This paper presents the analysis of the Prontuario de Ortografia Practica (1865), written by José Bernardo Suârez, student of the first course of the Normal School of Teachers, inspector of primary schools and pupil of D. F. Sarmiento. The research is part of the mid-nineteenth century Chilean context, which created a climate of important debates about language and education ideas, and which carried out the Chilean spelling reform that tried to change the paradigm imposed by the academic orthography. This research is based on the subdiscipline of ethnorthography. Here we analyze how the pedagogical and linguistic ideas proposed by Suarez are related to the political and social context, in which was developed the process of linguistic standardization in our country. The analysis reveals that the normative discourse contained in the spelling manual, actually is a double speech that simultaneously articulated both linguistic and social-political discourses, through pedagogical practices adopted by Suarez in his manual. Therefore, they reflect the ideologies of the nineteenth century Chilean context.