Gabino Barreda

Gabino Barreda (1818-1881) was a physician and philosopher who studied in Paris under Auguste Comte, the father of positivism. Back in Mexico, he shaped Benito Juárez’s education reform of 1867 and promoted the National Preparatory School, which opened in 1868 with Barreda as its first director.

Don’t confuse him with Justo Sierra, who decades later founded the National University (1910), or with José Vasconcelos, first head of the Ministry of Public Education (1921).