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Ara Llibres in co-operation with the Library of Catalonia has brought back the best school books of the Republic in a collection that you can now find at newsagents weekly. These are faithful replicas of the 50 Catalan school books from the beginning of the 20th century when Catalonia boasted the best schools, the best educators and the best teaching methods in Europe. The Enciclopèdia escolar catalana (Catalan Scholastic Encyclopaedia) of 1931 is the first volume in this collection, which also contains titles such as L’auca del noi català, antifeixista i humà (Auca of the Catalan boy, anti-fascist and human) published by the Propaganda Commission of the Generalitat in 1937, as well as grammar, arithmetic, history and geography books and manuals on good behaviour from the period.
“These school books do not only evoke what school was like during the ‘age of our grandparents’. They are a mirror of the values, customs, ideologies and ways of understanding the predominant way of life at the time. This collection of school manuals in Catalan demonstrates the effort to modernise the country, regenerate society and raise awareness of our own cultural and political identity that was experienced in schools during the first third of the 20th century. They are also a vindication of our right to be.”
Josep González-Agápito
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