Juan Manuel Dihigo Mestre

Linguist, philologist, and pedagogue. He made several contributions to pedagogical sciences, among which are the founding of the first experimental phonetics laboratory at the University of La Habana and the Museum of Classical Archaeology. He was author of numerous works on Philology and Linguistics.

He studied at the Colegio de Belén.

He earned his doctorate in Philosophy and Letters from the University of La Habana in 1888. During the 1895 war he was a delegate of the Club Oscar Primelles of New York in the province of La Habana and collaborated in various revolutionary activities under the pseudonym Lincoln.

In 1898 he obtained his doctorate in Civil and Canonical Law from the University of La Habana. Linked to it since 1890, he held multiple teaching positions as a professor of Greek and later of classical linguistics and philology, served as secretary and dean of the Faculty of Letters and Sciences, and in 1925 became rector of the Alma Mater.

He founded, together with Arístides Mestre, the Revista de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias (1905), of which he was editor-in-chief and later director (1914), created the Experimental Phonetics Laboratory (1908) and the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1919), promoted the Saturday Lectures held in the Aula Magna, and attended as a delegate the celebrations of the Tercentenary of the University of Oviedo and the XVI Congress of Orientalists held in Athens (1912). From 1910 he was a member of the Academy of the History of Cuba.

He belonged to the Association for the Promotion of Greek Studies, of Paris. He was one of the founders and presidents of the Municipal Board of Education of La Habana. He collaborated in the Revista de Instrucción Pública, La Escuela Moderna, and La Discusión. He is author of numerous works on philology and linguistics. He used the pseudonym Anacarsis.

He made several important contributions to the practice of pedagogical sciences, among which are:

Various programs for courses in the Greek Language, which he taught following the most modern European theories and approaches.

Founding of the first experimental phonetics laboratory at the University of La Habana in 1908, the only one of its kind that existed during those years in Latin America.

Creation in 1919 of the Museum of Classical Archaeology.

The laboratory attached to the Chair of Linguistics and the Museum bore his name and functioned thanks to his efforts and initiatives; the first initiated in Cuba the experimental branch of linguistics, and the second served to combine theoretical teaching with practice.

He founded in 1899 and served as President of the Municipal Board of Education of La Habana and belonged, from 1910, to the Academy of the History of Cuba.

A scholar of great international prestige in the field of Linguistics, very advanced for his time, progressive in the teaching of Archaeology and Linguistics. María del Rosario Novoa Luis and Omar Roque Martínez. History of Education in La Habana. 2006