Ruy Barbosa was one of the most prominent figures in Brazilian history. He was a jurist, politician, diplomat, and writer who played a key role in the establishment of the Brazilian republic in the late 19th century. Barbosa helped draft the country's first republican constitution and distinguished himself at the 1907 Hague Peace Conference. Throughout his career, he advocated for abolition of slavery, education reform, and modernization of Brazilian society. Barbosa is considered one of the greatest Brazilians of all time for his contributions to law, politics, and intellectual thought.

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RUY BARBOSA, BIGGEST BRAZILIAN OF THE HISTORY
Fernando Alcoforado*
On November 5, 1849, Ruy Barbosa was born in Salvador in State of Bahia. Ruy
distinguished himself as a jurist, politician, diplomat and writer. He was one of the most
brilliant intellectuals of his time, he was one of the organizers of the Republic in Brazil
and co-author of the Brazilian First Republic Constitution with Prudente de Morais. The
Second Peace Conference in 1907 in Netherlands was the career pinnacle of Ruy
Barbosa when he stood out with his performance in defense of equality between
countries. His performance in this conference earned him the epithet "The Hague
Eagle". In addition to his immense capacity as lawyer, Ruy stood out for its privileged
intelligence. Ruy Barbosa demonstrated his intellectual fertility concerning legal
opinions, literary essays, journalistic articles, legislative bills, drafts of territorial treaties
and speeches, such as his famous Prayer to Young Men. Ruy Barbosa acted in defense
of federalism, of abolitionism and the promotion of individual rights and guarantees. He
was 4 times candidate for president of Republic, deputy, senator, minister of state and
Machado de Assis's successor as president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters between
1908 and 1919.
Ruy Barbosa had strong political participation in the Brazilian parliament. After the
Proclamation of the Republic worked in the organization of the Brazilian federal state
and during the Interim Government of Deodoro da Fonseca, he was finance minister.
Ruy Barbosa became involved with important questions for the organization of
Brazilian society. Through his biography can check your engagement with life, with the
struggles that the men were fighting for political and social changes happen in Brazil in
the late nineteenth century. Ruy Barbosa is inserted fully in the struggle to end the slave
labor, the change of the monarchy for the Republican and the change of a hegemonic
agrarian economy to the organization of a still embryonic industry. Ruy Barbosa was a
man informed about the dynamics of the world because he was in constant contact with
Europe. He was aware of the Brazilian reality.
Ruy Barbosa is in favor of modernization of Brazilian society. His eyes were always
focused on the modernization of social relations. The first reform that Ruy Barbosa
defended was the direct election. Ruy Barbosa universal suffrage should be heeded, but
called for an era of popular education so that the country could achieve this ideal of
representative democracy. The project thus provides two requirements for the electorate
that voting had to be the person to read and write and have minimum income of four
hundred thousand Reis annual income. This minimum income was necessary, according
to Ruy, not the money itself, but that the man does not need to submit to foreign
interests and foreign influences, this income guarantee a certain independence of the
voter. Lack of access to school could not be an excuse for the sovereignty of ignorance,
it was necessary that the school was something desirable by the benefits to be achieved
through it.
Ruy insisted several times about the difficulty of the illiterate become politicized,
whereas the great school of civic education was the press. Only reading could form the
citizen, the civilized man. According to Ruy, the reform that he proposed is similar to
democracies like the United States where the number of illiterates was minimal and they
were prohibited from voting because their vote would represent an evil. In Brazil
illiterates were the majority of the population and decide the electoral elections as it
happens to the present times. It was essential, therefore, investing in citizen education.

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Ruy Barbosa made clear his concept of education to write the opinion on the Reform of
Primary and Secondary Education. From the study on the educational reality in Brazil,
Ruy concluded that it was evident their inferiority in relation to other countries. He
carefully studied the way as education was developed in several parts of the world. In
Brazil it was urgent to stimulate the need for rehabilitation of the school. For this it was
necessary to adopt the compulsory education in the country.
In terms of schooling, Ruy stated that it was necessary complete restructuring since the
teaching methods to the construction of buildings. For the good quality of teaching, Ruy
also concerned with the adequacy of the desks to the bodies of students, ventilation of
rooms, lighting and hygiene, among other factors. To organize the action of the
Brazilian state in the area of education, Ruy considered necessary to create the Ministry
of Education because his absence was responsible for the backwardness of the country
that should be overcome. Brazil, however, invested very little in education because this
service intended to only 1.99% of the general budget, while 20.86% were allocated to
military expenditure.
Ruy considered that it was necessary to stimulate curiosity and not just memorization,
as it was doing. The children not try to understand the meaning of words that only
repeated mechanically. In Brazil, this mechanical education was found from school to
the Lyceum, from Lyceum to colleges. To defeat the mechanical teaching, Ruy Barbosa
considered necessary to adopt a new method based on intuition, in order to provide the
general development of the human spirit. Ruy also highlighted the need for physical
education teaching, the importance of teaching drawing and calculation that should be
taught from concrete applications. Ruy shows that the drawing education would
contribute to the development of the country.
According to Ruy, the drawing education should be directed to the industrial design,
because it was an urgent need for the domestic industry. Lacked to Brazil the education
of man, inspiration of the taste, the teaching of art. The rational formula of the only
effective protection to the industrial production of the country was to educate the
worker. In its opinion on the Reform of Secondary and Higher Education, to deal with
the changes of the Imperial Lyceum Pedro II, Ruy highlighted the importance of science
education, music, gymnastics and drawing. The drawing was again placed as
fundamental to the development of industry that only through it the Brazil cease to be
primarily agricultural. Ruy showed that the industry was becoming the main source of
wealth of the United States and that the profit with her was much higher than that of
agriculture. This model should be copied by Brazil.
The passage of the nineteenth century to the twentieth century saw the biggest
transformation in the labor market that occurred worldwide. What the capitalist center
determined was reflected in the periphery and slave labor should definitely give way to
free labor throughout the world. Ruy Barbosa knew Tocqueville report on slavery in the
colonies presented to the French Assembly in 1839. In this report, in order to not repeat
the mistakes of the past and avoid as much conflict, Tocqueville thoroughly exposed the
ways adopted by England for the abolition of slavery. Tocqueville showed that free
labor could not grow next to the slave labor..
Ruy Barbosa participated actively in the abolitionist campaign for the liberation of
slaves in Brazil that was one of the last countries to achieve abolition. Brazilian ruling
classes feared that an immediate abolition could lead to a work disruption opting for a
gradual abolition. Slavery was key player in the Brazilian productive activity because

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all the work was done by black hands. The controversy was intense. Many opponents
and many charges were added, were made against the abolitionists. They were accused
of communists, thieves, public enemies, mainly because the Ruy Barbosa project did
not provide for compensation for slaves sexagenarian being released and did not think
she could bring losses to the rhythm of production.
For everything accomplished in his life, Ruy Barbosa is considered the biggest Brazilian
of the history by a jury invited by Epoca magazine and in 2013 was chosen by a panel
of 214 personalities from various fields made by the newspaper A Tarde as the biggest
Bahian of all the times. The National Culture Day was instituted in Brazil by Federal
Law No. 5,579, of May 19, 1970 celebrating the birth of Ruy Barbosa, one of the most
important personalities in the history of Brazil.
* Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012),
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015) and As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo
(Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016) .