High school at the Piarists of Reus (1863-1868)

The Scuole Pie of Reus was opened the 15 October of 1858; and the year 1860 acquired the official category of High School incorporated into that of Tarragona. It had immediately great prestige, for the academic results and for the periodic magazines made by the same pupils, like "El Crepúsculo", "El Sorbete" and "El Mosquito". They studied a total of some sixty pupils. There were graduated the social leader Eduard Toda i Güell, the two brothers poets Francesc and Joaquim Maria Bartrina d'Aixemús, the historian Antoni Aulestia i Pijoan, the two brothers Gaudí, Francesc and Anton. Also some vocations of Piarist, like Fth. Josep Gispert, appeared. The school was closed by the Revolution of 1868, which transformed it into lay high school. Like in all the Spanish State, at school the Catalan language was prohibited and the education was made compulsorily in Spanish language. The prohibition of the Catalan language at school was one of the means used by the State, since 1714, for exterminating the Catalan language and substituting it for the Spanish. The parents of Anton Gaudí made a great economical effort, infrequent in the people of their modest position, to register the two sons to the High School degree. Anton had made then eleven years. On the 14th September of 1863 he approved the examination of admission to the High School degree, consistent in some questions of Christian Doctrine, some of Castilian Grammar and an operation of Arithmetic. The first course, 1863.864, he obtained Middle in 1.st of Latin, 1.st of Castilian and Christian Doctrine and Holy History; and he suspended 1.st of Arithmetic, in June as well as in September. The second, 1864-1865, he obtained Middle of 2.nd of Latin and 2.nd of Castilian; and he suspended Geography in June and he approved it in September. He did not approve the Arithmetic that dragged of the former course. The third, 1866-1867, he obtained Excellent in Geometry; and Remarkable in 1.st of Greek and in the dragged Arithmetic. The quarter, 1866-1867, he obtained Remarkable in Psychology, Geography and History, Mathematics and Rhetoric; and Well in Religion and Morality. The fifth, 1867-1868, he obtained Remarkable in Mathematics; and Pass Mark in Christian Doctrine and Holy History. The sixth course of High School, Gaudí made it in Barcelona. With the letters, the school taught the Christian mercy. To Anton, it touched to him every Saturday the prayer of the small office of Virgin. Anton became friend, during the last courses, of Eduard Toda and of Josep Ribera. Eduard Toda, two years younger than Anton, was also son of a person of Riudoms; and was a nephew and protégé of Josep Güell i Mercader, the maximum agent of the local republicanism and right-hand man of Emilio Castelar, none of the Spanish republicans. Josep Ribera, son of the teacher of l'Espluga de Francolí, explained with enthusiasm to the his friends the ruin neighbors of the monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet. Anton Gaudí did not have either the literary inclinations or the political passions of his inseparable friends. For strolling around Reus, they chose romantic landscapes that stimulated their poetic vein, while Anton preferred to visit the abundant roman ruins, places where the art dominated about the nature. In the theatrical school representations, for example "The dagger of the Goth" of José Zorrilla, he did not act; he was the one who painted the sceneries. They were made with paper of newspaper on one ligature of canes. On the other hand, during the five years that he spent at the School Pie, Anton did not manifest special interest in the Christian Doctrine (how the notes that he obtained from it make it evident), and did not show any symptom of vocation to the religious state or to the priesthood. The teenager Anton "of la Calderera" seemed interested only in the art. Of his album, only a drawing of the belfry of a church is preserved; and those that he made for the magazine "El Arlequín".