Celebrating our bicentennial

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

He was an argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the seventh president of Argentina. He was a member of a group of intellectuals, known as the Generation of 1837.

Sarmiento was born on February 15^th in 1811, in San Juan, Argentina. In 1816 he entered a “school of the Nation”. When  he finished primary, his mother wanted him to study for the priesthood in Córdoba, but Sarmiento refused and filed a scholarship to study in San Juan.

His first exile was in 1831 because of the federal victory in his province and was exiled until 1836. The second was in 1840, because of the strong criticism that directed the government from the newspaper “El Zonda”, he spent 9 years in Chile.

He was noted for his laborious struggle in public education so as to contribute to the scientific and cultural progress of their country. He became governor of San Juan, where he enected the Law on compulsory primary education. At 57 he was elected president of the Republic, who served between 1868 and 1874.

Sarmiento died in Asunción, Paraguay at the age of 77 from a heart attack. He was buried in Buenos Aires.

Lourdes Ferreira & Florencia Melgin

5º3º (2nd language)