|  Francisco Giner de los Ríos was the mastermind of the original plan for the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE). He was one of the main leaders of the Silver Age of Spanish culture (1868-1936), and above all, he was a role model for today’s democratic Spain. His projects and teachings became the seeds of the plural and tolerant Spain that still can be considered to be, at the beginning of this century, "under construction."
Giner's biography is closely tied to the history of Spanish Liberalism.
He was born to a family with a deeply rooted tradition of legal and political activities that was a member of the new middle class, which emerged during the “isabelino” period (the reign of Queen Isabel II). Giner studied at the universities of Barcelona and Granada, and in 1863, arrived in Madrid with his uncle, the liberal politician Antonio de los Ríos Rosas. The Liberal Union party was in power, and it was a time of high spirits. The young Giner immediately became involved with the group of intellectuals that met at the Ateneo and the Círculo Filosófico, becoming especially close with Julián Sánz del Río, who introduced the ideas of German philosopher Kart C.F. Krause in Spain. Giner became his main disciple and closest collaborator, and, when Sánz del Río died in 1869, Krause’s European followers unanimously recognized Giner as his successor and head of the Krausist movement in Spain.
In 1866, when he was only 26 years old, Giner was appointed Chair of Jurisprudence and International Law at the Universidad Central.
He became actively involved in the political and cultural movement that aimed to modernize Spain and open the country to international scientific and intellectual currents, ultimately leading to the Glorious Revolution of 1868 that overthrew Isabel II and initiated Spain’s first democratic experiment. The failure of this short-lived regime change decisively marked the life of the young professor: during those intense years, he came to the conclusion that the process of modernization would only succeed if it were based on a profound and fundamental transformation of the country through education and the cultivation of science. Furthermore, this transformation would only be possible through the participation of the entire population, not just the intellectuals and the ruling class.
The first instrument designed by Giner to realize his ideals was the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE), a project closely linked to the so-called “university question” that led Giner and other professors who defended academic freedom to be expelled from their posts twice: first by the last cabinet of Isabel II, and then by the first government of her son, Alfonso XII. On the second occasion, Giner was confined to Cadiz, where he began outlining the project that was ultimately hatched in the summer of 1875, at the home of scientist Agustín González de Linares in the Cabuérniga valley. Classes at the ILE began a few months later, but the conditions for developing a private, secular university were not ripe in Madrid. After an initial period of momentum and relative growth, student enrollment began to fall. In 1882, the Liberal government, which had come to power the previous year, reinstated the professors in their academic jobs. Giner and his colleagues decided to teach at the public university and to dedicate the ILE to primary and secondary education. From then on, Giner always taught both graduate students at the university and students at the ILE School. In both institutions, he taught several generations of Spaniards.
In essence, his educational system not only encouraged the equal cultivation of natural sciences and humanities, and the dialogue between them, but also sought to end the isolation of students, advocating academic and scientific freedom, and a methodological unity of the whole educational process. Tests and grades were replaced by continuous work with the student, who became the protagonist of his or her education, and experience -based on the observation and enjoyment of life and nature- was elevated to the highest criterion of knowledge.
In 1884, the ILE was moved to a house with a small garden on the Paseo del Obelisco, in the outskirts of Madrid. The new headquarters would also be the residence of the Giner, Cossio and Rubio families, as well as the symbolic home for all those who grew up in Giner and the ILE’s circle of influence. This new locale would become the center of the radical movement that would spearhead a pragmatic, tolerant and pluralistic modernizing project that would have long-lasting repercussions on Spanish contemporary history. The house also served as the "teaching laboratory" that tested many of the reforms implemented by the ILE outside its walls. The aforementioned projects and experiments ultimately contributed to the development of the JAE, which would be designed by Giner in the last two decades of the 19th century.
The portrait given by his colleagues as well as contemporary photographs of the mature Giner show us a small man with a neat and prematurely white beard and dark piercing eyes that would to light up like his character. Juan Ramón Jiménez wrote that Giner resembled, ”Fire and wind… that seems to have embodied all the passion, tenderness, and sharpness in life: the flower, the flame, the bird, the summit, the child…” He had a friendly expression, sometimes withdrawn, sometimes almost mystical, as shown in the beautiful portrait painted by Sorolla, reminiscent of the work of El Greco. Giner was an indefatigable wayfarer in the literal sense as well, who walked daily with his students from the university to his house, on Sundays in the forest of El Pardo, and on holidays took long walking trips. Irene Claremont, Castillejo’s wife, remembered, " his eyes and unforgettable smile [...] He spoke with his head cocked slightly. He got up every day at five in the morning and worked five hours before breakfast. He himself tidied up his bedroom, and he changed his white shirt every day.” According to Constancio Bernaldo de Quirós, Giner described himself as being “every day more radical and with a cleaner shirt.”
In the end, Giner was a teacher who constantly tried to stay aware of everything around him while cultivating his own critical thinking. Deeply loyal to his enlightened and liberal background, he never followed any creed blindly – not even Krause’s - and always demonstrated an extraordinary open-mindedness and capacity to dialogue with the culture of his time, including the critical currents against Positivism.
After the Civil War, the ILE was outlawed and all its assets seized under a decree on May 17th, 1940, "for its notorious acts contrary to the ideals of the New State." In spite of this, Giner’s work and that of the ILE survived thanks to the tenacity of members of the institution in exile and in Spain.
Giner published several works on law, philosophy, sociology, and pedagogy, most of them included in his Obras Completas, published posthumously by the Fundación Giner de los Ríos, an institution that continued the work of the ILE under the direction of Manuel B. Cossío. However, Giner's most important contributions were the two periodicals he founded: the Boletín Revista de la Universidad de Madrid, and later the Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza, the most influential pedagogical publication of its time and one of the fundamental cornerstones of the intellectual history of the Silver Age.
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