The purification of the normal school of teaching and the inspection of first education of Salamanca (december 1936-february 1937)

Abstract

In August 1936 the first purging procedures for the educational system were undertaken in the Spanish province of Salamanca. All these arbitrary
measures were taken by the authorities in charge (military commanders placed in the local or regional garrisons, Civil Governor, Rector of the University, included some of those holding power, so called “local caciques” by the hands of mayors or even “chieftains of hayfork and knife”). The systematic and likewise regulated purge began soon after, in November of the same year, by the hand of the Junta Técnica de Estado and the Committee for Cultural and Educational Affairs; the first decrees and commands started immediately as soon as the purging committees were established. The Committee C (the name taken by the letter applied in the decree) was responsible for the clearance and purges of civil servants working in the teacher’s training centres and the bureau of educational inspectors, of labour schools and schools of arts and crafts, commerce and music conservatoires, in addition to the administrative  staff attached to all these previous institutions. The purges inflicted to the professors and lectures of the Normal School of Teacher Training in Salamanca and the Inspectional Staff, main purpose of the research dealt here, were somehow rather peculiar ones. They happened hastily (from December 1936 to February 1937) and were decisive, unlike what occurred with the teachers in the province and, moreover, it was exclusively handled through political charges, not religious, professional or by public or private misdemeanour.