José Benjamin Zubiaur

José Mariano Benjamin Zubiaur (born March 31, 1856 , Paraná , Entre Ríos , Argentina ; † September 6, 1921 , Buenos Aires ) was an Argentine educator and is known as the innovator of the Argentine school system. His international fame is linked to his position as a founding member of the International Olympic Committee .

José Benjamin Zubiaur

Zubiaur came from a family of Spanish Basques . His grandfather left the small town of Viscaya in the Basque Country in the late 18th century and moved to the Spanish viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in South America . The family built a small department store in which Zubiaur had to help out as a child. His father died very early when he was six years old.

The family's economic situation worsened considerably due to the death of the father, nevertheless attempts were made to get the young Zubiaur an education. At 14 he began an apprenticeship with a businessman. It was not until he was 19 that his brother-in-law, a respected academic, got him a scholarship to a higher school, the Colegio Nacional del Uruguay in Concepción del Uruguay , a city in northern Argentina. Although he was still young himself, it was here that Zubiaur discovered his talent for teaching young people. After a short time he was allowed to work in the library and teach as an assistant teacher.

In view of the generally poor economic situation, in which, like Zubiaur himself at the time, many young people lived in Argentina, he founded a society for popular education, La Fraternidad , in 1877 , which was supposed to help students with their graduation.

After Zubiaur had completed the Colegio Nacional in 1879 , he initially stayed in Concepción to study at a law school attached to the Colegio . At the same time he ran an elementary school he founded here. A year later, however, he had to leave Concepción because the faculty was closed. To finish his law degree, he moved to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, where he received his doctorate in law from the university there in 1884 .

During the last years of his studies, Zubiaur worked as a clerk in the Ministry of Justice. Here he quickly made a name for himself and rose to be the inspector of elementary and secondary schools. He also gave lectures for prospective teachers and founded the professional journal La Educatión . This magazine would have a significant impact on the educational system in Argentina over the next two decades. In 1888 he translated the famous textbook by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi "How Gertrude teaches her children" .

As a pedagogue, Zubiaur was one of the most respected people in his home country in 1889. On behalf of the Ministry of Justice, which was also responsible for culture and education, Zubiaur was appointed a member of a delegation to represent Argentina at the World Exhibition in Paris . For the purpose of studying various European school systems of the time, he was allowed to stay in Europe for a full year, which is why he made the long journey with his entire family. One of his daughters, America , was born in France.

During his participation in various congresses, he met Pierre de Coubertin . They quickly discovered similarities, in particular both were convinced of the Anglo-American education program, which saw physical fitness through sport as an essential factor for character education. For Zubiaur, this encounter was groundbreaking for his further work in Argentina. Couberin's plans to revive the Olympics were not a serious issue at the time.

After Zubiaur returned to Argentina, he used his position to introduce physical education in schools. When he became director of the Colegio Nacional del Uruguay in 1892 , the school where his own training began, he literally revolutionized teaching methods. He promoted art education, formed a school orchestra, went on excursions with the students, supported student societies and for the first time in the history of the country allowed women to study. He introduced the football game and rowing , which are now known in Argentina, into physical education and organized competitions among schools for this purpose.

In 1894 Zubiaur received a letter from Coubertin informing him that he had been appointed to the International Olympic Committee founded on June 23, 1894. Coubertin saw in Zubiaur the right person who gave “his” committee the necessary internationality and who could spread the Olympic movement in South America. In fact, Zubiaur did little that would have served the Olympic movement. The first Argentine athlete did not take part in the Olympic Games until 1908. After the Mexican Miguel de Beistegui was appointed to the IOC in 1901 and the Peruvian Carlos de Candamo in 1903 , it was only understandable that Coubertin wrote a letter to Zubiaur in 1907, stating that his membership had expired because messages and communications sent to him remained unanswered.

The differences between Zubiaur and Coubertin were obvious. Zubiaur was less interested in the Olympic ideals than in the educational side of sport. The side that he was convinced was also in the foreground for Coubertin, at least during their only personal encounters in 1889.

Zubiaur devoted his actions almost exclusively to the renewal of the educational system in Argentina. As director of the Department of Education in the Ministry of Justice and as a member of the National Association for Education , he had the opportunity to implement his reform programs. He also wrote numerous seminal books, articles and speeches. Until recently he remained an iron advocate of the basic ideal that sport predominantly has an important educational role in the education system. Sporting activities in competitions outside of this system appeared to him dispensable. In Zubiaur's mind, the Olympic Games would have been suitable to offer schools and schoolchildren the opportunity to demonstrate their athletic skills.

Zubiaur died a highly respected personality. According to his wish, however, he was buried as it was customary for a teacher as a simple citizen at the time.