Agostinho Da Silva - His Own Words

His Own Words

(translated from: Silva, Agostinho da, Educação de Portugal. Lisboa: Ulmeiro, 1989. ISBN 972-706-213-X)

a) "... that each man is different from myself and unique in the universe; that I am not the one, consequently, that must reflect instead of him, that knows what is best for him, that must point his way. Towards him I have only one right: helping him to be himself; as my essential duty to myself is being who I am, as uncomfortable as that may be "

b) "... loving others and wanting their good has been the reason of much oppression and much death ; essentially, you must not love in others anything but freedom, theirs and yours. They must, for love, cease being slaves, as must we, for love, cease being slave owners."

c) "And it is the child the one that must be considered the noble savage, spoiling her, mis-shaping her the least we possibly can "

d) "Believing, thus, that man is born good, which means on my regard that he is born a brother to the world, not its owner and destroyer, I think that education has not been much else than the system through which this fraternity is transformed in domination."

According to Agostinho da Silva, some of the most relevant aspects that shaped the nature of the Portuguese people and influenced the culture of Portuguese-speaking nations are: its popular religiousness, with strong elements of millenarism and mysticism; a tradition of participatory democracy and autonomy based on small local communities; a tendency towards cultural miscegenation and cosmopolitanism in balance with a nostalgia for the homeland and its cultural heritage; a slow and difficult adaptation to modernity, namely to illuminist ideas and capitalist economy.