Luís António Verney  Luís António Verney (23 July 1713 – 23 March 1792) was a Portuguese philosopher, theologian, and pedagogue. An "estrangeirado", Verney is sometimes called the most important figure of the Portuguese Enlightenment. Most notably, Verney advocated a plan to completely reform the educational system in Portugal, in radical opposition to the methods employed at the time by the Jesuits, who had long had a near-monopoly on teaching in the country; his controversial manifesto, "Verdadeiro Método de Estudar" (first published anonymously in 1746), would later serve as the basis for many of the educational reforms instituted under the Marquis of Pombal. Luís António Verney was born in Lisbon in 1713, the son of Denys Verney (1650 – c. 1734), from Saint-Clément-les-Places in Lyon, France, and Maria da Conceição Arnaut, from the parish of Santa Eufémia in the town of Penela, Coimbra. The family of wealthy merchants was established in Rua Nova do Almada, where they owned a drugstore. One of 10 siblings (4 boys and 6 girls — through one of which Verney was to be João Frederico Ludovice's brother-in-law), Luís António was baptized on 6 August of that year, in the Church of Saint Julian. He was first tutored by the family's chaplain, Fr. Manuel de Aguiar Paixão, at the age of six, in his first studies of Latin Grammar, Spanish, French, and Italian. He studied in the Jesuit College of Saint Antony the Abbot, probably between 1720 and 1727, and from then till 1729, Philosophy with the Oratorians, at the Convent of the Holy Spirit of the Quarry ("Espírito Santo da Pedreira"). In April 1729, Luís António Verney interrupted his studies to enlist as a volunteer in a military expedition in Portuguese India; for unknown reasons, however, he seems to have had a change of heart — by November of that year, he enrolled in the Jesuit-run University of Évora, from which he concluded his studies in Philosophy and Theology, achieving the degree of "Artium Magister" in 1736. Afterwards, Verney travelled to Rome to earn a doctorate in Theology and Law in the Sapienza University of Rome.