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Rafael Torres Campos (1853–1904) was one of the most important Spanish geographers at the end of the nineteenth century. His work in Spanish geography was particularly relevant because it introduced modern currents of European and American geography into Spain. His dedication to teaching led to the creation of a sophisticated group of geographical educators whose influence, although difficult to measure, has extended to the present. Because of his close links with people and institutions of a progressive character his work has been completely neglected: these pages are dedicated to a late but necessary recuperation of his reputation. == Education, life and work == Torres Campos was born in Almeria in southern Spain in 1853 where he completed his primary and secondary education. At the age of sixteen, when he had completed these studies, he moved to Madrid, following in the footsteps of his older brother to read Law at the Central University. This first stay in the capital was to profoundly effect his life and later work. This was a time of intense social and political agitation and cultural developments. He arrived in Madrid in 1868, the very year of the September revolutions which precipitated the setting up of the first Spanish republic. He thus became fully aware of the problems that effected his country. At the same time, his studies at the University brought him into contact with the philosophy of the Krausists, which, having entered the Spanish scientific panorama in the previous decades, was at this time was having a deep influence on young Spanish students. This philosophy, which represented a complete break with the prevailing Scholastic tradition, was the key to later Spanish Liberalism. The philosophy was to aim at a social and ethical reform in its search for the 'human ideal' with special reference to the possibility of a new and revolutionary pedagogy along the lines of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Fröebel, using as a background a 'harmonic rationalism' of idealist origin. Its basic tenets, once freed from their initial dogmatism and imbued with the methods of the new Positivism, were taken up and never abandoned by Torres Campos. Especially important to an understanding of his work is the friendship of Torres Campos during these years with a number of the teachers in the Law Faculty, foremost inheritors of the philosophical system described above, which came increasingly to colour his subsequent aspirations and activities. Such was the case with Fernando de Castro, rector of the Central University of Madrid and instigator of the education of women in Spain; likewise with Francisco Giner de los Ríos who, having been dismissed from his chair of Law in 1875 because his opposition to the government's education policies, founded, as a way to preserve the freedom of science, an Institute of Free Education, of which Torres Campos became a member and into which he channeled a part of his teaching activity. The manifold threats to the republican régime at this time necessitated obligatory military service, which forced Torres Campos to leave the University in 1873, by which time he was assistant lecturer to the chair of Public Deeds and Judicial Proceedings. He willingly accepted this imposition, given his deep republican convictions evidenced during this period, and did so by sitting the entrance examination for the recently created 'Military Administration Corps,' a competition held among young academics and in which Torres Campos came first. It was here that, after a very short training period, he first came into contact with geography, a fact which he was to record years later in the prologue to one of his books; Estudios Geográficos (Studies ) «Appointed as a teacher in the School of Military Administration towards the beginning of my career, I was hoping, given my recently completed legal studies, to be given a class in Law. The assignment of the Teachers' Committee brought me to Geography, and in preparation for this rôle I turned to his book Geografía Histórico-Militar de España (Geography of Spain ) (referring to a work by José Gómez de Arteche). The excellence of this work, the pure and sober way in which the author describes the accidents and peculiarities of our country, the well-considered account given of the influence of surroundings on human acts, the depth and originality of his historico-military observations, fired my imagination and lead me to make geography, as understood in this book, my chosen field.» (Torres, 1895, p. III) During 1876 whilst Torres Campos was staying in Avila both the Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid (Geographical Society ) and the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (The Institute of Free Teaching) were founded. He was to become a member of both societies during the following year. The former gave him contact with the most significant contemporary geographers of Spain, men such as Coello, Ibañez, Fernández Duro, Valle, ... whilst the latter involved him in a new closer relationship with the Liberal thinkers. Like the aforementioned Giner de los Ríos, these Liberals had abandoned the universities, of their own volition or compelled to do so because of their support for the incipient movement to obtain a new, rigorous and undogmatic educational system in Spain. He began his activities in the Institute of Free Teaching preparing a Doctorate in Law and reading the preparatory courses for Medicine. He divided his time between this and his role as secretary of the Institute. His new post, allied with his willingness to travel and good natured character led him to represent the Institute at The Universal Exhibition of Science, Arts and Letters, held in Paris during the summer of 1878. Whilst there he attended seminars given by the geographer Emile Levasseur on the geography teaching methodology that he had been developing in France during the Third Republic. Torres Campos' interest in the culturally eclectic contents of the Exhibition was clearly demonstrated by the diverse nature of his first articles published in the Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza (of the Institute of Free Education ): “El presupuesto de Instrucción Pública en Francia” (Budget for Public Instruction in France ), and “La porcelana en la Exposición de París” (at the Paris Exhibition ).... However, despite his eclecticism, Torres Campos' attention remained focussed on geographical teaching methodology. In parallel with the Institutionalists, Torres Campos was seeking an educational system which would be both personalised and practical, and would incorporate lectures, smaller seminar groups and laboratory work. He returned to Spain with a variety of geological sections, relief models, a geographical clock, and the principles of the savings bank project. In addition, he brought back to Spain the idea of student field excursions soon put into practice by the Institute of Free Teaching, which was to be described in The Times of October 1884 as “using them more than any other European school”. Torres Campos was to dedicate a pamphlet, Viajes Escolares (Field Trips ), to this very subject. The idea of student field excursions were becoming increasingly important in the formation of the Institute's educational programmes for the possibilities they offered of an 'intuitive' understanding of the objects of physical and human studies. The profound faith of its members in the seemingly enormous educational potential of these methods led them to organise the First National Congress of Pedagology, with the aim of expounding and propagating excursionista educational theories. Torres Campos, in his position as director of field trips, was an active participant in the organisation. In 1879 he was elected associate secretary of the Madrid Geographical Society. One of his first assignments in this organisation was the editing of the “Reseñas de las tareas y estado de la Sociedad”(of Works and the Current State of Society ), a work which argued that geographical studies should be more closely related to the political, social and economic problems of the country, laying special emphasis on colonial questions. His work on this led him to organise in 1883, together with other geographers such as J. Costa and F. Coello, a congress entitled Colonial and Mercantile Geography Congress. This group also founded the Society of Africanists and Colonialists which was to become a year later the Commercial Geography Society. He edited its journal -Revista de Geografía Comercial(and Commercial Review )-, writing, amongst many other articles, in collaboration with Joaquín Costa, the introductory article of this review, entitled “La Geografía y el Comercio” (and Commerce ). In 1882 he was, partly from economic necessity and perhaps more importantly out of a genuine desire to propagate his pedagogical theories, to sit the civil service examinations for the position of lecturer at the Escuela Normal Central de Maestras (Central Women's Teacher Training College ). He was at this time being somewhat poorly paid to give classes in commercial geography at the Asociación para la Enseñanza de la Mujer (for Women's Education ), an organisation dependent on the Central Women's Teacher Training College. He obtained the lectureship, and along with other lecturers busied himself with pedagogical theory, undertaking the structural and methodological innovations in their teaching. They introduced technical subjects and greater emphasis was placed on the role of geographical knowledge. This is the phase described in the long publication of 1884 as La reforma en la enseñanza de la mujer y la reorganzacion de la Escuela Normal Central de Maestras (reform of the teaching of women and the reorganization of the Central Women's Teacher Training College ). Meanwhile the importance of his works for the Geographical Societies were becoming more widely recognised and as a result they were chosen to be presented, in 1889, at the Fourth Paris International Geographical Congress, a congress of a kind which had not been held for years due to Europe's colonial problems, as a result of which even at the 1889 congress few nations were represented. The result being that the conference was over-ridingly French in character, with great emphasis being placed on the most recent trends in French geographical thought, chiefly that of regional geography. Torres Campos was deeply impressed by all he saw and heard, perhaps even more so as one of the principal backers of the congress, Paul Vidal de la Blache, was playing a very active role in its development. From this time Torres Campos became one of the principle Spanish exponents of regional geography, taking full advantage of the means of expression of the Geographical Societies and the Institute of Free Teaching. He represented Spain at the Berne International Congress of 1891 continuing to be a receptive participant, focussing now on new developments in geography coming from Europe and America, which appear, together with his reports of the Paris proceedings and lengthy articles on colonialism, slavery and emigration, in his book Estudios Geográficos (Studies ) The congress awarded him first prize in its education section for his presentation on the educational achievements and innovations of the Institute of Free Teaching. Torres Campos also represented Spain at the Fourth International Geographical Congress, held during 1895 in London. This formed the basis of his book “La Geografia en 1895. Memoria sobre el Congreso Internacional de Ciencias Geograficas Celebrado en Londres” (in 1995. An Account of the International Congress of Geographical Sciences held in London ), as well as of numerous articles in various Spanish magazines. He also participated during 1892 in the Second National Congress of Pedagology and the National Congress of Spanish-Portuguese-American Geography. At these he presented papers on women's education and Spanish colonialism respectively, the latter of which he compared in its development with Anglo-Saxon colonialism in California. He was commissioned by the Ministry of War to travel in Italy and Austria-Hungary, where he visited various schools of geography; from these he collected much important information, allowing him to undertake his “Memoria sobre el progreso de los trabajos geográficos” (on the Progress of Geographical Work ) which, until his death in 1904, he edited for the Bulletin of the Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid, in his capacity as Secretary general. In it these he presented the latest developments in geographical knowledge and in its diverse specialist fields of vulcanology, seismics, glaciology and oceanology. Towards the end of his life and after active contribution to the war effort during the Hispano-Cuban conflict of 1898, in charge of the purchase of provisions from France and Germany, he gave geography classes in the Chair created for this purpose in the Scientific and Literary Atheneum of Madrid. In a course of lectures entitled “Los Pueblos de Asia” (People of Asia ) he displayed his wide and scholarly knowledge of history. His life and works fully merited the honour bestowed on him when, in 1901, he was named as a member of the Royal Academy of History. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rafael Torres Campos」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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