This article is part of the discussions related to the history of the teaching profession and the training of teachers for the first half of the 19th century in Minas Gerais. On the basis of an Argentinian handbook, Letters on the education of girls by an American hum, translated into Portuguese in 1838 and distributed for the use of first letter teachers, there is a discussion about the guiding principles for the schooling of girl children in the handbook; the article also deals with the representations of gênero and the respective roles of men and women, idealised in and for the 88th society.