4. To give the orders of admission into the schools in writing with expression as to whether the education is to be free or paid.
5. To propose, through the medium of the provincial supervisor, whatever is thought to be advisable for the encouragement or improvement of primary instruction.
6. To exercise the direction which is expressed in article 4, in regard to the teaching of the Christian doctrine and ethics.
On the fulfilment of these sovereign requirements depends the development and conservation of the improvements which are being introduced into the department. Without a supervision, exercised with assiduity and intelligence, one cannot imagine, and never will there exist without doubt, good schools or intelligent teachers. The happy fact of her Majesty entrusting that supervision to the reverend and learned parish priests, assures its good outcome and shows well the foresight and practical spirit which shine forth throughout the regulations.
So deep is this conviction in me, that I do not hesitate to direct myself under this date to their Excellencies, the most illustrious prelates and the reverend father provincials of the religious orders, petitioning them in harmony with the request; and charge that her Majesty directs to them in article 19 of the organic royal decree of December 20, 1863, that they incite the zeal of the parish priests for the exact observance of their duties in what relates to the supervision of instruction. Besides this you, as chief and supervisor of that province, will please charge upon them the study of chapter ii, título vi, of the regulations dictated for the Peninsula, July 20, 1859, as a text or legal precedent; and as doctrine the wise observations which the author of the Diccionario de educación y métodos de enseñanza [i.e., Dictionary of education, and methods of teaching] a very respectable authority in pedagogy, to whom the Peninsula owes in great measure the progress of its primary instruction. “Supervision,” it says, “is one of the most efficacious means for the improvement of schools, and the acceleration of its onward progress toward perfection, but only when it is done with intelligence, faith, and perseverance, and at the same time, benevolent severity. The more serious are its consequences, the more difficult is the mission of the supervisor, and the more rare the qualities with which he ought to be adorned.
“It is necessary for him who shall exercise this duty to know how to examine things in their most minute details. He must see them at the same time in their make-up in order to judge of the harmony or unity existing between the means and the ends to which they are directed. Obliged to see and observe by himself whatever passes in the schools, he must for that reason descend to the level of the least intelligent teachers, and of the most dull and stupid scholars.
“The self-love of some, the ignorance of others, and the indifference and coldness of the majority of persons with whom he will have to do, are obstacles which can only be destroyed by a zeal, a strength of indefatigable will, and a constancy which, instead of becoming weak, increases its power in proportion to the resistance which is offered to it.
“The supervisor must have studied the schools and the legislation of this department very carefully, and further he must have a certain tact and delicacy in his intercourse with men, which can only be acquired by experience, and for lack of experience, by serious and profound thought. Without that, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish all the good that the supervision may produce, and attract all the party of the commissions and of the intelligent and influential persons, whom it is of great importance to interest in favor of and for the profit of education.”[44]
So notable a synthesis of the honorable task charged upon the supervisors, and of the rules of deportment which must be presented, indicates at once the evolution which the requirements contained in article 32 of the regulations of December 20, 1863, will have to receive in practice. Nevertheless, this superior government will explain them to you, point by point, so that you may all be able to penetrate more and more into the delicate functions which you are going to perform.