Regenerationism, physical education and sport as symbols of modernity in the Canary Islands, 1898–1930

Abstract

The events that led to the loss of the last colonies in Spain during the Restauración (1874–1930) have been widely studied in the most recent historiography. The search for solutions, taking as a starting point the Spanish interest in the concept of Regenerationism, focuses many of its responses in the European context. From a pedagogical perspective, the emergence in 1876 of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza in response to the weaknesses of the Spanish system, is one more example of the educational and social fragmentation, an element more of weakness that helps us to understand the Spanish 1898 disaster. The answers to the ills of the country, already initiated decades ago, were not made to wait, and the idea of a new race is reinforced by the more progressive sectors, a new generation that would have in the education the basis for the transformation of the state. As happened in other parts of the Spanish geography, in the Canary Islands, the liberal, progressive and intellectual sectors are creating a social network, through public and private initiatives, as symbols of modernity, in which sport and physical education emerge as antidotes for the social regeneration of the people, focussing especially on four areas of action: the pedagogical regenerationism, through the discourse of educators and physicians, sport as a regenerative practice and military regenerationism. Around these areas will be articulated, simultaneously, a discourse of modernity that will reflect the changes that slowly but progressively develop in the Canary Islands context.