Eusebio Guiteras Font

Distinguished pedagogue from Matanzas, he wrote works dedicated fundamentally to education in Cuba, teacher and director of Colegio La Empresa

He was born in Matanzas. When the study opportunities of that time in Matanzas were exhausted, his parents sent him to study with José de la Luz y Caballero in La Habana, where he enrolled in his Carraguao school and lived in that environment with Pedro Figueredo, Francisco Vicente Aguilera, Rafael María de Mendive and other renowned patriots. He was an outstanding student in subjects such as Latin and Astronomy, where he built a solid cultural foundation.

In 1836, following the death of his mother, he sought solace in traveling through Europe, Asia and the United States of America. He returned to Cuba on July 6, 1845, married his cousin Josefa Gener y Puñales and shortly after moved again to the United States of America. There he led an intense cultural and pedagogical life, he was associated with prominent figures in different artistic, literary and educational manifestations and frequented Cuban personalities such as: Félix Varela who baptized his daughter María de la Piedad.

He returned to Cuba in 1850, but his family background and his relationship with distinguished political figures who encouraged Cuba's separation from Spain, as well as different personal attitudes and manifestations made him suspect in the eyes of the colonial authorities who accused him of bringing letters and subversive material and he was imprisoned along with his brother Pedro José Guiteras Font in the Castillo de San Severino.

When his daughter María de la Piedad died, he left for the United States of America again, and upon his return he assumed the direction of Colegio La Empresa, which he abandoned shortly after, devastated by the misfortune that brought him son after son, his health already broken, he traveled again to the United States of America with his wife and his only remaining son Juan Guiteras Gener.

He returned in 1858 and spent the ten happiest years of his life teaching and directing at Colegio La Empresa. On September 28, 1858, Luz y Caballero wrote to him to succeed him in the direction of the renowned Havana school El Salvador, a position he did not accept out of modesty and not to abandon his classroom at Colegio La Empresa. When the Ten Years' War broke out, Spanish repression reached very dangerous extremes for the Guiteras family and determined him to leave the country in 1869, settling in Philadelphia.

Cuban Romance in 1861, was awarded in the First Matanzas Juegos Florales.
A Winter in New York in 1862, in which he collected his experiences in that city.
The Guide to the Bellamar Caves in 1863, was the first of its kind in the country.
First Reading Notebook in 1856 in Philadelphia.
Second Reading Notebook in 1857 in Philadelphia.
Third Reading Notebook in 1858 in Philadelphia.
Fourth Reading Notebook in 1868 in Matanzas.
The Primer in 1878 in New York.

In all of them the fundamental theme is the Cuban one, national identity expressed through fauna, family, school, customs, natural phenomena and sciences. One of the most notable contributions in the primers is the expression of how Spanish is spoken in Cuba, already differentiated from that used by peninsular Spaniards, eliminating from the reading the characteristic pronunciation of various regions of Spain.

It is not possible to know the quantity of volumes of Eusebio Guiteras' Readings that were published, for their usefulness they were reproduced in Spanish-speaking countries with or without the permission of the author and his descendants. In Cuba they were prohibited by Spanish authorities, especially the Fourth Notebook which speaks about Cuba's independence.

During his stay in the United States of America he met José Martí, of whom he was an active collaborator.

He died on December 24, 1893 in the city of Philadelphia.