ILLITERACY.
The problem of illiteracy in Chile is a serious one, the estimated figures for 1917 showing 959,061 illiterates out of a total population of 3,249,279. Since the year 1900 the struggle against it has grown in vigor. The National Educational Association has shown especial efficiency, and has worked through committees having the following phases in charge: Compulsory school attendance, the legal requirements, condition of the schools and the teaching force, school revenues, school buildings and sanitation, and special education.
This steady pressure prepared public sentiment for the leadership of the most influential agency ever invoked in the fight against illiteracy, viz. the conferences organized by the powerful newspaper El Mercurio. Under its auspices these conferences were held in a 3-days’ series in July, 1917, and were attended and participated in by men and women identified with every phase of national education. The following topics were the salient ones of those discussed:
1. Comparative study of illiteracy statistics in various countries.
2. Means of combating illiteracy in leading nations.
3. Practicable means of action in Chile.
4. Means of contribution, and proportion in which the State, the municipal authorities, and the Provinces may contribute to the budget necessary.
5. Cooperation of private initiative.
6. Means of making school attendance compulsory.
7. Regulation of child labor.
8. Reforms necessary in actual plans of study and in classification of schools.
9. Necessity and practical means of giving the schools a more Nationalistic character.
10. Minimum of knowledge to be required by compulsory attendance law.
11. Place of night schools, Sunday schools, and traveling schools, in the struggle against illiteracy.
While no action of a legal character resulted from these conferences, yet the impetus given to the cause was powerful, and had weight in bringing about the decree and the projected law already outlined. Such a move, combining at once social and economic as well as educational characteristics, seeking to bring public opinion to bear on the solution of a problem underlying the life of a nation, and launched by a newspaper, is unique in the history of education.
The Territory of Magellanes has shown itself remarkably efficient in handling the problem of illiteracy. It is the southernmost area of the country, and little favored by nature, being a long strip of barren and rocky coast, with a climate singularly bleak and uninviting. Its industries are based exclusively upon its mineral resources; and its population, though intelligent, is very sparse. By the census of 1917, its percentage of illiteracy was 20; according to the estimate of the author of a study of the Territory, published in the Anales de la Universidad, April, 1918, this has been reduced to 7 per cent. Credit is largely due the Society of Popular Instruction, a private organization, established in 1911, which offers free instruction to pupils of all ages. In spite of the prevailing inclemency of the climate, the sessions of its day and night schools are excellently attended. The system is centralized in Punta Arenas.