In 1936, he was appointed with the status of full professor to the chair in Brazilian Studies, which he taught until 1961, when he went on to organize the History of Medieval Culture, alongside Brazilian Literature, where he succeeded Oliveira Lima and Manuel de Sousa Pinto in a subject that was taught in all sections of the Faculty. In the syllabus he developed they discussed the originality and historical evolution of Brazil, its present and future importance, its literary and linguistic influence in bilateral relations, not neglecting the study of Oliveira Viana’s preoccupation with Arianism or the ideas of Gilberto Freyre, whom he regarded as profoundly influenced by North American sociologists in his theses on the formation of Brazil.

But many other subjects created an arrangement of teaching based on the model then in vogue of the professor, principally as the exhibitor of knowledge, giving less emphasis to criteria related to scientific specialization. So he also tackled a wide range of material, such as History of Oriental Antiquity, History of Classical Antiquity, History of the Discoveries and Modern and Contemporary History, as well as the so-called Auxiliary Historical Subjects. In 1946, because of Orlando Ribeiro’s absence on a foreign delegation, the governing council also gave him the course in Lisbon Studies, which he taught until 1957, to the approval of his large audiences and the Lisbon City Council, which always gave the highest praise to the competence and brilliance of his lecturing.

During this period he also became a City Councillor (1949-54) and contributed to programmes for national radio (1946-60), giving more than two hundred talks on Portuguese topics. He also ran the magazine Rumo, which aimed to “stimulate, strengthen and build the work of national identification”, as we read in the first edition (p. 9); some five or six were published in all, all in 1946. The contributors included Raul Lino, Ferreira de Almeida, Durval Pires de Lima, Delfim Santos, Luís Cabral de Moncada and João Ameal, amongst others.

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