The Path of Reading Practice in the School of Arts and Trades of Santiago (EAO)

Abstract

This article discusses the development of reading within the School of Arts and Trades in Santiago (EAO), an institution created in mid-nineteenth century with the aim of promoting industrial education among youth from the popular sectors of Chilean society. Such educational emphasis, promoted by the political elite of the time and identified with Enlightenment thinking, was contrasted with the limited roleassigned to the book and the press in a learning environment directed by strict interna! control rules. Despite this, the consumption of texts (and later production of these) Was an essential part of Student's life during the first half of the twentieth century, which allows us to appreciate how reading, initially a practice of little importance and even clandestine, advanced towards their incorporation into the institutional policies, in a process which in turn gave rise to different representations and assimilations by the part of students.