The Government should preoccupy itself largely with this matter of assimilation: for the process is not complete. There are two effectual means which it might employ, among others, in order to assimilate its new recruits: ownership of the soil and education.
These two means have produced marvellous effects in the United States. The Homestead Law of the 20th of May 1862 gave to every American over twenty-one years of age, and to every person having declared, conformably with the law, his intention of becoming a citizen, the right to occupy gratuitously 160 acres of surveyed lands, or 80 acres only in districts more advantageously situated: if the holder, after five years of residence, has cultivated a portion of his holding, the full title is finally granted. For such purpose the public lands have been surveyed and divided into lots by the Government. The Government also sells public lands by auction or treaty. Up to the month of July 1905, it had thus alienated a total of 808,000,000 acres; which explains how millions of families—Irish, German, Scandinavian and others—have been more or less definitely settled on the soil of that which was already or which has since then become their native land. Here is an example the Argentine Government would do well to follow.
Education exercises an influence of another kind, which is no less efficacious. The Americans of the United States are well aware of this, and this is why they attach such importance to the upkeep of the “common schools” and the attendance of the pupils. The children of foreign parents become Americanised in class and during play by contact with young Americans. The English tongue becomes their own language; their manners of thought and their habits are modelled on those of their comrades, whom they are unconsciously proud to imitate. If the immigrant family does not forget the memories of its old home, at least its offspring, from the second generation, are rooted in the American soil and have American minds.
The Argentine Government must endeavour to obtain a
like result. For a long period primary instruction was in an extremely neglected state in the Argentine Republic. However, the Constitution obliged the Provinces to secure such instruction, the Federal Government to assist by finding a third of the expense of the first installation of the schools. But in spite of the Constitution, in 1874 there were only 1830 primary schools and 112,000 pupils. Progress has been accomplished: in 1905 there were 5250 schools, 14,118 teachers, male and female, and 544,000 pupils. But as the population between the ages of six and fourteen had increased to 827,000, only 65 per cent. of the children were attending school, and only one child in three was able to read and write. This is a state of things that must be changed.
Secondary education, as far as numbers go, is in no better case; there are sixteen “colleges,” with 4100 pupils. The State Universities of Buenos Ayres and Córdoba and the three provincial Universities of La Plata, Santa Fé and Parana, with 3000 students, are relatively better.[9]
[9] The writer does not give the statistics of those who go abroad to study; the number is, of course, very considerable, especially of those who go to Paris.—[Trans.]
The three orders of instruction ought to work together to form a national spirit and a moral unity; but the Government should not forget that primary instruction is the basis, and that it is the only kind of instruction that can be bestowed upon each generation in its entirety, and that the children of each generation should be taught at an early age not only the ideas necessary to the life of the individual, but also, by means of the elements of national history, ethics, and applied science, the knowledge and love of their native country.
The Argentine Republic as yet counts few men to whom the exigencies of life leave leisure to consecrate themselves entirely to letters or the sciences. It has some distinguished writers, but they usually find a recompense for their talent in the public press; for in Buenos Ayres more than 200 journals are published. Men write as hurriedly as they act. It is to be hoped that before long, with the increase of wealth, there will arise men of science, who will find no lack of material in the country, and men of letters, historians, novelists, sociologists, etc., who will also never lack for matter in this
busy, humming hive. Such men are necessary, because their life-work goes far to make up the intellectual capital of a nation, and even to form nationality itself.