Spain from Within

by Rafael Shaw

The inspection of all schools except the elementary is the duty of the Rector of the university. The inspection of elementary schools is committed to an Inspector-General, under the immediate orders of the sub-Secretary of State, and forty-nine inspectors, one for each province.

Elementary education in Spain has been compulsory since 1857, and free, since 1901, to children whose parents “are unable to pay.” The compulsory school age is from 6 to 12. The provision of schools and the upkeep of the buildings is the duty of the Ayuntamiento, and a small sum is set aside in the annual Budget of the kingdom for grants in aid to poor districts.

The system under which the teachers are paid is peculiar. The locality finds the money and hands it to the Ministry of Education, which pays the salaries. The reason for this arrangement is characteristic. It was made because of the irregularities in the payment of the teachers which frequently occurred when the local authority administered the funds. The salaries of the teachers in the Elementary schools are from 500 to 3,000 pesetas—say £20 to £120 a year, with a house, and they are entitled after twenty years’ service or upwards, to a pension of from 50 to 80 per cent. of their salary. They also have a right to the fees of “children who can pay them.”

It is easy to see that this system of overlapping authorities and divided responsibility must necessarily lead to waste of time and general inefficiency, even assuming that every one concerned is genuinely anxious to do his duty and to work for the good of education, an assumption which it would be very rash to make.

The teachers in the Government schools have to hold a Government certificate, which is obtained after a two years’ course in a normal school. In the higher-grade schools a superior certificate is required, involving an additional two years’ training. Private schools are reckoned as part of the school supply, in a proportion to the total which varies with the population of the school district. The school supply is calculated, not on the basis of school places but of teachers; roughly speaking, one master and one mistress are allowed to each thousand of population. The total number of qualified teachers of both sexes is eventually to be brought up to 30,000. The private schools have to satisfy the inspector as to sanitary requirements only: no control seems to be exercised over the instruction, nor is any certificate of competence demanded of the teacher.

In addition to the elementary schools, the law provides for the establishment of infant and night schools, schools for the deaf and dumb, and all the machinery of a complete and comprehensive system of secondary and higher education.

So much for the theory: the practice is another matter.

In the universities all the elements of university education are lacking. The professors in many cases are ignorant and incompetent, and those who are properly qualified for their work—and some of them are men of scholastic and scientific attainments of no mean order, often acquired abroad—are isolated, working in unsympathetic and even hostile surroundings, and their knowledge is almost useless in the lecture-room, owing to the fact that the students are absolutely destitute of the grounding necessary in order to benefit by proper teaching. When by chance a group of professors with real knowledge and enthusiasm happens to be formed in an university, the results are surprising. This has occurred at Oviedo, where, thanks to the existence of such a teaching staff, an educational atmosphere was formed, the students were educated and not merely crammed with a few useless facts, and extension lectures were established with extraordinary success, especially among the working classes.

In addition to a body of competent professors, the universities, if they are to fulfil their function, need (a) a certain amount of autonomy—at present they are merely bureaus for conducting examinations and issuing diplomas; (b) reorganisation of studies, with some liberty of choice to the student; (c) reform of the examination system in the direction of substituting for the present examination by subjects either a certificate based on attendance and general proficiency or a final examination on leaving; (d) in scientific subjects, a good deal more practical work; and in all branches of study the abolition of the textbook, the committing of which to memory is now the sole demand made on the candidate for examination.

A professor at one of the universities has summed up to me the present state of these centres of learning in the following words: