Jorge Juan: innovador de la Educación Superior en la España ilustrada

Abstract

Higher Education during Spanish Enlightenment constitutes one of the most clear examples of how our country resigned the acceptance of every current of renewal coming from Europe. While Spanish University continued rejecting Copernicus (1543), Jorge Juan introduced a complete revolution in Spanish scientific pedagogy through new teaching organization and textbooks full of novelties based upon an updating of Newton’s work (1687) through the advances in XVIII th century European Mathematics, still unknown to the English savant. Suffering the repulse from our universities Jorge Juan’s efforts towards reformation could only become effective at the Navy’sAcademies. Consequently Spain would remain at a secular distance from European Science, a gap that would only be overcome in XXth century.