3. EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA. General and Historical.— Education in Latin America is dominated by two forces. One is historical and concerns higher and pro fessional studies. The Spanish colonists estab lished universities soon after their occupation of the country. Santo Domingo, 1538; Lima, 1551; Mexico, 1553; Bogota, 15'72; Cordoba in Argentina, 1613; Chuquisaca (now Sucre) in Bolivia, 1623. Six others were founded by the end of the colonial period. They had charters from the king of Spain and from the Pope, and enjoyed the monopoly of granting degrees. Preparation was obtained only in church schools and by private tutoring. The univer sities themselves were conducted by the re ligious orders. They were organized and con ducted solely in the interest of the colonial aristocracy. To-day they are national and theo retically open to all classes with small tuition fees and very generally include engineering schools. However, their traditional character istics persist. They overemphasize theory, culture, dialectics, and make their appeal to the leisure class. They exercise little or no di rect influence on elementary instruction. On the other hand, they dominate the secondary schools which too often are but feeders to the universities, imitating their methods, reflecting their traditional spirit, and are likewise limited in patronage almost exclusively to the wealthy classes.
The other force in Latin-American educa tion, the movement for elementary education, is recent and comes from abroad. Before 1860 no state had any well-defined system of elementary instruction. During the presidency of Sarmiento (1868-74) Argentina inaugurated a determined movement for universal elemen tary instruction. Sarmiento was influenced by the example of the United States. About the same time Chile undertook seriously the national organization of elementary schools. France has been rightly called the intellectual mother of Latin America, and when the French republic from 1870 on strove to banish illiter acy from France, its influence was not without great effect in Spanish America. All the states soon put upon their statute books laws for compulsory primary education. The reform has not progressed uniformly. Argentina, Chile apd Uruguay in South America and Costa Rica in Central America have made the greatest progress. Whereas in these states 50
years ago illiteracy was perhaps more than 90 per cent, it is now less than 50 and rapidly de creasing. In some of the other states it is still 90 per cent. Cuba has made commendable progress in elementary education since its inde pendence. The least progress has been made in those countries where the Indian and Mestizo population is the largest, or where strong clerical influence hampers the national and secular school organization. In such coun tries school statistics are often misleading. Many schools exist only on paper, in others the terms are short, average attendance is low and the law of compulsory attendance is not enforced.
Primary standard period of the elementary school is six years, but even in a country like Argentina the full length is observed only in cities and larger towns. The villages and countryside maintain curricula of but two, three or sometimes four years. The school year approximates nine months.. The subjects of instruction are reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, geography and national his tory. As far as the mere ability to read is concerned, the short period of elementary schooling which obtains in so many localities is in part compensated for by the phonetic spelling of Spanish, and as concerns simple cal culation by the use of the metric system. Gen uine intellectual development, however, suffers severely from the short term of schooling for the average child. Elementary teachers are as a rule underpaid, and are seldom f romthe upper classes. The sharp class 'distinctions which so generally prevail in Latin America, especially in countries with a large mestizo pop ulation, are nowhere more noticeable than in the schools. Except in Argentina, and in a lesser degree in Uruguay and Costa Rica, chil dren of the upper classes of society seldom at tend the elementary public schools. They re ceive their primary education either through private tutoring or in private select schools, or in primary grades attached to the state sec ondary schools. This practice tends to foster and accentuate class distinction and makes of the public elementary instruction purely folk schools— a condition of affairs much to be re gretted in a democracy.