Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader

On October 13, 1909, Francisco Ferrer, the notorious Catalan anarchist educator and founder of the Modern School, was executed by firing squad. The Spanish government accused him of masterminding the Tragic Week rebellion, while the transnational movement that emerged in his defense argued that he was simply the founder of the groundbreaking Modern School of Barcelona. Was Ferrer a ferocious revolutionary, an ardently nonviolent pedagogue, or something else entirely?

Anarchist Education and the Modern School is the first historical reader to gather together Ferrer’s writings on rationalist education, revolutionary violence, and the general strike (most translated into English for the first time) and put them into conversation with the letters, speeches, and articles of his comrades, collaborators, and critics to show that the truth about the founder of the Modern School was far more complex than most of his friends or enemies realized. Francisco Ferrer navigated a tempestuous world of anarchist assassins, radical republican conspirators, anticlerical rioters, and freethinking educators to establish the legendary Escuela Moderna and the Modern School movement that his martyrdom propelled around the globe.

About the Contributors

Francisco Ferrer Guardia (1859–1909) was a Catalan anarchist. Following the declaration of martial law in 1909 during the Tragic Week, Ferrer was arrested and then executed at Montjuich Castle. He was the founder of la Escuela Moderna (the Modern School), an antiauthoritarian primary and secondary school. After Ferrer's execution, la Escuela Moderna attracted international attention, inspiring such figures as Emma Goldman, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Edward Carpenter, Maxim Gorky, and Albert Camus.

Mark Bray is a historian of Modern European History, a political organizer, and the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook and Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street. He is currently a Lecturer at Dartmouth College.

Robert H. Haworth is an associate professor in the Department of Professional and Secondary Education at West Chester University, Pennsylvania. He teaches courses focusing on the social foundations of education and critical action research. He has published and presented internationally on anarchism, youth culture, informal learning spaces, and critical social studies education. Haworth is the editor of Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education. He is also the coeditor of Out of the Ruins: The Emergence of Radical Informal Learning Spaces, also published by PM Press. Additionally, you can hear Haworth’s music through his band Second Letter that is released through Lowatt Recordings.

What People Are Saying

“A thorough and balanced collection of the writings of the doyen of myriad horizontal educational projects in Spain and more still across the world. Equally welcome are the well-researched introduction and the afterword that underline both the multiplicity of anarchist perspectives on education and social transformation and the complexity of Ferrer’s thinking.” Chris Ealham, author of Living Anarchism: Jose Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement

“This volume brings together for the first time a comprehensive collection of Ferrer’s own writings, documenting the daily life and aims of the Escuela Moderna, alongside reflections, often critical, by contemporary anarchists and other radical thinkers. Together with the editors’ thoughtful Introduction, the result is a fascinating collection—essential reading for anyone keen to go beyond the image of Ferrer the martyr of libertarian education and to understand the perennial moral and political questions at the heart of any project of education for freedom.” Judith Suissa, author of Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective

“Bray and Haworth have here provided a great gift to the history of liberatory education and to its possible social futures, as this book is sure to become a definitive text on the origins and development of the international Modern School movement.” Richard Kahn, Antioch University Los Angeles

“Part martyr, part visionary, Francisco Ferrer and the Modern School Movement he created have continued to preoccupy educational reformers and political activists despite or because of Ferrer’s execution by a repressive Spanish government in 1909. Revealing Ferrer’s flaws, Mark Bray and Robert Haworth nevertheless evoke a person and a period when political visionaries and educational reformers promised and almost succeeded in transforming civic life in Europe and the Americas.” Temma Kaplan, distinguished professor emerita, Rutgers University

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