The politicai stability achieved in the second half of the nineteenth century, although the vicissitudes resulting from rotativism, created the fundamental conditions for the implementation of some signi-ficant reforms of the educational system. Based on the spirit and ideas produced in the 1820's, 1850's and 1870's, the legislators sought to push Portugal closer to the leveis of culture and education of other countries. From the primary schools to the universities, from high schools to technical colleges (clearly privileged from 1884-85 onwards), ali the educational system was reformed through a number of policies that will mark the second half of the nineteenth as a period when education was finally understood on its social, economic and cultural dimensions, lacldng only the creation of a specific ministry capable of organising rationally the investments made.