The close connection of the interests of the colegio nacionale with the university is brought out in the report of the rector of the National University of Buenos Aires for 1916. It is of significance as striking out new lines in what had always been a conservative division, and carried weight in the fluid state of public opinion on education which prevailed just at that time.
Taking up the instructional aspect of secondary education, and the claims put forward by zealous partisans of the opposing views that the colegios should prepare either for higher studies or for practical life, but not for both, he urged legal provisions for both forms of training to supply the demand felt in all modern states for men of thought as well as efficiency in action. In the light of this demand all wrangling as to programs of study could only be to the damage of the State. Since the Argentine colegios half a century ago were modeled after the French lycées, with their emphasis upon the cultural studies, the world had moved far, economically and socially, and sane modifications in secondary education now clamored for recognition.
On the side of administration the peculiar question for Argentina, the land of great distances and many climates and productions, was whether the best organization for secondary instruction was the concentration of power in the hands of a council or of the minister of public instruction, or more or less complete autonomy to be granted to the individual institution. In either case the fixed principle was to be accepted that the universities were directly concerned in the discipline and studies of the students they were to receive, and that they should therefore have the right of intervening in matters of organization and studies of the colegios.
A just decentralization of the colegios could be easily realized and would bring such beneficial results as: (1) More direct and immediate action of the authorities; (2) closer articulation of the colegios with the universities in the matter of studies for preparation for the latter; (3) formation of intellectual groups that would be encouraged to take root permanently in the Provinces, thus avoiding the wholesale migration of the directing classes to the capital; (4) ease of reform, as contrasted with the present system, wherein every change in the program of studies was a disturbance whose utility was not always certain; (5) the best selection, so far as possible, of the personal directive staff of the colegios, as the men in higher education would be familiar with the problems of secondary instruction; (6) economy of administrative expense; (7) the possibility of transforming certain of the colegios into schools of arts, trades, and industries in which general instruction, continuing the primary, might be combined with the special and technical preparation so much needed for the material well-being of the several regions of the Republic.
In the projected law of public instruction, introduced in August, 1918, it is provided that all matters relating to secondary education shall be under the authority of the national universities, with full power to regulate content of courses, curricula, etc. This is manifestly a step suggested by the traditional system of Spain, in which the standard secondary schools (institutos) are arranged according to university districts and are governed by university rector and council. Its wisdom and advisability for a country of the Western Hemisphere have been variously considered.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
By the projected law of August, 1918, a National Board of Technical Education is to be established to ascertain the progress of this branch of education in other countries, to adapt whatever may be possible to the conditions and needs of Argentina, to foster technical instruction in the national schools, and to keep in touch with its progress throughout the world.
NORMAL-SCHOOL TRAINING.
The sequence of studies prescribed for pupils of the normal school according to the decree of March, 1916, is also worthy of notice. Immediately following, and based upon the intermediate schools which, as described above, were discarded after trial, the normal school required four years for the teachers’ diploma, after which the student might proceed to higher studies for the degree of teacher of modern languages in two years or that of teacher of languages in normal school in three years, or that of teacher of philosophy in any institution in six years. A commendable gain of one year in each of these was effected, and this feature is to be embodied in the new provisions now under consideration. In addition, the new project of educational law outlines a teacher’s course of four years, clearly differentiating between the general or cultural and the pedagogical or professional courses. The former are assigned to the first three years as required; the latter are reserved for the last year, constituting an intensive curriculum of pedagogical history and methods and practice teaching in the required annexed practice school. The completion (1918) of the Normal School Sarmiento in Buenos Aires, named in honor of the founder of popular education in South America, is to be noted. This school, capable of accommodating 1,000 pupils and equipped with the most modern apparatus, is worthy of comparison with the finest schools in the other countries educationally most advanced.