EDUCATION IN CHILE.
The last two years have seen in Chile a distinct gathering up of the threads of educational purpose. The feeling of dissatisfaction with the primary school system, for many years inarticulate, has found a voice, and all signs point to Chile’s finally securing a modernized system of public instruction. The head and front of the indictment drawn by national students of education has been the complete Germanization of the system through the employment of a considerable number of German educational experts during the decadefrom 1904 to 1914. The climax came in the revelations of the propagandist activities of the German educators brought out at the meeting of the National Educational Association in 1917.
Financial support of public instruction in Chile has never been stinted, so far as its existent state was concerned. As merely one item may be adduced the fact that in March, 1916, the Congress authorized the President to devote to public instruction for specific aims such as the building and remodeling of schoolhouses, $4,000,000 annually for 10 years, through the medium of the Central Council of Education, in which was vested the discretion as to methods and objects of the expenditure. In 1918 the budget was voted by the Congress of $35,450,000 for public instruction, as against that of $32,373,404 for 1917. So that the authorities of the Government must justly be credited with a practical interest in education which encourages teachers and other active workers in their efforts toward greater efficiency.
In 1917 there had been increased discussion of matters educational; and in June of that year President Sanfuentes in his message showed that the time had come to impress on the national system of public instruction a more practical stamp, making it adequate to the needs of everyday life and the special conditions of the country. Along with this he urged the specialization of secondary education as, just then, the urgent and opportune point of attack for the development of Chile’s scientific and industrial possibilities.
This message was followed by action of the Congress which clearly showed the traditional line of cleavage long prevailing in Chile’s social and political system. The demand for some form of modernized public instruction could no longer be repressed; and a conservative deputy introduced the project of a law to insert in the constitution a provision for compulsory primary schooling and compulsory religious instruction, the only modification of the latter being the concession to the parent to choose the forms and means of such instruction. The radical party was not slow in countering with a project adopting the feature of compulsory attendance but decentralizing and completely secularizing the existing system. The latter proposal, now made for the first time in the history of Chilean legislation, was especially bold, as Chile has never done away with the essentially religious tone of her education. She retains representatives of the State church on her National Council of Education, freely recognizes parochial primary schools, and has her secondary schools largely managed by religious instructors and under distinctively religious auspices.
The compromise bill formulated by a specially appointed commission of the Congress sought to satisfy both extremes. It vested supremeadministrative authority in educational matters in a council of 18, sitting in Santiago, presided over by the Minister of Justice and Instruction; but it allowed 11 of the members to be named by the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, and the President of the Republic. This feature was severely criticized by the liberals and by the National Educational Association as still keeping educational authority in the hands of politicians, not intrusting it to men really interested in education, and making it possible to block all educational progress whenever desired.
The bill made four years’ attendance in primary schools, private or public, compulsory for all children between 7 and 13, and required all reaching the latter age without completing the prescribed course to continue until 15. Poverty could not be pleaded in excuse, as grants by the State were specified and graduated in amounts according to need. Exemption from religious instruction was allowed upon written application of the parent or upon certification of the local junta, another feature opposed by the National Educational Association on the ground that the junta’s powers could never be so amplified legally. Programs of study and schedules should be under the authority of the inspector general of primary instruction. Primary instruction was to be imparted to complete illiterates in schools called supplementary, managed independently of existing primary schools, and to partial illiterates in schools called complementary, conducted in conjunction with existent primary schools.
The bill, as outlined above, encountered opposition from many sources, and still remains unenacted. Pending its passage, the Minister of Public Instruction, by virtue of the power vested in him, issued in 1918 a decree organizing primary education in three grades of two years each, continued by one grade of vocational education of from one to three years. Attendance is not specifically compulsory, though the local junta has power so to declare it in the schools of its jurisdiction. The requirements as to qualifications of a primary teacher are made more rigorous; he must be a citizen of Chile, of good character, not less than 18 nor more than 40 years of age at the time of appointment, and a graduate of a Government normal school, or holding a degree of a Chilean or recognized foreign institution.
The problem of illiteracy in Chile is a serious one, the estimated figures for 1917 showing 959,061 illiterates out of a total population of 3,249,279. Since the year 1900 the struggle against it has grown in vigor. The National Educational Association has shown especial efficiency, and has worked through committees having the following phases in charge: Compulsory school attendance, the legal requirements,condition of the schools and the teaching force, school revenues, school buildings and sanitation, and special education.
This steady pressure prepared public sentiment for the leadership of the most influential agency ever invoked in the fight against illiteracy, viz. the conferences organized by the powerful newspaper El Mercurio. Under its auspices these conferences were held in a 3-days’ series in July, 1917, and were attended and participated in by men and women identified with every phase of national education. The following topics were the salient ones of those discussed:
1. Comparative study of illiteracy statistics in various countries.2. Means of combating illiteracy in leading nations.3. Practicable means of action in Chile.4. Means of contribution, and proportion in which the State, the municipal authorities, and the Provinces may contribute to the budget necessary.5. Cooperation of private initiative.6. Means of making school attendance compulsory.7. Regulation of child labor.8. Reforms necessary in actual plans of study and in classification of schools.9. Necessity and practical means of giving the schools a more Nationalistic character.10. Minimum of knowledge to be required by compulsory attendance law.11. Place of night schools, Sunday schools, and traveling schools, in the struggle against illiteracy.
1. Comparative study of illiteracy statistics in various countries.
2. Means of combating illiteracy in leading nations.
3. Practicable means of action in Chile.
4. Means of contribution, and proportion in which the State, the municipal authorities, and the Provinces may contribute to the budget necessary.
5. Cooperation of private initiative.
6. Means of making school attendance compulsory.
7. Regulation of child labor.
8. Reforms necessary in actual plans of study and in classification of schools.
9. Necessity and practical means of giving the schools a more Nationalistic character.
10. Minimum of knowledge to be required by compulsory attendance law.
11. Place of night schools, Sunday schools, and traveling schools, in the struggle against illiteracy.
While no action of a legal character resulted from these conferences, yet the impetus given to the cause was powerful, and had weight in bringing about the decree and the projected law already outlined. Such a move, combining at once social and economic as well as educational characteristics, seeking to bring public opinion to bear on the solution of a problem underlying the life of a nation, and launched by a newspaper, is unique in the history of education.
The Territory of Magellanes has shown itself remarkably efficient in handling the problem of illiteracy. It is the southernmost area of the country, and little favored by nature, being a long strip of barren and rocky coast, with a climate singularly bleak and uninviting. Its industries are based exclusively upon its mineral resources; and its population, though intelligent, is very sparse. By the census of 1917, its percentage of illiteracy was 20; according to the estimate of the author of a study of the Territory, published in the Anales de la Universidad, April, 1918, this has been reduced to 7 per cent. Credit is largely due the Society of Popular Instruction, a private organization, established in 1911, which offers freeinstruction to pupils of all ages. In spite of the prevailing inclemency of the climate, the sessions of its day and night schools are excellently attended. The system is centralized in Punta Arenas.
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 tendency long criticized by the Association of Teachers, to cram school buildings into the half dozen larger centers, seems in a fair way to be checked.[1]
[1]Criticism has been freely expressed in the public press of the use of a disproportionately large part of the primary school fund voted by the Congress for the use of the executive.
[1]Criticism has been freely expressed in the public press of the use of a disproportionately large part of the primary school fund voted by the Congress for the use of the executive.
This new order of things is most plainly seen in the attention paid to rural schools, which have predominated in the number built since 1916. The Government has instructed the committee on public works and the department of primary instruction to develop a plan of building uniform types of rural school. The expenses are to be borne out of the fund just mentioned. Three types are contemplated, with a capacity of 80, 160, and 400 pupils respectively, solidly constructed, conforming strictly to all modern demands of sanitation, lighting, and heating. In many places the North American principle of consolidation of schools has been applied, to the distinct improvement of attendance and instruction, 200 small and struggling schools having been abolished and 100 annexed to others more centrally situated. With these gains, however, the crying need in Chile is acknowledged to be more schools. It is estimated that 10,000 elementary schools are yet needed for her approximately 750,000 children, of whom slightly less than 400,000 are in the schools of this grade, and 50,000 in private parochial schools. All educational thinkers are agreed that the situation calls for legal compulsory attendance on primary instruction, rigidly enforced.
Secondary education in Chile is organized in three grades: (1) National high schools; (2) liceos of the second class, and (3) complete liceos of the first class.
(1) The high schools are a development of the last few years, and are situated only in the larger centers. They number 30 for boysand 12 for girls, enrolling less than 12,000 pupils, and are generally little more than higher elementary schools. They are almost exclusively technical, and do not prepare the pupil for advanced study.
(2) The liceos of the second class (sometimes called colegios), of which about 100 exist in the Provinces and Territories, offer courses covering three years in the elementary subjects of instruction common to scientific and literary groups.
(3) The liceos of the first class, numbering 40 for boys and 31 for girls, and offering the full course of six years, are representative of the best in secondary education in Latin-America. Those for boys, following the tradition of the Spanish system for corresponding schools, are administered by the University of Chile; those for girls, by the Minister of Public Instruction and the National Council. The practical and scientific wave which swept over this division of education in 1915 caused the reinforcement of physical and chemical teaching. Spanish, history and geography, religion (optional), French, mathematics, natural sciences, gymnastics and singing, and manual training run through all six years of the course; English (or German or Italian), philosophy, civics, penmanship and drawing, mechanical drawing (optional), extend through varying numbers of years. Students of secondary education are struck with the excessive number of hours required weekly, the minimum being 29 for the first year and the maximum 33 for each of the last three years.
The essential purpose of the liceo of the first class is to prepare for the university, or for the professions; and national scholarships are granted, including maintenance at the hostels, or annexed boarding halls which were established five years ago.
The system of secondary education has long been criticized by Chilean educational thinkers as being too largely mental and literary, and as paying little, if any, attention to the physical and moral. The attempt to organize sports and physical exercises in secondary education has met far less encouragement than in other South American countries.
By decree of May, 1917, classes for illiterate girls over 7 years old were annexed to liceos for girls, the ministry basing the number to be admitted upon the attendance of the year previous. This was stoutly opposed by the National Educational Association as being a confusion of classification, a violation of the continuity of the educational system, and an evasion of the palpable duty of the school authorities, which should press the Government to establish fitting and proper schools for such illiterate girls.
The Government has appointed a commission of prominent men for the study of reforms necessary and advisable for programs ofsecondary education for girls. As matters stand, the same programs of study are set for both boys and girls, a traditional arrangement the disadvantages of which are coming fully to be recognized.
Despite unfavorable and antiquated programs of studies, the Province of Nuble has made noteworthy progress in female secondary education. In Chillan, its capital, are conducted four liceos, three of which are for girls. Ambitious courses in the classics, social sciences, and rudimentary science are offered. One of them, the Instituto Pedagogico, founded in 1912, exercises far-reaching influence over the social, moral, and artistic conditions of the Province. The American Liceo, a private institution, conducted by teachers from the United States, devotes especial attention to the teaching of English, colloquial and literary, and also gives instruction generally along thoroughly modern high-school lines.
Chile’s system of training teachers is distinctively eclectic, borrowing, as it has done, from France, Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Before 1870 French influence predominated, the great Argentine educator, Sarmiento, himself a pupil of the school of Saint-Simon, having founded the first normal school in 1842 while in exile from the tyranny of the dictator Rosas. German influence became pronounced about 1880, when that nation began to supply men and women teachers in the normals and as instructors in all grades of education. Since 25 years ago the tide began to turn toward North American influence, especially of the type of education developed in the Northwestern States. The Chilean ideal is a judicious combination of (1) an institution for the training of teachers for public schools who shall have adequate culture, specialized training, manual skill, and theoretical and practical knowledge of modern subjects, and (2) an institution for training in social relations and habits, exercising steady influence on the social environment of the school by means of popular courses and conferences, and participation in popular movements.
The full course in the 16 training colleges for teachers covers five years, of which the first three are devoted to general education and the last two to professional training. The course for the fifth year is essentially professional, consisting of pedagogy (history, methodology, and practice teaching), 17 hours weekly; Spanish, 1 hour; English or French or German, 4 hours; civics and economics, 2 hours; hygiene, 2 hours; horticulture or metallography, 2 hours; drawing, 1 hour; manual arts, 2 hours; music, 1 hour; physical education, 3 hours. All expenses are defrayed, in return for which the pupil is pledged to teach for seven years in the national schools.
The actual method of instruction is along German lines. Object lessons, those in natural history and history and geography have all impressed recent foreign visitors as essentially Herbartian. Perhaps in no other country of the world, since the well-drilled German schools fell into chaos, is the influence of the normal schools upon the system and method of public instruction more powerful than in Chile. Indeed, this potent influence has overleaped the boundaries of Chile proper and affected every country of Latin America. A supreme example is the influence of the Instituto Pedagogico, the best known of Chilean normal schools, founded in 1909, with predominatingly German faculty, which has developed into a type of higher normal school with a colegio annexed, emphasizing practice teaching with subsequent criticism and courses of general pedagogy and methodology in every subject. Its certificates rank highest in the secondary and normal education of the capital city; students are attracted to it from the other Latin-American States, and return home to reorganize education there along its lines. Its boast is that it inspired the establishment of the Instituto Nacional at Buenos Aires.
Scandinavian and Belgian influences are at work in the Instituto de Profesores Especiales. Established in 1906, it was definitely reorganized in 1910 and installed in the building especially constructed for it. Of its 300 pupils 200 are women, and the majority of both men and women are active teachers in the schools of the capital. It offers courses common to all the specialized sections, such as psychology, French, pedagogy, civics, and school legislation, and includes five sections, fundamental to its organization: Physical education, manual arts, drawing and penmanship, domestic economy, and vocal music. For the convenience of teachers, instruction is given from 7 to 9 a.m. and from 4 to 8 p.m.
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.
The decree already mentioned under the head of primary education emphasizes the duty of the normal schools to prepare free of all expense primary teachers for any of the three grades of instruction. Each normal school is also required to have annexed such specially organized practice schools as shall be necessary. At the discretion of the President of the Republic, the normal schools shall offer special courses for those students who have passed the examinations of the fifth year of the colegios, with the aim of attractingsuch students into the field of teaching. That the need of wider training of the teachers is a pressing one in Chile is shown by the fact that, in 1915, of 3,000 rural teachers, only 350, and of 6,240 primary teachers of the nation at large, only 2,435, had normal school training. The service had to be recruited by 2,000 graduates of primary schools who passed examinations, and by 1,850 applicants who held no certificate and were allowed to serve as temporary substitutes.
Of special interest is the annual reciprocity of teachers between the Government of Chile and the Universities of the States of California and Washington, arranged in 1918. Each party is to send four. For the present the Chilean commission has expressed predominant interest in secondary education, and has called for one university professor, one normal-school teacher, one teacher of technical subjects, and one teacher (preferably a woman) in secondary education. The universities mentioned will act as the agents in the selection of the instructors.
Interchange of university professors has also been arranged with Uruguay, which is for the present confined to medical instruction.
The National Educational Association has at many meetings pressed for the scientific and practical training of the teachers of Chile in vocational studies; and for the appropriation by the Congress of a definite sum for sending normal teachers abroad for study in the modern practical and sociological subjects.
For this branch of education the National Educational Association in 1917 recommended that there be established by law a Council of Industrial Education composed of a director and 12 members, four of whom shall be professors of the fundamental technical branches, one a woman inspector of vocational schools for women, one an inspector general of primary education, one the director general of railroads, and one a director and inspector of army munitions. Their duties should be to exercise superintendency over the entire system of technical and industrial education to be organized in the Republic, over the national school of arts and trades, and over such industrial schools for girls and women as might be established. On this board should be likewise all inspectors and officials of such branches as might be later established. A bill embodying these provisions was introduced in the Congress but has not as yet been acted upon.
Steady progress in all branches of technical education has been shown. The schools of higher primary grade offering technicalcourses number 288, with physical training and gymnastics compulsory in all grades. There were also in operation 29 technical colegios for women; 6 agricultural colegios; 10 commercial schools, controlled by the commission upon commercial education; and 3 schools of mines.
The department of industrial promotion has urged upon the Congress the establishment of a chain of industrial and agricultural schools.
With the establishment by law of the Industrial University of Valparaiso there will be completed the full cycle of industrial education in Chile, consisting of: (1) Elementary industrial training in two schools already established and in six more to be established; (2) secondary industrial training in the School of Arts and Crafts; and (3) higher industrial training in the Technical School of Valparaiso.
In November, 1918, met the first National Congress of Dairying, organized under the auspices of the Agronomic Society of Chile. It urged the legal organization of instruction in this branch in (1) special schools of dairying in northern and central Chile; (2) courses annexed to already established schools of agriculture; (3) in establishments of secondary education for youths of both sexes in popular meetings and public traveling courses; (4) in rural primary schools for illiterate adults.
It is appropriate to mention just here the comprehensive project of the board of missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States for the establishment of an agricultural and industrial system of education in southern Chile. It has been approved by the Government of Chile as a potent aid in the uplift of the peon class. A ranch of nearly 4,000 acres has been purchased along the Malleco River, on which it is purposed to train the native population in the rudimentary subjects of instruction, and especially in modern agricultural methods. The management will employ the best available experts in horticulture, agriculture, and domestic arts to be found in the South American countries who may be acquainted with the needs of Chilean rural life.
This body plays a larger part in educational thought and leadership than the corresponding body in any other Latin American State. Its activities are planned for close articulation of the social and educational needs of the nation. One of the furthest reaching is the public-extension work in subjects of university and secondary instruction. In 1917, its eleventh year of operation, it held 14 conferences at the University of Chile, with an attendance of 15,000, anincrease of 50 per cent over the previous year. The subjects treated were patriotic, historical, literary, artistic, sociological, commercial, and medico-therapeutic.
In secondary extension during 1917 there were held in provincial capitals 19 conferences on subjects more popular and more exclusively educational and sociological.
The department of university extension has also for three years devoted itself to collecting international data upon immigration and naturalization laws, and has cooperated with all the labor organizations of the Republic to hinder the passage of premature and unscientific laws in this field.
The activities of the association cover a wide range. In his report for the year 1917 the president reviewed the activities of the body and examined the most important problems to which it had addressed itself during the period. They were:
1. The establishment of a rural normal school, a project not yet realized.2. Democratic education by the progressive elimination of primary courses of education in secondary institutions.3. Obligatory primary instruction, sought by a law passed by the Chamber of Deputies in 1917, but as yet not acted upon by the Senate.4. Nationalization of the Chilean system of education, a question which needs to be presented still more in detail to the nation and the Congress.
1. The establishment of a rural normal school, a project not yet realized.
2. Democratic education by the progressive elimination of primary courses of education in secondary institutions.
3. Obligatory primary instruction, sought by a law passed by the Chamber of Deputies in 1917, but as yet not acted upon by the Senate.
4. Nationalization of the Chilean system of education, a question which needs to be presented still more in detail to the nation and the Congress.
Like Argentina, Chile has a grave problem in the assimilation of alien elements, and her nationalism is alarmed at the activity of the school organizations of diverse races existent on her soil. French students of education are intensely interested in this development as a vindication of their prophecies, for they have long been pointing out the Germanization of Chilean education.
The association has vigorously urged legislation requiring the close and systematic inspection of all nongovernmental schools, especially those of secondary grade in north Chile, where German propaganda has for years been an open secret, carried on, as was well known, by a German-Chilean Union of Teachers, and where German liceos exist in full operation. The association urged the requirement in secondary schools of essentially national subjects, such as Spanish and the history, geography, and civics of Chile, taught by Chileans and descendants of Chileans.
In the field of physical education, the activities of the association have been specially directed to securing proper playgrounds for schools and to arousing practical interest in this field among philanthropists and the public at large. The association has taken strong ground for antialcoholic instruction in primary and secondaryschools, urging that such be incorporated in the textbooks in the study of physiology, hygiene, and temperance, and in independent courses in public schools and State colegios. The project encountered opposition in the National Congress. The association has also grappled with the problem of immorality, issuing in May, 1917, appeals to families on sexual ethics and the systematic inculcation of ethical ideas of sex by educational and therapeutic measures. During 1917, fraternal relations were established with Brazil and Bolivia, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Higher Normal Institute.