monument was built in Brussels in 1911 in his honour, representing a nude man raising a torch to the sky , symbol of rationalist education. The story of this statue and the indignant protests from the Spanish monarchy, are worth a separate chapter. Let us remember that since 1972 the torch has become the symbol of the lay movement in Belgium.
Today the statue can be found just in front of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) whose motto is ” Science overcomes darkness” and whose emblem is precisely that of two crossed torches. This is a “free” university, because it promotes secular free thinking , defended by Ferrer. Both the ULB and its Flemish counterpart the VUB are a contrast to the very ancient catholic Université de Louvain. It was here that a certain Felipe González studied for a year and was awarded a honorary doctorate.
More details about Ferrer’s monument in Brussels can be found in this page (in French).
A final curious remark concerns the caption on the photo mentioning ” 13th October 19″ as if the editor was not sure of the date of Ferrer’s execution and left a blank intending to fill it in later. This is confirmed with other copies of the same postcard.
This excellent documentary in Spanish tells us the story of Francisco Ferrer and of his Modern School:
Long live the Modern School!
Translated by Sue Dangotte