The objective of this work is to understand the genesis of rural primary education in the years 1823 to 1889. The period was chosen because of the importance of unveiling the historical process with the scope of analyzing aspects that influenced the proposal and concretization of the nucleation of this educational modality. The methodology used was qualitative research, through the reflection of bibliographies that deal with educational public legislations and policies, which made explicit a "concern" with elementary education: inspection, quantitative and physical structure of schools, teachers, curriculum and teaching. We were faced with initiatives of institutionalization of primary schools, as well as a slow and continuous expansion of public education. In this context, rural primary schools (isolated schools) were not specifically mentioned in legislation. In the Brazilian imperial period, we witnessed the presence of discussions, actions and practices in favor of the institutionalization of public education, and in particular of primary education, but with an inefficient physical, pedagogical and administrative organization. Thus, the intention of reorganization was instituted mainly in the adoption, practices, uses and transformations in the teaching methodology of the country's schools. In addition, the modern idea, pointed values connected to the urban environment in an "essentially rural country". Perhaps for this reason the educational reforms of the imperial period were not carried out, failing to signal a systemic policy of education, in which what prevailed was disregard for the primary public education. In the Republican era, the disinterest remained with the Brazilian rural education, deficient and inefficient; the administrative and pedagogical institutionalization of isolated urban schools in this period of consolidation will only affect rural schools in the following century, with the strengthening of the nucleation proposal.