My readers will not expect me to take them with me round all the establishments that I visited with Señor Guiraldès. They would fill a book, and I should need to dip into the innumerable volumes of reports and notices which Argentine benevolence added to my personal luggage. This, however, does not come within my subject.
None will be surprised that the schools attracted my attention first. The School Question is too vast to be handled here in detail. But I saw professional schools (Écoles industrielles de la Nation), and primary schools that would be models in any land. All the arrangements irreproachable, and the children scrupulously clean. Demonstration lessons in abundance. Lessons on the land and its mineral, vegetable, and animal productions, specimens of each being passed from hand to hand, accompanied by explanations summarised in synoptic tables. A lesson on the anatomy and physiology of the lungs was illustrated by the breathing organs of an ox and a sheep (higher primary class for young girls), which appeared to awaken great interest among the scholars. Specimens in pasteboard coloured like life, showing the different parts of the organism, allow these rudimentary demonstrations to be carried fairly far.
The primary schools, under the management of the National Educational Council, are free, and include the school material obligatory in theory for children of from six to twelve years of age. But the population of Buenos Ayres grows more rapidly than its schools. Hence the inconvenient expedient has been adopted of dividing the pupils into two categories, one attending school of a morning and the other of an afternoon, with the result that one half the children are always wandering about the streets while the others are drinking at the fountain of knowledge. This is a system that has nothing to recommend it. It is difficult to understand why the Argentine capital postpones making a pecuniary sacrifice which is certainly not beyond its means, and which is imperatively necessary. The criticism is the more justifiable in that untold sums have been spent on certain buildings which are veritable palaces, as, for example, the President Roca School. About a hundred private, lay, or denominational schools, kept for the most part by foreigners, take in the children who are crowded out of the public schools. At Buenos Ayres, as in other parts of the country, the number of pupils in this category is far too large. There are provinces where the deficit of schools is such as to constitute a real scandal in a civilised nation. [12]
I shall never forget the heart-broken tones of a child of ten whom I met in the Pampas of the Buenos Ayres province and whom I questioned as to his occupations.
"I want to go to school. Papa does not want me to."
The father was a Mexican. The eyes of the child thus condemned by paternal stupidity to mental darkness were full of intelligence. How much trouble we take to make the best of our land! How apathetic we are when it is a question of developing the greatest force in the world, that which sets in motion all the rest—human intelligence! Is it not inconceivable that in France, after nearly half a century of labour, we still find every year a large number of wholly illiterate men among the conscripts called up to serve with the Flag? This state of affairs, which is sad enough at home, would be reckoned a great success in the Campo, where distances are such that the children have to go to the primary schools on horseback, as I have elsewhere mentioned. But when a school is within reach, the folly of parents must not be permitted to debar their children from its advantages.
The municipal and State schools are entirely undenominational. This rule obtains throughout the Argentine, where it is accepted without a murmur. The numerous religious Orders have their own private schools in virtue of the recognised principle of liberty of teaching. It might surprise a European to see that the Catholic clergy of the Argentine do not attempt to fight the undenominational character of the public schools which elsewhere has aroused such violent hostility. To my mind this cannot be explained by a want of religious fervour amongst priests and monks in the Argentine. But circumstances which it would take too long to explain have taught the Argentine clergy to make an outward practice of toleration. If questioned on the subject, the Argentino will reply: "Our clergy hold themselves aloof from politics."
And this seems to be the case. The religious world appears to be no party to political differences. The social influence of the Roman hierarchy is none the less powerful on what remains of the old colonial aristocracy and (with few exceptions) on the women of the class known as superior. Practically, the official relations of Church and State in the Argentine approach very close to separation.
I shall say nothing of the secondary schools and colleges, of which I saw but little. They are placed under the immediate control of the Minister of Public Instruction. There are no resident students. This, in the opinion of all, is the weakest spot in their educational scheme. Amédée Jacques, one of the exiles of our December coup d'état, introduced our classical curriculum into the Argentine, but it met with no success. Since that time, here, as at home, there has been strife between the partisans of the classic and those of modern, or even technical, education. Great battles have been fought, and the only result is that the cause of education has suffered from both parties. The opening of a French lycée, which I have reason to believe will shortly take place, may help to restore the classics to the position which in my opinion they ought to hold in every civilised country.