Some phases of educational progress in Latin America

by Walter A. Montgomery

RURAL SCHOOLS.

Until the breaking out of the World War, and the consequent upsetting of traditions in all South American countries whose outlet is on the Atlantic Ocean, educational thought in Uruguay concerned itself largely with the capital city. In this respect, as in that of population (one out of three people in Uruguay lives in Montevideo), the centralizing tendency of South American countries is well illustrated. But a vital change began to show itself from 1914 to 1916, and in the latter year it acquired extraordinary impetus from the support of national leaders and of the press. The nation has grown steadily to recognize the proper balance to be observed between the claims of the schools of the capital and those of the rural districts. It has come to see that a healthy national life was possible only with organic changes in the schools of the outlying departments, and that these of Montevideo could without danger be left at their present status until the education of the people from whom the great city was steadily recruited should be attended to. It is in the light of this radical change in the national attitude that the educational history of Uruguay for the last biennium should be read.

This epoch in educational progress has been further marked by the recognition of the need of financial support for rural education, and the further need of differentiating the subjects of instruction proper for rural children from those adapted to the city. In getting this principle clearly before the public mind, the educational authorities of Uruguay have played a part excelled in few countries for skill and devotion to the national interests. Mention should be made of the able contributions of Señor A. J. Pérez, National Inspector of Primary Education, especially of his study entitled “De la cultura necessaria en la democracia” (Anales, 1918), which applies to modern conditions De Tocqueville’s main lines of thought.

A commission of nine experienced teachers, six men and three women, with Señor Pérez as chairman, was appointed by executive decree to formulate the program of study for the projected rural schools. It began its sessions in February, 1917, and met frequently for two months. Its report was presented in May, 1917. Approved by the executive in June, by decree it went into effect on March 1, 1918. The main contentions of the commission in support of its plan are well worthy of notice:

1. Far-reaching changes within a generation in the commercial and industrial life of the nation have affected the rural districts and have called for different subjects and methods of instruction for the children of these districts. The rural school of the future must be recognized as fundamentally an elementary industrial school adjusted to local conditions.

2. The successful rural school must have the following aims: To inculcate conscientious and efficient labor; to minister to a well-regulated and happy home life; to diffuse the knowledge of private and public hygiene, and to further the increase of population and public wealth and, in general, the possession of a well-founded and enduring popular liberty.

3. The intimate relation of the rural schools with the problems of home life requires the new rural school to be taught by women, and therefore the training of young women as teachers in such schools should be at once initiated and continued as the basis of their success. Concrete illustration is found in the successful intensive training of 24 young women in a course of six weeks at the normal institute at Montevideo in the summer of 1917.

4. In the administrative organization the committee was guided by the following general principles: (a) Not to install rural schools by foundation or transfer except in localities where donations of ground of not less than 4 hectares (10 acres) should be immediately available; (b) to urge similar donations, public or private, to existing rural schools which lacked grounds of the minimum area above indicated; (c) to propose and encourage the transfer of rural schools that had no grounds annexed nor could obtain such by donation to another parish where such advantages could be obtained without prejudice to the interests of the rural schools in the district.

5. No child below 7 years of age should be admitted to the rural schools.

6. The programs of study for the rural schools occupied the greater part of the commission’s time. The subjects of instruction as reported covered three years, and were reading, language work, writing, arithmetic, drawing, agriculture, domestic economy, elements of applied geometry, geography and history (local, national, and universal), singing, and gymnastics. In the view of the commission itself, the feature which peculiarly differentiates these new programs is the complete application of practical methods and aims to each of these subjects, the elimination of abstract and memory teaching, and, above all, the development of the subjects of drawing, agriculture, and domestic economy. The fundamental aim throughout was to correlate instruction with the conditions and occupations of life in the several communities and to lead the pupil to see each subject as related to practical utility.

Following the promulgation of the report of the commission, lively interest was manifested by the nation at large in the initiation of such rural schools. Practical difficulties, however, were foreseen in securing funds for their launching upon the nation-wide scale hoped for, and restlessness in certain quarters was manifested, though the Chamber of Deputies promptly voted the funds necessary. The National Rural Congress of Uruguay, in session in August, 1917, addressed to the minister of public instruction an urgent plea for carrying out the terms of the report in time for the opening of at least a part of such schools with the new school year.