Galdames, Luis Galdames (1881–1941)

A leading educator and historian of his generation, and one of the few whose work has been translated into English, Luis Galdames Galdames graduated from the Instituto Pedagógico at the University of Chile in 1900, and subsequently studied law at the same university, receiving his degree in 1903. He taught at several leading secular secondary schools, including the Instituto Nacional. In 1925, he was a member of the commission that drafted the constitution of that year.

An admirer of educator and jurist Valentín Letelier, Galdames authored the classic biography, still unsurpassed, Valentín Letelier y su obra (1937). His interests in history are well reflected in El decenio de Montt (1904), Estudio de la historia de Chile (1906), Historia de Chile: La evolución constitucional (1925), and La juventud de Vicuña Mackenna (1932). In education, his most important scholarly contributions are the editorship of the Revista de Educación (1912), and the brief but pioneering La Universidad de Chile, 1843–1934 (1934). He served briefly as director of national secondary education under the first government of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (1927), issuing the important general regulations for secondary education. In 1928 he returned to teaching and served as dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education at the University of Chile.

See alsoEducation: Overview; Letelier Madariaga, Valentín.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gazmuri, Cristián. La Historiografia Chilena, 1842–1970. Santiago: Taurus, 2006.

Jobet, Julio César. Doctrina y praxis de los educadores representativos chilenos. Santiago: Editorial Andrés Bello, 1971.

                                                IvÁn JaksiĆ