The aim of this study is to make a view of the debates about instruction in Brazil in the 1920s. In view of that, we resort to the analysis of the news published at Jornal do Commercio, a newspaper which had huge circulation in capital of Brazil at the time, Rio de Janeiro - the shop window of national modernity. The Jornal do Commercio used to publish every day, in a permanent space of the journal, the determinations of the Diretoria Geral de Instrução Pública (General Board of Public Instruction) and of the Diretoria Geral de Instrução Pública Municipal (General Board of Public Municipal Instruction). Furthermore, the newspaper had published too a diversity of texts such as advertisements of schools and speeches of paraninfos.Through this analysis was possible to have a vision about the educational themes which were more polemical, and/or which have given more attention in the mentioned period, for example, the construction of scholar space, the role of primary school, the compulsory of education. Beyond these, it was a question which all others were associated: the role of Education as the responsible agent for the national progress.