FERRER Y GUARDIA, FRANCISCO Spanish educationist, was born at Abella, and was originally a railwayman. After the collapse of the Spanish republic he went to Paris in 1886 and became converted to Socialism. About 1899 a legacy enabled him to return to Spain and propagate his views. He was especially keen on substituting secular for clerical education, and it was through this, and through his own school, the Escuela Moderna in Barcelona, that he became an inter national figure. Among those employed at his school was Morral, and Ferrer was in 1906 charged with complicity in his attempt to assassinate the king. After he had been imprisoned for a year the charge was dismissed. On Sept. 1, 1909, he was again arrested and charged, despite his opposition to violence, with complicity in the outbreak at Barcelona in the previous July. He was sen tenced to death by court martial on Sept. 12 and shot on Sept. 13. The methods of the court and the character of the evidence admitted gave rise to an international agitation of protest. The execution was widely regarded as a judicial murder. In 1912 the Spanish supreme military council admitted that, contrary to the evidence offered at the trial, no act of violence could be traced to Ferrer, and ordered the restoration of his property.
See Prof. Simarro, El Proceso Ferrer, and Francisco Ferrer, The Modern School (Eng. trans. 1913) .