The Provincial Council of Palencia and Public Instruction in the Restoration

Abstract

The genesis of the Spanish educational system was carried out in Spain through processes like other European countries, but the final configuration was delayed a couple of decades because of the opposition of the monarch Fernando VII to the constitutional regime. The liberal educational model was based on three basic pillars: secularity, gratuitousness, and freedom. Education was conceived as a right of all citizens, free of charge, based on merit and not on economic capacity, with freedom of education and outside the influence of the Church. The Spanish educational system was configured in the period from the Cortes of Cádiz until the promulgation of the first Law of Public Instruction.