Las ideas pedagógicas de Juan López de Velasco: alfabetización y maestros en la España de Felipe II

This article analyzes the pedagogical ideas of Juan López de Velasco, a chronicler of the Indies, cosmographer, and one of the most important philologists of the 16th Century. In the first place, he initiated the reaction against the phonetic reform of Spanish spelling, using pedagogical arguments that conditioned the orthographic debate of the following century. Furthermore, he proposed legislation regarding essential aspects of primary schools, such as the examination for teachers, consideration of them as public agents, and the regulation of the timetable and number of students. The study demonstrates that López de Velasco was a forerunner of modern thinking on literacy processes and primary-school organization who was several centuries ahead of his time