Rodríguez, Simón (1769–1854)

Simón Rodríguez (b. 28 October 1769; d. 28 February 1854), Venezuelan educator and teacher of Simón Bolívar. Rodríguez began life in Caracas as a foundling. He became well educated largely through his own efforts. From an early age Rodríguez was teaching and articulating an educational philosophy that stressed the need for practical studies as well as for making education available to all sectors of society, including women. In his belief in human perfectibility through schooling, he was undoubtedly influenced by Rousseau, but his ideas also bore the stamp of his own highly original personality.

Rodríguez's most famous pupil was Bolívar, who at one time lived with Rodríguez, with the latter serving as guardian, and who conceived a deep admiration for his teacher's "genius." About 1796, Rodríguez left Caracas, traveling first to the United States (where he worked for a time in Baltimore as a printer) and then to France, where he taught and traveled widely. In 1804, in Paris, he renewed his relationship with Bolívar, and he was with him at Rome the next year when Bolívar took an oath to liberate Spanish America.

Rodríguez returned to America in 1823, intending to help in the construction of a republican new order. In Peru he again joined Bolívar, who gave him the task of organizing schools there and, later, in Bolivia. However, his insistence on mixing youths from different social backgrounds and teaching useful crafts to all in his model school at Chuquisaca (later Sucre) aroused much strong criticism, as did his disregard for personal appearance and social conventions.

After a falling out with Bolivia's first president, Antonio José de Sucre, Rodríguez moved on. For the next three decades he divided his time among Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and Colombia. In all of these nations he was a teacher who won warm admiration from some and harsh rejection from others. He continually publicized his educational ideas, his social egalitarianism, and such pet causes as the simplification of Spanish spelling. Best known of his writings is Sociedades americanas en 1828, first published in Arequipa (1840) and then in an expanded version in Lima (1842). He died in Amotape, Peru.

See alsoBolívar, Simón .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pedro Grases, comp., Simón Rodríguez, Escritos, 3 vols. (1954–1958).

Mercedes M. Álvarez F., Simón Rodríguez tal cual fué (1966).

Gerhard Masur, Simón Bolívar, rev. ed. (1969), esp. pp. 40-41.

Germán Carrera Damas, Simón Rodríguez, hombre de tres siglos (1971).

Jorge López Palma, Simón Rodríguez: Utopía y socialismo (1989).

Gustavo Adolfo Ruiz, Simón Rodríguez: Maestro de primeras letras (1990).

Additional Bibliography

Orgambide, Pedro G. El maestro de Bolívar: Simón Rodríguez, el utopista. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 2002.

Ramírez Fierro, María del Rayo. Simón Rodríguez y su utopia para América. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1994.

                              David Bushnell