Walter A. Montgomery

“ One of the most interesting aspects of the school situation in Central America and Panama is the important position occupied by commercial and industrial education in the courses of study of many institutions. Public men and teachers in Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama have taken into account the need of offering to the new generation an education which shall be completely practical, with the purpose of turning the thoughts and energies of all the youth to fruitful service of their country. ”

“ The executive, knowing the great value of the teaching profession in the general concert of human activities, seeks every means to establish and dignify the career of teacher, making it a real profession surrounded by all the honors and all the public considerations which it can legitimately claim. It is therefore sought in the reform to fix proper conditions for different categories of teachers, as well as a scale of salaries, and proportional and periodic increase, thus guaranteeing the stability of the profession and assuring it an honorable and tranquil retirement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unlike Argentina and Brazil, primary public education has always been left in the hands of the central national government, the individual Province having control of financial outlay and the construction of school buildings, and this only when requirements of the national law are fulfilled. Uniform programs of study and schedules of hours are enforced throughout the nation. But conditions of scarcity of materials and labor render it impossible to keep many of the old buildings in repair. ”

“ The nation has grown steadily to recognize the proper balance to be observed between the claims of the schools of the capital and those of the rural districts. It has come to see that a healthy national life was possible only with organic changes in the schools of the outlying departments, and that these of Montevideo could without danger be left at their present status until the education of the people from whom the great city was steadily recruited should be attended to. ”

“ The primary aim of secondary education should be to spread education among the towns and cities in such a way that in all the country there shall be trained, educated citizens fitted to play their part in the future civilization of the country. Preparatory instruction has therefore been kept under the control of the universities, which will fix their courses of study, their duration, and their extension both general and special. ”

“ Enrollment in all schools has been made absolutely free, a logical consequence of compulsory education, which has as yet never been effective, but which is an indispensible condition to placing all upon the same plane of equality, a thing inherent in the principles of republican institutions. ”

“ An interesting phase of social conscience is shown in the generous offer of the women pupils of the third and fourth years of the normal school at Santa Fe to instruct illiterates afternoons and nights in reading, writing, the elements of arithmetic, national language and history, and practical personal and school hygiene. This offer has been highly commended both by Argentine and foreign educators as a step toward solving the problem of illiteracy, worthy of imitation nationally and locally. ”

“ That the chief cause of the poor attendance upon the vocational instruction for boys is the prevalent idea that the vocational school is an index of lower social standing, enrolling only those boys that can not obtain any other means of education. Thus the vocational school is sharply differentiated socially from other types of schools. It suffers from being regarded as preeminently the school to train workmen. ”

“ The greatest educational need of the colony is the establishment of technical primary schools for the instruction of boys and girls from 11 to 15 years. It is projected to establish two such schools in Georgetown in which there shall be taught, in addition to manual arts and other craft, drawing in all its branches, arithmetic and geography as related to commerce, the rudiments of experimental science, shorthand, and business correspondence. Criticism has been directed against the omission of instruction in agriculture, which is admitted to be the most necessary branch in the colony. ”

“ When the very heterogeneous character of the population of Argentina, due to the steady stream of immigration, is taken into account, the necessity of such a central body, vested with powers of initiation and execution in primary education, is apparent. By a wise division of powers in the original organic law, the control of secondary education was left in the hands of the Provinces, with subsidies granted by the National Government, as was the right to prescribe subjects essential to nationalistic and patriotic training. ”

“ It is especially urgent to carry its action to all the sections of the country not yet reached by the system in order to arrive at the real aims of a truly national education. Chief among these is to eradicate illiteracy, the most patriotic task in which we can engage and the one upon whose successful execution alone can any real national progress and enlightenment rest. ”

“ Instruction will be imparted in accordance with the necessities of the immediate field of each school, with special regard to natural production, commerce, industries, and aptitudes of the population, all with the purpose of adjusting anew the activities of the Argentine youth, which has hitherto been by preference inclined toward the more speculative studies rather than those of practical and of immediate application. It is left to the authorities of technical education to prepare plans and courses of study adapted to each class of institutions. ”

“ The intimate relation of the rural schools with the problems of home life requires the new rural school to be taught by women, and therefore the training of young women as teachers in such schools should be at once initiated and continued as the basis of their success. Concrete illustration is found in the successful intensive training of 24 young women in a course of six weeks at the normal institute at Montevideo in the summer of 1917. ”

“ In those of the first class the pupils study the ordinary subjects prescribed by the department of public instruction and devote only several hours weekly to arts and crafts. This class in its turn includes two groups of institutions. To be admitted to those of the first group the pupils must know how to read and write and apply the elementary rules of arithmetic. During the entire school year instruction is given in Spanish, geography, history, and arithmetic. The practical schools for girls and boys are generally of this kind, being especially numerous in Guatemala and Honduras. ”

“ That the vocational school must be established as a direct continuation of the primary school, ministering to the innate tendency in the child to realize things with his own hands; that thus the traditional and depressing prejudice mentioned would be counteracted, as time would not be given for it to intervene in the child’s mind. The workshop, thus articulated with general training, would come to be the fulfillment of an aspiration, inculcating as well the love of work and respect for it. ”

“ The rapid increase of the commerce of Central America, the improvement [Pg 4] in the means of intercommunication, the travels of its people abroad, the influence of foreign elements in its territory, and the various interests thus awakened have aroused in the interior of the Republics composing it the belief that national greatness in modern times must rest upon economic and industrial foundations. The influx of foreign capital and the consequent establishment of powerful industrial enterprises have likewise emphasized the necessity of training men for work in such enterprises. ”

“ The task of the commission being to deal with the branches of vocational training best adapted to give the pupil a broad outlook upon general industrial activities, the commission judged it best to confine its recommendations to manual work of construction in wood, metal, and plastic material. In methods as well as content of instruction it is emphasized that such work must proceed along the lines of teaching by example. In such teaching much that is old and fundamental must be stressed by way of throwing light upon the elements of the training that are common to all branches of manual arts. ”

“ This society, composed of parents and others interested in primary education, has for its objects the close linking of home and school, the fight against illiteracy, the promotion of good feeling and companionship between natives and immigrants, the celebration of national festivals, the securing of better primary enrollment and attendance especially by the poorer children, with the inculcation of their self-respect, and cooperation with the regional and national authorities in the safeguarding of public health. ”

“ The last few years have seen wide extension of the demand for rural normal schools, and many critics of the existent schools have urged that they follow those of the State of Wisconsin as a model. The essential solidarity of educational aims of the South American republics is shown by the fact that Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia during the same period drew their inspiration from the same North American source. ”

“ Argentine educational thinkers asserted that secondary education prepared neither for practical life nor for entrance to the technical schools and the universities, inasmuch as it had remained unchanged for more than a generation, in the face of the social, economic, scientific, and ethnical changes through which the country had passed. ”

“ The teaching of arts and crafts, as well as that of commerce and agriculture, was formerly not begun, as in the United States, upon the student’s entering the secondary school, though there has for some time been a movement to make such instruction a part of the work of the advanced classes in the primary schools, to be continued in the liceo and the normal schools. ”

“ This universal interest in practical lines of education is a striking indication of the influences and tendencies now at work in Central America. In the different countries included under this designation there are schools and academies, workshops and laboratories, intended for the practical education of the student body. When it is remembered that the introduction of practical and industrial education in the school régime of Central America is a matter of the past few years, the progress realized is regarded as highly satisfactory. ”

“ The subjects to be introduced in logical sequence and to be taught in accordance with the development of the pupil and to consist [Pg 44] of reading, language work, writing, arithmetic, elements of applied geometry, singing, drawing, moral instruction, elements of anatomy, physiology, hygiene, civic instruction, geography, and history (national and universal) ; talks and lessons on objects of daily life, manual arts, domestic economy, and household arts; elements of political economy, sociology, psychology, duties of parents, accounting, and industrial training. ”