He was one of the most significant Cuban figures of the 19th century, for the work of culture and healthy patriotism that he carried out.

His birth occurred on July 11, 1800, in a house located on Oficios street, in Old Havana.

From a patrician family - his father was Perpetual Regidor of the Havana City Council and owned a sugar mill - but José de la Luz y Caballero was inclined to the priesthood early on, and although he resigned from ecclesiastical life when he was about to formally start it, it was always for his private virtues and by his public performance, a great lay priest.

He studied at the San Carlos Seminary and was a student of Félix Varela. Later in the aforementioned institution, between 1824 and 1828, he held the chair of Philosophy.

He then spent three years in Europe and upon his return to Cuba he assumed the direction of the San Cristóbal school in Havana.

He simultaneously taught philosophy classes at the convent of San Francisco.

Between 1835 and 1842 he held responsibilities in the Economic Society of Friends of the Country.

He then fought to increase public education by writing articles of a historical nature and also divulged the life and work of Cuban literary authors.

He devoted special attention to the improvement of teachers. He went so far as to affirm: “let us have the teaching profession and Cuba will be ours.”

José de la Luz y Caballero considered that teaching should provide, along with the instruction of human beings, moral, patriotic and ideological convictions, as well as respect for beauty in its various manifestations and even hygienic habits.

His concept of education was based on the active participation of students and he actually attached great importance to attending to the needs and motivations of children.

In the year 1848 he founded in Havana, the school "El Salvador" as a symbolic name because he thought that his school would save Cuba from the dark and painful life that it led, he thought that his school came to prepare the ground for the prosperous seeds of justice and freedom.

José Martí referred to the life and work of José de la Luz y Caballero. Our Apostle specified that he had consecrated his entire life to creating rebellious and cordial men who would remove in time the interrupted homeland from the nation that suffocates and corrupts it.