Frei Martín Sarmiento e a súa época

Abstract

The Father Sarmiento (1965-1772) is an important and complex figure of the Galician and Spanish Enlightenment. Author of a huge work, largely unpublished, he was very advanced both  in the defence of the experimental sciences and in the philological and pedagogical fields, and he had more traditional ideas about economy and the social organization. The two great fidelities, which determined nearly the majority of his texts, specially those later ones, were the Benedictine Order and Galicia. The defence he made in order to do the Primary Education of children in their mother tongue and his efforts to dignify and standardize the Galician language, against the public opinion among erudites, are some of the causes of his marginalization and forgetfulness in many general works dedicated to the Enlightenment or to some of its main expressions, like the renovation of the Education.