Public Education.
Primary education is gratuitous and obligatory in all the Republic.
The public schools are at the expense of the State, that gives the books and all the necessary materials.
Since the year 1877, in which was issued the law on public education, the primary education has improved a great deal.
The reform of the primary schools was initiated in the year 1868 by a private society, founded by the great reformer, Jose Pedro Varela, the Horace Mann of Uruguay, under the name of "Friends of Popular Education Society," which created an application school, called "Elbio Fernandez," in honor of one of the founders of the society. Various North American books and manuals were then translated for the use of the schools and masters. Varela's ideas soon were diffused among the people, and the reformer was appointed to a high situation in the Public Instruction Board, in the year 1876. Immediately he reformed all the official schools, and organized the scholar administration, being himself appointed principal director of it, with the title of "National Primary Instruction Inspector."