Colegio Virgen de Guadalupe, the first national institution in Peru that housed political leaders

If you opt for the alfonso ugarte avenue, in the center of Lima, then you will surely come across a large blue and white construction. Now, if you pass around noon, you will see children and teenagers with a uniform between light blue, white and midnight blue, leaving this place called Our Lady of Guadalupe National Collegethe first in the history of Peru.

It is for this reason that on its website and in its facilities you will be able to see the denomination of First Benemérito National College of the Republic. Great historical figures of Peru have passed through this educational institution. In addition, it was a pioneer in various subjects and forms of education. When was it built, who are its founders and what changes did it bring to Peruvian education? We tell you in the following note.

We have to go back years, to 1839, when President Agustín Gamarra reigned. In those years in Lima, many public and private educational institutions already existed in Lima for the careers of lawyer, priest or doctor, which is why a preparatory or elementary school was necessary. This is where the owner appears Domingo Elías d’Ica and the wealthy Spaniard Nicolás Rodrigofounders of the college.

Both felt motivated and on November 14, 1840, they announced that they had decided to open the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe school for the next year, placing it under the immediate direction of a clergyman. Thus, on February 7, 1841, it was inaugurated as a private establishment dedicated to primary education.

As vice-rector, a distinguished Spanish sailor, Mr. Ramón Azcarate, was hired, and as chaplain was Father Fray Juan Vargas, who had a direct influence on the name, being the one who had the initiative to name it after Our Lady of Guadeloupe.

The place they occupied was the recently renovated premises of the Estanco de Tabaco handed over by the government, located in Calle de la Chacarillanear the highway and near the current University Park and behind the current Alzamora Valdez building (which between 1950 and 1990 was the Ministry of Education).

Initially, the following courses were taught: Spanish Grammar, Geography and Mathematics, by Azcárate; Religion, by Fray Juan Vargas; first letters and French by Professor Blanco Batlles; drawing, by Ignacio Merino; and music, by Mateo Rosas and Miguel Távara. The number of students barely reaches 40.

In 1842, Domingo Elías engaged the services of the Spanish liberal Sebastien Lorente as rector of the campus, who gave a new impetus to the school in teaching and brought French and English teaching methods, breaking with the colonial school teaching of the time and implanting for the first time in education national, the subjects of History of Peru, America and Philosophy.

The presence of Lorente meant raising the quality of teaching, making the Guadalupe School a center of upper secondary education and, moreover, the ideological antagonist of the Convictorio de San Carlos, bastion of conservatism, whose rector was the famous cleric Bartolomé Herrera.

The Spaniards are succeeded by the Gálvez brothers (José and Pedro Gálvez Egúsquiza), former students of the Convictorio de San Carlos. The academic, ideological and political rivalry between these schools (Guadalupe, supporter of liberalism, and San Carlos, defender of conservatism) and their representatives persisted until 1852, when the Guadalupe school was closed by President José Rufino Echenique.

The liberal revolution triumphed in 1855 and the new president, Marshal Ramón Castilla, promulgated a new Regulation of Public Instruction. The school was decreed national on April 7, 1855, in addition to being reclassified as a secondary school, detached from higher education, but without leaving aside its prestige and educational quality.

Many ‘guadalupanos’ volunteered for the fight in Callao on May 2, 1866, where the Minister of War José Gálvez Moreno, rector of the school in 1851, heroically died.

Many Guadalupanos enlisted in the battalions that went to fight in the provinces of Tarapacá and Arica during the War of the Pacific. After the defeat of the southern armies, Lima prepares for defense. “The teachers and students of the school enrolled in the reserve battalion No. 2 commanded by Manuel Lecca and which defended the capital in redoubt No. 1 of Miraflores”, underlines the institution on its website.

On January 15, 1881, the great courage of the Guadalupans was recorded, when they were deployed in the Battle of Miraflores. Among those who fell in battle were César Figueroa Toledo and Manuel Fernando Bonillawho was only 13 years old and died destroyed by an enemy grenade.

The students exchanged the books for weapons and also participated in the battles of Tacna (May 1879), San Francisco, Dolores, Tarapacá, Arica, Huamachuco, San Pablo, in the countryside of Breña, in Iquique and in Punta Angamos.

Between 1884 and 1894 there were difficult times and several requests for renovations to the school, which required urgent repairs. It was only between 1895 and 1899, under the second government of Nicolás de Piérola, that the initiative to build a new building for the school was taken. The Haussmann commission, coming from France, recommended its new location on the current Alfonso Ugarte Avenue, the school being part of a boulevard with Loayza Hospital, Bartolomé Herrera, Plaza Dos de Mayo, etc. This walk followed the trace of the old walls of Lima.

On September 22, 1897, the county council approved the acquisition of the land of 19,913 square meters. In 1898, the government opened a public competition, of which two projects were presented; none were retained, entrusting the project to the architect Maximiliano Doig, who took over the work from June 1899 to 1905. Then they continued under the direction of Monsieur Ratouin until 1909, finally the architects Salazar and Rafael Marquina (Guadalupan) would take over, which completed the construction we know today.

-Jorge Basadre

-Leonard Prado Gutierrez

– Carlos de los Heros Aguilar

-Enrique Palacios

-Méliton Carvajal

– Jose Abelardo Quinones

-Manuel Bonilla Elhart

– Jose Galvez

– Leonid Yarovi

-Santiago Antunez de Mayor Gomero

-Ricardo Bentin

– Jose Galvez Barrenechea