This article analyzes the schooling process in Maranhão Imperial, taking into account the tension between the number of public primary classes and the number of children enrolled, according to government reports and the public education inspectorate. The objective is to understand to what extent the speeches of provincial presidents and inspectors resonate in the political and administrative actions of disseminating elementary schools, based on the crossing of official data supported by the theoretical-methodological assumptions of cultural history, insofar as political speeches different ideological/ideological aspects and school practices are evaluated via representations, allowing us to question the reports in use, the analysis of the context in which they were written, as well as the positions of the main agents involved and the perception and appreciation schemes based on which they are classified. , judge and act. It is concluded that although the province of Maranhão demonstrates an increase in debates on compulsory public education, requiring in its own regulation the presence of school-age children in primary classes, the financial state of the Province, the lack of teachers and the difficulties in supervising the teaching meant that maintaining chairs and the number of students enrolled, even with improvements over the period, continued to represent a major challenge for the advancement of teaching.