Institución Libre de Enseñanza
It was inspired by the Krausist philosophy introduced at the Central University of Madrid by Julián Sanz del Río, and had an important impact on Spanish intellectual life, as it carried out a fundamental work of renewal in Restoration Spain.
[2] The group of professors who had been removed from the Central University for defending academic freedom and refusing to conform their teachings to any official dogma in religious, political or moral matters, came together to offer an educational alternative to the one imposed by the government.
The poetic movement of the Generation of '27 was largely a consequence of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza,[citation needed] shortly before modernisation was halted by the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship.
In the last chapter of the book, it is proposed to raze the children's school that the ILE had in Calle Martínez Campos in Madrid, sowing the site with salt in order to remind future generations of "the betrayal of the owners of that house towards the immortal Homeland".
[12] Following the Spanish transition to democracy in 1978, when the legal process of recovering the legacy of the institution began, ILE funds have been managed by the Fundación Francisco Giner de los Ríos created for that purpose.
The 200 founding shareholders abandoned the first proposed ILE headquarters in the Paseo de la Castellana, since occupied by the Military School, and instead rented an apartment in Calle Esparteros No.
During the Spanish Civil War the building was heavily damaged and looted, and even underwent a symbolic destruction of trees by a group of Falangists (only a century-old acacia and privet were saved).
[13] The influence of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza was decisive for the public authorities to undertake a series of reforms that Spain needed in the legal, educational and social spheres.
[14] Attempts at pedagogical renewal led to the founding of pioneering initiatives between 1907 and 1936, such as the Instituto Escuela, the school vacation camps, the International Summer University of Santander,[15] and the so-called Misiones Pedagógicas,[16] which operated under the protection of the Second Republic with the aim of spreading education and culture among the peoples of deep Spain.
About a year after his death in 1915, followers of Francisco Giner de los Ríos established a foundation bearing his name to ensure the continuity of the ILE and pursue its educational objectives.
They included Manuel Bartolomé Cossío, Joaquín Costa, Leopoldo Alas (Clarín), Alfredo Calderón, Eduardo Soler, Messia Jacinto Adolfo Posada, Pedro Dorado Montero, Aniceto Sela, and Rafael Altamira.
[19] One of the most important social innovations of the ILE was its proposal in favor of the integration of women into the general body of society,[20] with equal access to cultural training and professional fulfillment.
