Abstract

NASCIMENTO, Ester Fraga Villas-Bôas Carvalho do. Education Missionaries and the Instituto Ponte Nova in Bahia . Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2005, n.5, pp.111-126. ISSN 1645-7250.

Over one hundred years 1871 to 1971 - the missionaries of Brazil’s Central Mission, who belonged to the Presbyterian Church of the North of the United States (PCUSA), left Bahia and organised churches, schools and hospitals in their area of influence - Segipe, Mato Grosso, Goiás and north Minas Gerais. Having analysed the reality of the Brazilian hinterland, William Alfred Waddell proposed a new kind of educational institution, different from the São Paulo Mackenzie College: a rural secondary school offering courses for primary school teachers, for pastors, for assistant nurses and agrarian technicians. IPN, as the Instituto Ponte Nova came to be known, was established by the Mission in 1906, which organised and sponsored, apart from the school, a church and a school for assistant nurses, the first of its kind in Bahia, beside the Grace Memorial Hospital. The success of that institutional complex, integrating religion, education and health, led the Mission to organise a project named “Escolas Ponte Nova” [Ponte Nova Schools]. In 1926 the Mission had already opened seven schools following the proposed model and four hospitals in the area under their jurisdiction. In 1926, there existed agricultural schools in Buriti and Cáceres - Mato Grosso; Jataí and Planaltina - Goiás. In this city, a hospital was built. In Rio Verde, Goiás, a school of nursing and a hospital had been organized. In Araguaia, Mato Grosso, a hospital hospital was built and in Anápolis, Goiás, apart from the school, a hospital was built.

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