In the first half of the 19th century a new generation is called upon to support through education the development of a new intellectual and political class/ elite. If by the late of the 18th century there was more a literature of delight, towards 1830, reading was directed in the direction of a literature aiming at creating a social and political behaviour that legitimated and recognized a new human model- the citizen. This literature insists on a type of reading likely to create individuals able to divide their lives between personal happiness and public wealth. In the Romanian Principalities, the shaping of the civic spirit is based on some solidarity networks, and their projects aimed to create a new cultural policy around the mid 19th century. This generation will use the „European ideology” of the century, based on the rights of nations to auto-determination and liberal ideas, as arguments of the transforming process of the Romanian society.