Colegio San José de los Infantes

From Hispanopedia
Colegio San José de los Infantes
Archbishop Cayetano Francos y Monroy
Founder of the school
Information
NicknameInfantes
MottoA quien lucha por Dios con empeño se le puede en la tierra premiar.
TypePrivate
Religious affiliationSecular clergy
PatronSaint Joseph
Founded1781
FounderCayetano Francos y Monroy
Opened1781
StatusOpen
GenderMale
Location
LocationGuatemala City, Guatemala
Academics
StudentsApproximately 2000
TeachersHugo Villegas and Marta Cano
CampusesGuatemala City
ScheduleMorning
ColorsBlue, white and red
MascotEagle
Administration
Administrative staffOscar Orozco and Oscar Morales
Authorities
RectorÓscar Julio Vian Morales
DirectorJosé Antonio Mendez García
Other
NotesA quien lucha por Dios con empeño se le puede en la tierra premiar.
Websitehttp://www.colegiodeinfantes.edu.gt/

The Colegio San José de los Infantes is the oldest Catholic-oriented educational institution in Guatemala. It was founded on June 10, 1781, by the then Archbishop of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, Cayetano Francos y Monroy, and was originally part of the educational renewal promoted by the Archbishop for primary school students in Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción.[1]

Francos y Monroy created the Colegio de Infantes specifically to serve the Choir of the Metropolitan Cathedral.[2] Its existence was affected by the Independence of Central America, the Central American Civil War and the Liberal Reform, events that temporarily closed its doors. Its last closure was in 1887, when the then President of Guatemala, General Manuel Lisandro Barillas Bercián, expelled the Archbishop of Guatemala Ricardo Casanova y Estrada, although it continued under the direction of Dr. Alberto Rubio y Piloña despite the hostile climate of the liberal regimes toward the Catholic Church.[3]

The Archbishop returned in 1897, and that same year the priest Ignacio Prado joined the school.[4] Because of the weakness in which the Catholic Church found itself after the liberal reform, it was difficult for the secular clergy to take charge of the school, a situation that worsened with the earthquakes of 1917-18, which destroyed the Cathedral and the school. And, as if that were not enough, the school's problems were compounded by the social and economic crisis in Guatemala that led to the overthrow of Manuel Estrada Cabrera in 1920.

Faced with that situation, the Archbishop requested that the Salesian community be allowed to enter Guatemala to take charge of the school, which he achieved in 1929. The Salesians ran the school until 1932, the year in which the Marists took it over; the Marist community was in charge of the school until 1955, when they separated and formed the Liceo Guatemala, while Archbishop Mariano Rossell y Arellano regained control of the school thanks to the constitutional reforms supporting religious education that were included in the Constitution of Guatemala of 1956.

Historical overview

Background

During the viceregal era in Guatemala there were highly renowned schools run by the Society of Jesus —among them the Colegio de la Compañía and the Colegio San Borja— which were closed when the Jesuits were expelled from the territories of the Spanish Empire in 1767 as part of the Bourbon Reforms of King Charles III.[5] With the expulsion of the Jesuits, the only Catholic school that remained was the Colegio y Seminario Tridentino de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, which had been attached to the Royal and Pontifical University of San Carlos Borromeo since its founding in 1681.

Cayetano Francos y Monroy arrived in Guatemala as Archbishop, replacing Pedro Cortés y Larraz, in September 1779, with the mission of regaining control of the clergy of the Captaincy General of Guatemala and removing Cortés y Larraz from the archdiocese, to which the latter had clung.[6] The new Archbishop was deeply involved with the liberal currents of the English philosophers and of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which provided new guidelines for pedagogy and the intellectual formation of the new generations;[1] for that reason, he began an educational reform in Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, since upon his arrival there was only the Belén school, which was unable to serve all the schoolchildren, as the population amounted to twenty thousand inhabitants.[1] The schools were not functioning because the Jesuits had been expelled in 1767 and the rest of the civil and religious entities were working hard to build their new buildings after the transfer from the city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala in 1776.[1]

Founding

View of the Metropolitan Cathedral and, to its right, the original facilities of the Colegio San José de los Infantes. The Liceo Guatemala originated here, when the Marists ran the Colegio de Infantes from 1931 to 1954.
Priest Ignacio Prado, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Guatemala; he restarted the activities of the Colegio San José de los Infantes and founded a new seminary in 1897, after he was allowed to return to Guatemala together with Archbishop Ricardo Casanova y Estrada.[7]

Francos y Monroy founded two primary schools —San José de Calasanz and San Casiano—, founded the «Señor San José de los Infantes» school, and contributed financially to complete the construction of the Colegio Tridentino and other establishments.[1] The new pedagogical orientation of Francos y Monroy had three objectives: sciences, customs and religion. In this way, children were given knowledge appropriate to their age and were provided with principles that little by little developed citizens with a mentality different from the customary one, who in later years would be protagonists of the pro-independence movements.[1] Francos y Monroy's objectives for the Colegio de Infantes were, specifically, two: the Catholic education of Guatemalan children, and service to the Choir of the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Its first students numbered twelve, of whom only two were not ordained as priests; these students were selected largely according to the quality of their singing voices. These were the first Guatemalan "Seises", and they always continued to number twelve until the school increased its number of students. The first to hold the rectorship of the Colegio de Infantes was Canon Don Ignacio Fernández Álvarez. The second rector was the Canon Cantor, Don Isidro Sicilia, who was the Presbyter Dr. Don Manuel Aguado, a person of recognized merit, Doctor of the Sapienza of Rome, professor at the University of San Carlos Borromeo, and who provided his services as Bachiller free of charge.

After the Independence of Central America and the Central American Civil War that followed it, the rest of the regular orders of the Catholic Church were expelled in 1829 by the liberal General Francisco Morazán after his victory over the conservative State of Guatemala led by Mariano de Aycinena y Piñol, a member of the Aycinena Clan and a conservative leader with strong family and economic ties to the Church. The liberals also expelled Archbishop Ramón Casaus y Torres, although they allowed the priests of the secular clergy whom he directed to remain, albeit without the benefit of the compulsory tithe. Thus, only the Colegio Tridentino and the Colegio San José de los Infantes remained in operation, both run by the secular clergy, which was left in the hands of the Vicar of the Metropolitan Cathedral, Antonio de Larrazábal y Arrivillaga. All the members of the Aycinena Clan, among whom were conservative and ecclesiastical leaders, were also expelled from Central American territory.[8]

In 1840 the liberals were defeated and General Rafael Carrera, supported by the Guatemalan indigenous people and the members of the Aycinena Clan —who were only just beginning to recover their former political and economic power—, came to power in the country. By 1844, advised by Juan José de Aycinena y Piñol, he allowed the Jesuits to return together with a Belgian colony that settled in Santo Tomás de Castilla; a few years later he granted the Jesuits control of the Colegio Tridentino, which was renamed Colegio de Jesuitas. In 1852, with the concordat concluded with the Holy See, the Carrera government entrusted Guatemalan education to the care of the Catholic Church, and the academic level of the Colegio de Infantes and the Colegio Tridentino, as well as of the new schools opened by the regular orders that returned to the country, improved considerably.[9][8] However, Guatemalan academia followed the ecclesiastical patterns that had been implemented during the last years of the Spanish colony, lagging behind the advances that the liberal positivists were teaching in the rest of Central America.[1]

The students of the Colegio de Infantes were known as «colegiales seis», since they dressed in red and because initially only six of them sang at the religious festivities of the choir of the Metropolitan Cathedral; later more of them sang, but the name endured.[10]

Temporary closures

Corpus Christi celebration in front of the Colegio de Infantes in the 1900s. Photograph by Alberto G. Valdeavellano.
Rubble in the courtyard of the Colegio de Infantes after the earthquakes of 1917-18.

After the Liberal Reform in 1871, the regular orders were once again expelled and the compulsory tithe was abolished, which left the Catholic Church in a precarious position once more. In addition, the properties of the orders were confiscated and converted into public institutions. Thus, the Colegio Tridentino was closed in 1875 and converted into the Instituto Nacional Central para Varones during the liberal government of General Justo Rufino Barrios, as part of his initiative to diminish the political and economic power of the Catholic Church, which was then one of the main landowners in Guatemala and the main opponent of the expropriation of the «Indian lands» to form latifundia for the liberals.[11] The concordat of 1852 was repealed and, although there was an attempt to establish a new Concordat with diminished powers for the Catholic Church in 1884, secular education was declared the official education in the country. Religious education was thus relegated and was taught only by the remaining parish priests and at the Colegio de Infantes. But at the end of the 1880s the school's situation worsened when President Manuel Lisandro Barillas Bercián expelled Archbishop Ricardo Casanova y Estrada and temporarily closed the activities of the Infantes.[4] It reopened, nevertheless, and continued its activity under the direction of the rector Dr. Alberto Rubio y Piloña.[3]

On May 8, 1872, war broke out against Honduras, and Captain General Miguel García Granados, provisional President of the Republic, went in person to take charge of the Guatemalan troops;[12] all Guatemalans between 18 and 50 years of age were obliged to enlist.[13] The only ones exempted were municipal employees, the scholarship holders of the Colegio San José de los Infantes and the students of the Colegio de San Vicente de Paul,[14] and persons intending to settle in the ports of San José, Champerico and Livingston, regions that the liberals wanted to populate because of their strategic importance in the export of coffee.[15]

During the administration of Alberto Rubio y Piloña —1874-1896— work was done to improve the school's facilities, given its expansion, and by 1885 it already had the comfort, cleanliness and hygiene necessary to function adequately, although without any luxury.[16] At that time classes were given to students between five and twenty-two years of age; teaching ranged from primary instruction to bachillerato courses.[3] By 1896 there were already fifty-two boarding students, eighteen day boarders and fifty-five day students.[17] In total, sixty-two classes were taught, distributed as follows:

Curriculum of the Colegio de Infantes in the decade 1885-1895[18][19]
Area List of courses
Religious formation

Courses canceled in 1890:[19]

  • History of the Church
  • Latin
  • Liturgy
  • Dogmatic theology
  • Moral theology
General formation
Scientific formation
Musical formation
  • Figured chant
  • Plainchant
  • Declamation
  • Piano


In 1897, the government of General José María Reina Barrios decreed an amnesty for the clergy on the occasion of the celebration of the Central American Exposition, and that allowed Archbishop Casanova y Estrada to return and organized Catholic activities to resume in the country. The faith of Guatemalans had not diminished, as shown by the massive reception given to the Archbishop, who immediately resumed his ecclesiastical activities.[4] The students of the Colegio de Infantes, who were still in charge of the Choir of the Metropolitan Cathedral, took part in the celebrations held for this occasion,[2] and the priest Ignacio Prado, Vicar General of the archdiocese, joined the activities of the Colegio San José de los Infantes and founded a new Seminario Tridentino that same year.[4]

That same year the school presented the twenty-one annual reports of its work published up to then in its pavilion at the Central American Exposition.[20]

The Marists at the Colegio de Infantes

Main article: Liceo Guatemala

After the overthrow of licenciado Manuel Estrada Cabrera in 1920 following twenty-two years in power, the political situation of the country was affected by coups d'état and sudden deaths of the presidents in office. In 1926, when General Lázaro Chacón was governing, efforts began to reform education in Guatemala, and scholarships were granted to the best students of the Escuela Normal para Varones in order to prepare Guatemalan teachers with specializations abroad. Among the beneficiaries of these scholarships were Luis Martínez Mont and Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, who would return to Guatemala to take charge of secondary education and of the government, respectively.[21] There was also an opening toward the regular orders and some were allowed to enter; thus, in 1929 the Salesians arrived in Guatemala, and they took charge of the Colegio de Infantes for a time, but preferred to attend to their own works such as «La Santa Faz» —which would later become the «Colegio Salesiano Don Bosco»— and the «Divina Providencia». After the overthrow of licenciado Manuel Estrada Cabrera in 1920 following twenty-two years in power, the political situation of the country was affected by coups d'état and sudden deaths of the presidents in office. In 1926, when General Lázaro Chacón was governing, efforts began to reform education in Guatemala, and scholarships were granted to the best students of the Escuela Normal para Varones in order to prepare Guatemalan teachers with specializations abroad. Among the beneficiaries of these scholarships were Luis Martínez Mont and Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, who would return to Guatemala to take charge of secondary education and of the government, respectively.[21] There was also an opening toward the regular orders and some were allowed to enter; thus, in 1929 the Salesians arrived in Guatemala, and they took charge of the Colegio de Infantes for a time, but preferred to attend to their own works such as «La Santa Faz» —which would later become the «Colegio Salesiano Don Bosco»— and the «Divina Providencia».

After General Chacón's stroke in December 1930 and the successive coups d'état that took place in the following weeks, General Jorge Ubico Castañeda was elected President of Guatemala and took office in March 1931. Archbishop Luis Durou y Sure arranged with the government of General Ubico for the arrival of the Marist Brothers, who constituted themselves as a congregation in Guatemala in December 1931 and took charge of the administration of the Colegio de Infantes. The Marists managed to expand its reach and gave the school a new orientation, a situation that drew the attention of certain sectors linked to the Metropolitan Curia, who resented the course events took, above all from the acquisition of a new plot of land for the expansion of the school.[Note 1] In the 1950s, Archbishop Mariano Rossell y Arellano, who seemed to resent the break with official ecclesiastical tradition that the Marists had given the Colegio de Infantes, even though the Marists managed to maintain the educational standard from 1932 to 1952 and increased student enrollment from one hundred fifty in 1932 to more than seven hundred students in 1952.[22]

The Archdiocese takes back the school

Main article: Mariano Rossell y Arellano

Rossell y Arellano notified the Marist Brothers that 1952 would be the last year in which the Zone 5 facilities would bear the name Colegio de Infantes, and from 1955 that new section became independent and was called «Liceo Guatemala», even though the name was already in use by the Salesian school in the city of Quetzaltenango.[22] After the overthrow of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954 by the National Liberation Movement —which was supported by Archbishop Rossell Arellano because he regarded the governments of Arévalo and Arbenz as communist and atheist— the Catholic Church recovered part of the power it had held during the conservative government of Rafael Carrera in the 19th century;[23] thus, private religious education boomed from 1955 onward, with the founding of several elite schools for boys[Note 2] which absorbed the elite students who previously would have attended classes at the Instituto Nacional Central para Varones or at the Escuela Normal para Varones.

Archbishop Rossell y Arellano, thanks to the support he gave to the liberationist movement, got the government of Colonel Castillo Armas to incorporate the following into the Constitution of 1956:

  • the legal capacity of the Catholic Church —and those of all other faiths— to acquire, own and dispose of property, provided that it is devoted to religious purposes, social assistance or education.[24]
  • that religious education in official premises be declared optional: Article 97 of the Constitution states that the law would regulate matters relating to religious instruction in official premises and that the State would not provide it but declared it optional. It also guarantees freedom of teaching in all other establishments.[25]
  • that the State contribute to the support of religious education: Article 111 states that private institutions providing free education will be exempted from certain national and municipal taxes in compensation for their services.[26]

In this way, the Archdiocese regained the administration of the Colegio de Infantes and has maintained it into the 21st century.

Notable alumni

See also

Notes and references

  1. ↑ At the site that in 2014 is part of Zone 5 of Guatemala City.
  2. ↑ Liceo Javier, Colegio Salesiano Don Bosco, and the Liceo Guatemala

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Molina Moreira 1979, p. 31-32
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rubio y Piloña (1897), p. 5.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Rubio y Piloña (1896), p. 1.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Macías del Real 1897, p. 243
  5. ↑ Johnston Aguilar 2001
  6. ↑ Belaubre 2013
  7. ↑ La Ilustración Guatemalteca & 15 April 1897, p. 261.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 González Davison 2008, p. 4-15
  9. ↑ Aycinena 1854, p. 2-16
  10. ↑ Montúfar & Montúfar (1898), p. 292.
  11. ↑ Martínez Peláez 1990
  12. ↑ Gobierno de Guatemala (1881), p. 102.
  13. ↑ Gobierno de Guatemala (1881), p. 115.
  14. ↑ Gobierno de Guatemala (1881), p. 128.
  15. ↑ Gobierno de Guatemala (1881), p. 135.
  16. ↑ Rubio y Piloña (1885), p. 11.
  17. ↑ Rubio y Piloña (1896), pp. 7–10.
  18. ↑ Rubio y Piloña (1885), p. 4.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Rubio y Piloña (1896), pp. 3–4.
  20. ↑ Rubio y Piloña (1897), p. 6.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Fuentes Oliva 2012, p. section 30-62
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Otero Diez 2002
  23. ↑ Sabino 2007
  24. ↑ Asamblea Constituyente (1956), Article 50.
  25. ↑ Asamblea Constituyente (1956), Article 97.
  26. ↑ Asamblea Constituyente (1956), Article 111.

Bibliography

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