page_title: Manuel Polo y Peyrolón
section_title: Scholar and philosopher
hierarchical_section_title: Manuel Polo y Peyrolón / Scholar and philosopher
caption_attribution_description: English: front cover of Elementos de etica by Manuel Polo y Peyrolon, 1882
context_page_description: Manuel Polo y Peyrolón was a Spanish writer, theorist, academic, and politician. He is best known as the author of 5 novels falling in-between Romanticism and Realism; classified as part of costumbrismo, they are currently considered second-rate literature. As a philosopher he stuck to neo-Thomism and focused mostly on confronting Krausism. In education he represented the Catholic regenarationism, fiercely pitted against the Liberal current. In politics he was active within Carlism; his career climaxed during the 1896-1898 term in the Congress of Deputies and during the 1907-1915 terms in the Senate.
context_section_description: Polo taught Psicología, Lógica y Ética in the Teruel college for 9 years. Harassed for his pro-Carlist sympathies, he decided to leave Aragon. Following a successful application and selection process, he assumed the same chair in Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza in Valencia in 1879, where he kept teaching until the early 20th century. Member of Asociación de Catedráticos Numerarios, he was active in a number of Spanish and foreign scholarly institutions. His career was crowned in 1908, when he joined Real Academia de la Historia.
  During his Valencia tenure Polo wrote textbooks for students of philosophy: Elementos de psicología (1879), Elementos de lógica (1880), Elementos de Ética (1880); Elementos de Ética o Filosofía Moral (1882), Elementos de Filosofía Moral (1889), Lógica elemental ( 1902) and Ética elemental (1902), in use also in other scholarly centres across the country. He did not develop any original philosophical contribution himself; apart from works on history and general overviews, Polo is known for confronting some trends forming the liberal educational mindset, especially krausism and Darwinism. His stance is classified as neotomismo or neocatolicismo in philosophy and as regeneracionismo político-educativo in pedagogy.
  Polo's repudiation of krausism developed in course of the teaching career and stemmed from his growing interest in pedagogy and education in general. During last decades of the 19th century krausism became a philosophical powerhouse of liberal Spanish politics, represented mostly by Francisco Giner del Rios and Instituto Libre de Enseñanza. Its principal intellectual antagonist was Menendez y Pelayo. His friend Polo remained rather a proponent and did not construct an own anti-krausian theory, though his vehemence gained him the opinion of "grande enemigo de la barbarie krausista", especially as Spanish krausism, initially avoiding direct confrontation with the Church, later assumed a decisively challenging tone. Fiercely advocating Catholic integrity as a basis of public education, he nevertheless recognized the necessity of incorporating elements from the liberal mainstream; some scholars even maintain that Polo was completely integrated in the liberal system of education.
  Another characteristic feature of Polo's outlook was his position towards evolutionism, though opinions on his stance differ. Some view it as an exemplary obscurantist Catholic reaction to scientific progress, dismissed as "involucionismo, integrismo, tradicionalismo e ideario reaccionario". Some suggest that his neotomism was not an abrupt rejection of advances produced by science, as Polo tried to work out a conciliatory approach. Though his stance on darwinism is portrayed as "aggressive and intolerant attack", others consider it in line with scientific standards of the era, systematic and posing questions  - like those related to hereditary transmission or variability patterns  –  which remained unanswered until the 1920s. A detailed study suggests that Polo engaged in the discourse not so much to challenge the evolutionist theory, but to confront secularism which used it as a ram against the Spanish Catholic outlook.
caption: Polo's textbook, 1882
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