Some phases of educational progress in Latin America

by Walter A. Montgomery

Training of rural teachers.—The movement to improve the conditions of rural life which has been mentioned before began in earnest in 1914. In that year a report based upon an intensive study of the social and economic needs of the rural districts was presented to the general direction of primary instruction by a committee of teachers especially appointed for that purpose. Though no official action was taken at the time, the ventilation of the subject was very opportune and aroused public interest in a field so vital to the welfare of the nation. In every phase of rural education, and especially in the training of the teachers required, practical reforms were recognized as urgently necessary. From the strictly pedagogical point of view, the projects for teacher training as laid down in that report were of supreme interest, as constituting the basis upon which all subsequent suggestions have rested. They called for the establishment of a normal school exclusively for women rural teachers, which was preferably to be located either within the capital city or within easy access of it. This school was to work along the three main lines of agriculture, horticulture, and domestic science. For admission there was to be required, in addition to the usual certificates of mental, moral, and physical fitness, the certificate of completion of at least the third year of the program of the rural schools.

The courses were to cover at least two years, preferably three, with provision for four-year courses for pupils aspiring to the post of rural inspectors, an aspiration which was encouraged in the report. Only two or three scholarships were to be offered in each department, and the number of pupils was to be restricted to 50 for the first year. No purely theoretical instruction whatsoever was to be allowed. Increasingly specialized work in the practice school annexed was to be required of every pupil each year. For the last two years the work of practice teaching was to be so arranged as to alternate by semesters with the classroom work assigned. The latter, toward the end of each semester, was to review all the work from the beginning.

The projected institute was to be provided with all grounds, buildings, and equipment necessary for the teaching of every phase of rural life, including the care of fowls and cattle, with library and laboratories, with a modern gymnasium, with a hall for the teaching of the fine arts, and, most important of all, with a mixed practice school under the direction of the authorities of the institute, consisting of at least three grades and preferably four.

Summer courses for teachers, both men and women, were to be offered, emphasizing practical work in all courses related to rural life. Traveling schools of agriculture were outlined to appeal especially to youths of years beyond the rural school age and already engaged in farming, each class to have not less than 8 pupils and not more than 15, and to continue for periods ranging from one week to two months according to the demand in each locality. These traveling schools were to be organized for the same unit of territory as the rural schools already in existence. Each course was to be arranged in cycles as follows: (1) Three years’ course in dairying; (2) four years’ course in domestic science; (3) three years’ course for rural teachers, men and women. Suitable certificates were to be awarded students satisfactorily completing these courses.

As regards the courses in rural schools, the committee found that the advantages accruing did not justify instructing pupils below 8 years of age in formal agriculture, satisfactory progress being made if the pupil was awakened to a love of nature and an interest in the life of the farm. Pupils above 8 were to be instructed in agricultural courses progressively adapted to their maturity and to the peculiar conditions of locality, soil, and climate.

As regards courses in domestic science, though the subject does not permit of a sharp age line of cleavage, yet the youngest girls might most profitably be given the elements, while the older girls might, in the discretion of trained teachers, take up the formal and technical study of food values in connection with elementary chemistry, physiology, and biology.

Anticipating the establishment of the normal schools for the exclusive training of teachers for the projected rural schools, the executive in November, 1917, sent to the Congress, along with the accompanying message, the project of a law for establishing two normal schools of agriculture in the Departments of Colonia and San Jose. These schools were intended to minister to the special need of these outlying departments. Their courses were to be intensive in character, adapted especially to the training of teachers for these localities, and to cover a year. Indeed, the bill specifically mentioned their purposes as intimately related with the forthcoming rural schools. The bill at once became a law, and the schools were to begin operation in March, 1918.

HIGHER EDUCATION.

In the field of university education no changes, administrative or instructional, are recorded for the past biennium; but there has been a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the administrative government of the University of Montevideo. In September, 1918, the executive sent to the Congress, along with an accompanying message, the project of a law clearly defining the constitution of the directive councils of the several faculties of the University of Montevideo as established by the laws of 1908 and 1915. Contention had arisen as to the right of electing representatives to each of these councils. By the new law each such council was to have 10 members and a dean. In the faculty of law four of these were to be elected by the attorneys who were also professors; four attorneys to be selected by those neither professors nor substitutes; one minor attorney by those neither professors nor substitutes; one student delegate by the students themselves.

In the faculty of medicine four members were to be elected by the professors, substitutes, and chiefs of clinics and laboratories; three members to be elected by the physicians not embraced in the above categories; one member to be elected by the pharmacists; and one by the dentists not included in the categories above; one member to be elected by the students of medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry.