Part 4

(_c_) That the superior adaptation of the graduates of the general vocational school had been shown by tables giving information as to their progress in skill and value to their employers. These tables were naturally incomplete, but their general drift was undeniable.

(_d_) 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 commission had in mind the purpose of preparing public sentiment for the passing of this traditional prejudice when it attempted to inspire a just estimate of manual work in the public mind and to organize such courses as would adequately carry out this idea.

(_e_) 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.

(_f_) That the success of the projected schools depends largely upon the cooperation of the industrial firms of Brazil, which should be appealed to for their sympathy and for the encouragement of their adolescent employees to attend these schools; that the granting of daylight hours to employees to attend such schools, as has been done in England and France, with the consequent improvement in the physical and mental condition of the pupils, is a step to be commended to all employers as patriotic citizens.

The salient provisions of the report of the commission are as follows:

ARTICLE 1. The technical and vocational instruction maintained by the prefecture of the Federal District has for its aim to complete the primary elementary instruction by means of a general technical education leading the youth of both sexes preferably to industrial and commercial activities.

ART. 2. Technical and vocational instruction shall be given in the following types of schools:

(_a_) Primary vocational schools.

(_b_) Secondary vocational institutes.

(_c_) Secondary agricultural schools.

(_d_) Vocational finishing courses.

(_e_) Normal school of arts and crafts.

Types (_a_), (_d_), and (_e_) shall be day schools exclusively; types (_b_) and (_c_) shall offer boarding accommodations for pupils from distance.

ART. 3. In schools of types (_a_) and (_d_) instruction shall be imparted predominantly in the recitation rooms.

ART. 4. The courses of the primary vocational school for boys shall include the following subjects:

(_a_) The usual subjects of the complementary course of the primary schools, with fuller development of the studies of physics, chemistry, natural history, hygiene, and mathematics.

(_b_) Modeling and free-hand and mechanical drawing.

ART. 5. The courses of the primary vocational school for girls shall include:

(_a_) The usual subjects of the complementary course of the primary schools, with fuller development of the studies of hygiene and domestic economy.

(_b_) Modeling and free-hand drawing.

ART. 6. The subjects of the vocational finishing courses shall include:

(_a_) In the commercial course, Portuguese and civic instruction, commercial geography, French and one other modern language, English or German, to be chosen by the pupil, commercial correspondence and accounting, typewriting, stenography, and arithmetic.

(_b_) In the industrial course, Portuguese and civic instruction, arithmetic, and geography, elements of applied physics, chemistry, and natural history, accounting as related to the particular vocation selected by the pupil, free-hand and mechanical drawing.

ART. 7. The vocational finishing courses are designed primarily for young men already employed in industry and commerce, who seek to improve their vocational knowledge.

ART. 8. The two types of vocational finishing schools may be taught conjointly in the same building.

ART. 9. Teachers and assistants imparting instruction shall be appointed as follows:

(_a_) There shall be a teacher and so many assistants for each branch as shall be made necessary by the attendance.

(_b_) For the instruction in technical accounting related to each vocation there shall be employed special teachers only where 15 or more students are enrolled for each course, and they shall receive salaries only when actually teaching. The same teachers shall be in charge of the various related branches of technical instruction in the shops.

ART. 10. The courses in the secondary vocational institutes for boys shall include--

(_a_) The elementary and middle instruction for pupils who have not had them.

(_b_) Physical exercises and military drill.

(_c_) Vocal and instrumental music.

ART. 11. The courses in the vocational institutes for girls shall include--

(_a_) Primary instruction for such pupils as have not had it.

(_b_) Vocational drawing and modeling.

In the vocational institutes the elementary primary instruction shall be followed by an intensive course in manual arts, such as sloyd, wood carving, and weaving in straw, vine, and bamboo.

ART. 12. The primary vocational schools shall also offer a commercial course consisting of the following subjects:

(_a_) Commercial correspondence and accounting.

(_b_) Typewriting and stenography.

(_c_) French and one other modern language, English or German.

ART. 13. Instruction in the workshops of vocational schools for boys shall be given first in a general compulsory course of three years, during which the pupil shall in turn be trained in the workshops in cold and molten metals, including foundry work and wrought-iron work. The pupil shall then be allowed to specialize in any workshop or section at his choice. The pupils of the vocational institutes for boys shall likewise take a compulsory course in horticulture and kindred subjects.

ART. 14. The agricultural schools and the vocational institutes shall require attendance on the courses of civil training and agronomy, with optional specialization in any line selected when the general course is completed.

ART. 15. In the vocational schools and institutes for girls there shall be a compulsory general course upon the following practical subjects: Cooking, laundering, ironing and starching, housekeeping, sewing and dressmaking. Along with this general course the pupils shall attend certain vocational courses chosen by themselves from sewing, lace making, and embroidery, artificial-flower work, etc.

ART. 16. For admission to the schools of vocational instruction the following shall be the legal requirements as to age:

(_a_) For vocational and agricultural schools, minimum age 13, maximum 21.

(_b_) For the vocational institutes for boys, minimum age 10, maximum 13.

(_c_) For the vocational institutes for girls, minimum age 7, maximum 13.

(_d_) For the normal school of arts and trades, minimum age 14, maximum 25.

(_e_) For the vocational finishing courses, minimum age 13.

ART. 17. For matriculation in the vocational and agricultural schools and the finishing courses the candidates shall submit to an examination upon the subjects taught in the middle course of the primary school. In the commercial courses of the finishing schools, in the girls’ schools, and in the normal school of arts and trades, the entrance examination shall be upon the subjects of the final examination of the primary schools.

ART. 18. The school year in the entire system of vocational instruction, with the exception of agricultural schools, shall begin March 1 and close November 30. The period from December 1 to December 24 shall be devoted to examinations and to school exhibitions. In the agricultural schools, because of their nature, the pupils shall have 60 days of annual vacation granted to them in groups by the director in accordance with the demands of the agricultural seasons and labors.

ART. 19. The courses of the primary vocational schools, of the institutes, and of the finishing courses shall be divided into periods of 4 to 5 years; the finishing courses into periods of three years; and the commercial course of the schools for girls into a period of two years.

ART. 24. The officials of inspection of technical and vocational instruction shall draw up annual statistics of attendance and of the results of the vocational instruction upon the bases of data furnished by the directors of the several schools and, so far as possible, by employers and by the former pupils who have themselves left the schools. These statistics shall relate to the following topics:

(_a_) Number of pupils placed, with indication of the establishments where they are employed.

(_b_) Initial salary obtained by them as related to the period of schooling.

(_c_) Technical aptitude revealed by former pupils and their capacity of adaptation to the various industrial works.

(_d_) Progress of increase in salary of former pupils.

(_e_) All available information as to individual former pupils with regard to the advantages or disadvantages of their schooling in the decision of economic life, and their success in it.

ART. 25. All posts of assistants and substitutes in the vocational system shall be filled by competitive examinations.

(_a_) For the assistant in drawing in the vocational schools in institutes for boys, the examination shall be tests in drawing, in artistic training, and in pedagogical fitness.

(_b_) For the filling of the same post in the vocational schools and institutes for girls the examination shall be tests in writing at dictation, in decorative composition, in embroidery and lacework, and in pedagogical fitness.

(_c_) The competitive test for filling the post of substitutes in shopwork shall be upon vocational design of an assigned theme for shopwork and the execution of the same.

ART. 26. The teachers in vocational instruction shall be named by means of promotion of the assistants and substitutes.

ART. 27. There shall be a substitute for every group of 20 pupils in shopwork, and an assistant for every class of 30 pupils.

ART. 28. When any primary school is transformed into a vocational school there shall be annexed the elementary primary course in which shall be taught intensively the manual arts prescribed for the elementary instruction of the institutes, but the pupils shall attend the shopwork of the vocational courses only when they have completed the work of the middle course and attained the age of 13 years.

EDUCATION IN CHILE.

PRELIMINARY.

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 decade from 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 supreme administrative 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.

ILLITERACY.

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.

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 free instruction 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.

PRIMARY EDUCATION.

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.

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.

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 boys and 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.