It was passed in 1884 during the administration of President Julio Argentino Roca, after a number of similar laws of provincial scope and the conclusions of the Pedagogical Congress of 1882.
Mattera tried to stop the arrival of school teachers hired by the Argentine authorities in the United States for the direction of public secular establishments.
When the first Normal School was established in Córdoba, the Capitular Vicar, Gerónimo Clara, and priests denounced it from the pulpits as anathema.
Mattera spoke to the head of the school and asked for a number of conditions to be met, including the teaching of the Catholic religion in the establishment.
Those requirements were conveyed to the provincial government and, in turn, to the national authorities, which rejected them as interference by a foreign agent.