La Plata, August 1930. The "Argentino" newspaper announced the arrival of Adolphe Ferrière to hold a series of conferences on childhood and education. The article compared the Swiss pedagogue with Cervantes’ hero and presented the aim of his mission: to support those who were fighting for an education reform based on new pedagogical methods and theories. Representing the Ligue Internationale pour l’Éducation Nouvelle and the International Bureau of Education, Ferrière leaved Geneva in March 1930 with the objective of reinforcing pedagogical collaboration between Europe and Latin America. More precisely, his goal was to collect documentation on innovative educational experiences, present the advances of European research in educational sciences and psychology and spread the work of the IBE and the LIEN. In this presentation, we discuss first of all the choice of Ferrière as representative of the IBE, taking into consideration that at the end of the 1920s the pedagogue was quite distant from its activities. Second, we examine the way in which Ferrière disseminated IBE's ideas and practices. Third, we analyze the impact of this journey, not only for Ferrière himself and the institutions he represented, but also for each one of the countries he visited. Based on the study of European and Latin American archival sources, we demonstrate that Ferrière’s travel was in part motivated by personal aspirations. The Latin American context of the beginning of the 20th century, marked by the search for references, models and innovative pedagogical theories, made the continent a favorable terrain to reinforce his reputation as the apostle of the active school that was being threatened in Geneva. But the presence of the Swiss pedagogue also represented for the avant-gardes of the active school in Latin America an important support for their pedagogical experiences. Therefore, Ferrière’s trip to Latin America reproduced what Nóvoa (2020) describes as a “double legitimation process”. If Ferrière found an audience on the continent that consecrated him as the apostle of the active school, his visions were also powerful instruments that were used by local actors to legitimize pedagogical initiatives in many countries.

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