Jose Pedro Varela (1845-1879) pushed for educational reform in Uruguay and wrote a few books on the topic.

Jose Pedro Varela was born on March 19, 1845. He began his career when he started working with newspapers. He visited France on one occasion where he visited with Victor Hugo. Varela's main influence was his push for educational reform in Uruguay. He was the president of Historical Origins and Evolution of Education Uruguay from 1875-76 which pioneered universal, free, and compulsory primary education in Uruguay. He wrote a few books which presented the plausibility of scholar reform. He was the first in his country to use his country's statistics to show the possibility of educational reform. His writings persuaded the government to pass the 1877 Law of Common Education. The model that was adopted for Uruguay's education was that of the French system. Jose Pedro Varela died at the young age of thirty-four on October 24, 1879.