BOVARA, Giovanni. — Priest and pedagogue, born in Maglarrone (Como) on 30 Sept. 1734 and died in Milan on 13 Oct. 1812. Of wide juridical culture, he obtained from Maria Theresa, in 1776, the chair of canon law at the University of Pavia; thence he passed to the Palatine schools of Milan, and then to the Brera college for ecclesiastical law. When the college passed to the State, following the suppression of the Jesuits, B. served for over twenty years, first as “delegate” and then as “assistant” to the magistracy of studies and the economic junta. It was through B.’s work that the vast scholastic reform was carried out by the Austrian government in Lombardy. In 1802 he was appointed by Napoleon minister of worship and was awarded various honours.
The scholastic reform embraced all schools of every order, from elementary to lyceum, and was inspired by certain principles current in the culture of the time. The schools were under the direct or indirect control of the State; teachers were appointed following public competitions; instruction was given a more realistic direction, more in keeping with the needs of the times; in the gymnasia arithmetic and geometry, history and geography were introduced; in the lyceums experimental physics and natural history; in the philosophical courses the use of the “national language” instead of Latin; teaching methods were renewed and the compilation of new school texts was established; the obligation to follow studies in an orderly manner, according to a principle of normal progression, was introduced; academic exercises were abolished.