Havana, Nov 19.- Cubans today remember the contributions of the distinguished pedagogue Enrique José Varona, who died 91 years ago, for his contributions to education in the Caribbean nation after the end of Spanish domination.
Varona, who also worked as a politician, essayist and journalist, is considered one of the most influential intellectuals in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
In 1968 he joined the independence struggle in the Cuban countryside and returned home for health reasons. During his life he worked as a teacher and collaborated with numerous publications.
During the colonial period, he wrote in the newspaper Patria, founded by the independence hero José Martí to unite Cubans around the fight for liberation from the yoke of Spain, and when he died (in 1895) he directed that newspaper.
Due to his integrity and principles, he became an icon for Cuban youth and students in the 1930s, being used as a symbol during the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado (1925-1933).
The curriculum for higher education in Cuba inspired and directed by the distinguished pedagogue in 1900, at that time Secretary of Public Instruction, meant an extraordinary step forward for the general development of this education in the country.
The ideas contained in the Varona Plan served as a stimulus for the great university reform promoted in Cuba in 1962.
Owner of a solid and extensive work, Varona not only left a relevant literary production, but also texts in which an updated thought is manifested and alert to the growing advances in sociology, cultural theory, art, philosophy. , aesthetics, psychology, pedagogy and logic among other topics.
“It is not possible today to refer to the history of Cuban cultural thought without taking into account the peculiarities and significance, for his time and ours, of the enormous production of the outstanding thinker, and, above all, of his profound sense of ethics and intellectual honesty”, its scholars highlight. (Text and photo: PL)