Instantly there tiptoed into the room a long, tremulous man of fifty, almost shabbily dressed, though of course with what had once been a white collar, with a pedagogical cast of countenance and a chin barely an inch below his upper lip. He bowed low at the alcalde’s orders and answered that the matter would be attended to at once—mañana.
Toward ten next morning the Minister of Public Instruction, who had evidently laundered his collar during the night, left a long line of people waiting and set off with me.
“They are only teachers, waiting for their appointments or salaries,” he explained.
We halted before a large building. The Minister knocked meekly with his cane on the heavy zaguan, the door to the patio, and was finally admitted by a square-faced, muscular, unshaven priest, who listened to our request at some length and at last led us to an older churchman, suave, slender, outwardly effusive, and of that perfectly polished exterior that marks the Jesuit. He was also French. When time enough had elapsed to give warning of our coming, he led the way into a room of first-grade pupils,—all boys of six or seven, except two full-grown Indian youths. An exceedingly young priest, giving an excellent imitation of surprise at our appearance, snapped a sort of wooden hand-clapper, and the entire class rose to their feet bowing profoundly. Some other formality was imminent when I begged the teacher to go on with the lesson just as if I were not there. He exchanged a glance with his superior at this extraordinary gringo request, then lined the class up in military ranks and set them to reading aloud. The theme was strictly religious in nature and most of the words of four or five syllables. As often as the clapper sounded, the boys changed to “next” and read with such fluency that only the tailend of a phrase here and there was intelligible. The priest made no corrections or criticisms whatever, “taught,” indeed, as he might have turned a hurdy-gurdy handle. I fancied the pupils extraordinarily well-trained—until I strolled down the room, to the evident horror of the adults, and noted that almost none of them had the book open at the page they were “reading.”
In a higher-grade room I was asked to choose the lesson, and suggested geography. A youth passed a pointer swiftly over a wall-map, spinning off a description, learned by rote, of the principal cities, the youthful priest lifting him back on the track whenever he forgot the exact language of the original and came to a wordless halt. Little helpful hints accompanied each question. A boy stood before the map of Colombia, on which the capital was printed in enormous letters.
“What city did Quesada found in 1538?” asked the priest.
Blank silence from the boy.
The priest: “Bo—bogo—”
“Bogotá!” shouted the boy.
My fellow-visitors smiled complacently at his wisdom.