Some phases of educational progress in Latin AmericaMontgomery, Walter A. (Walter Alexander)
History
Some phases of educational progress in Latin America
Montgomery, Walter A. (Walter Alexander)
Education -- Latin America
The issues aroused by the consideration of the private schools
continued to grow more acute and culminated in the introduction of a
bill in the Congress in March, 1918, forbidding the opening of private
schools of any grade without the written permission of the inspectoral
department of private instruction or the departmental inspectors of
primary instruction; and requiring all teachers in private schools to
hold a State teacher’s diploma in accordance with the provisions of the
law of public instruction, and debarring the clergy from teaching in
any such private schools. The bill naturally became a storm center and
is as yet unenacted into law.
RURAL SCHOOLS.
Until the breaking out of the World War, and the consequent upsetting
of traditions in all South American countries whose outlet is on the
Atlantic Ocean, educational thought in Uruguay concerned itself largely
with the capital city. In this respect, as in that of population (one
out of three people in Uruguay lives in Montevideo), the centralizing
tendency of South American countries is well illustrated. But a vital
change began to show itself from 1914 to 1916, and in the latter
year it acquired extraordinary impetus from the support of national
leaders and of the press. 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. It is in the light of this radical change in the national
attitude that the educational history of Uruguay for the last biennium
should be read.
This epoch in educational progress has been further marked by the
recognition of the need of financial support for rural education, and
the further need of differentiating the subjects of instruction proper
for rural children from those adapted to the city. In getting this
principle clearly before the public mind, the educational authorities
of Uruguay have played a part excelled in few countries for skill and
devotion to the national interests. Mention should be made of the able
contributions of Señor A. J. Pérez, National Inspector of Primary
Education, especially of his study entitled “De la cultura necessaria
en la democracia” (Anales, 1918), which applies to modern conditions De
Tocqueville’s main lines of thought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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