Secondary The standard period of the regular secondary schools (Liceos) is six years, but in some countries it is less. These schools are'usually good of their type even in countries where primary education has been neglected. Their clientele is largely from the upper classes. Church and private schools of this grade are numerous, but the state retains (as in France) the right of examination and power to grant the degree (bachelor of humanities) at the end of the course. The curriculum is, as a rule, uniform and comprises the Spanish language and litera ture, general and national history, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology (usually without individual laboratory practice), French, Eng lish, elementary philosophy and economics. Latin is seldom included. The uniform curric ulum in the secondary schools is due to their close administrative relation with the univer sities. They are still regarded as mere pre paratory schools. When commercial and indus trial education was introduced, it seemed more politic to divorce it wholly from the traditional secondary schools, as had been done with the primary normal training. Hence almost every where commercial and industrial schools are separate institutions although state supported. When they are combined with the regular high school, it is for economic, not pedagogical or administrative reasons. Notwithstanding the relative excellence of the regular high school, it suffers from the lack of trained and pro fessional teachers. Much of the instruction is given by university graduates who divide their time between a number of schools or who carry on a profession (law, medicine, pharmacy, jour nalism, etc.) at the same time. Their teaching is necessarily often a secondary consideration and their attendance irregular. They fre quently lack ability really to teach. The recita tion is apt to become a lecture as in the uni versity.
Commercial The commercial school in many Latin-American countries oc cupies a position of high favor, receives liberal state support and opens an avenue to young people who could not hope to profit materially by the regular high school course. It is usu ally a combination of upper primary and junior high school. The curriculum comprises the traditional subjects of the fourth, fifth and sixth grades of the elementary school with a commercial orientation of arithmetic, geography and composition, while introducing the specific commercial branches, typewriting, stenography and accounting. Much stress is laid upon modern foreign languages, especially English and French. These schools often receive im portant gifts and even regular subsidies from public-spirited citizens and commercial organ izations. Evening as well as day classes are the rule in these institutions, and some have evening classes only. Unfortunately relatively few pupils complete the entire curriculum. They leave the school after acquiring the mere rudiments of a commercial education to accept modest employment in business.
Higher and Professional Education.— The universities are professional schools almost exclusively. A very few' have faculties of letters and pure science. The standard uni versity contains faculties of law, medicine, engi neering, commerce and agriculture; but many have only two or three faculties. Medical de partments include schools of pharmacy, den tistry and midwifery. The average course of study in law covers six years; in medicine, six; in engineering and agriculture, four; in commerce, four; in pharmacy and dentistry, three.
The enrolment in Latin-American univer sities is surprisingly large. Buenos Aires has approximately 6,000 (exclusive of the attached preparatory high school) ; Santiago 2,000, Lima 1,100, Montevideo 900 exclusive of the agri cultural college, a separate institution, and others in proportion to population and degree of general culture. The explanation is found in the fact that although the institutions are merely groups of professional schools, they also fill the place occupied by the liberal arts college in the United States, and many students attend with no expectation of following the profession they are studying. They take a uni
versity course for general culture or for the of the doctor's degree which is conferred upon graduation. Not nearly half the gradu ates in law and not more than half in medicine practise the profession. The law course espe cially is regarded as a liberal education, being less technical than in an American law school and including at least the rudiments of all the social sciences, psychology, economics, sociology, constitutional history, as well as the philosophy and history of law, and international law. It is in fact a study of jurisprudence in the wide sense, and leads to the degree of doctor of jurisprudence. The medical college with its adjunct departments usually has the largest en rolment. The curriculum is long and full. Not as much stress is laid upon chemistry and the other basic sciences of medicine as there should be, but the clinical instruction and practice is excellent. Agriculture, the last of the faculties to be introduced, is much en couraged by the governments and receives generous support. The enrolment, however, is limited. All the states have one or more schools of agriculture either as part of a uni versity or existing as a separate institution.
Organization of Practi cally all institutions of higher and professional instruction in Latin America are state sup ported and state controlled. In a few centres there are church colleges of law, engineering, etc., but never of medicine. These colleges do not confer the degree of the profession. That privilege is reserved for the state uni versity. Most state universities are autono mous; i.e., they are governed directly by the faculty, which is a self-perpetuating corpora tion. However, the election to a vacant chair must be confirmed by the President of the re public through the Minister of Public Instruc tion. The common practice is for the faculty to nominate three candidates for a vacancy of whom the minister selects one. The state ex ercises in this way a control over the personnel, but usually the faculty indicates its choice of the candidates, and the minister rarely rejects the nomination. The universities have thus acquired almost everywhere complete independ ence. Their revenue, of course, depends largely on the will of the national (or provincial) legislature. University professors, like those of the secondary schools in Latin America, are rarely teachers by profession. The law is taught by practicing lawyers andjudges in office; medicine, by practicing physicians. This custom has the same disadvantages though not so marked as in the Liceos. A professor usu ally teaches but one course which consists of three lectures or recitations per week. If a course runs through two years, one man will teach the first year, another the second. This custom accounts for the large number of pro fessors in an institution in proportion to the students, the ratio being often in the smaller universities as high as one to five. The differ ent colleges of a university are usually scat tered, the college of law being located in one part of the city, the college of medicine in another, etc. Each has its own library and laboratories. This necessitates a duplication of material and often a duplication of instruction since matriculation in the university is directly from the high school, and certain basic subjects are taught in two or more colleges. Especially is this true of the basic sciences of medicine, engineering and agriculture. The universities are very generally open to both sexes, and women are enrolled in considerable numbers in the colleges of medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, education and architecture.