Two well-defined stages have marked the progress of national education
in Argentina since 1916. The first began with the reorganization of
primary instruction by act of the Federal Congress early in that year,
which came about largely through the initiative and efforts of the
minister of public instruction. It had long been felt that the legal
system in force since 1882 was unsatisfactory, especially on the point
of articulation of secondary education with the higher elementary
on the one hand and with the universities on the other. 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.
Together with this dissatisfaction with a special division went the
conviction that governmental reform should strike deeper, and instead
of busying itself with plans of reform of courses and schedules,
should settle the fundamental question of what should be the nature
and aims of the national secondary school. This could be done only
by so modifying the prevailing system as to make it fit the needs of
the school population according to their age, social conditions, and
probable future. Proof that it had not so adapted itself was thought
to be found in the fact that of the pupils annually completing the
4a elementary grade only 45 per cent continued into the _colegios
nacionales_, as contrasted with 55 per cent who went into the 5a grade
and commercial schools, while on a moderate estimate 60 per cent left
with insufficient equipment for their needs as useful members of
society. Furthermore, the secondary school, as organized, offered no
opportunity to boys and girls of 13 and 14 years to choose the advanced
courses and vocational training for which they felt an aptitude, and
so to secure adequate preparation for the university studies or for
advanced technical, industrial, and commercial schools.
For this lack of correlation between educational divisions it was
proposed to substitute a logical and unbroken sequence. What came
to be commonly accepted among education authorities as best serving
this purpose was a common intermediate school of three years of an
essentially practical character, carrying on general elementary
instruction by means of book lessons and developing by special
experiments and practical methods individual aptitudes by which to
determine future training. As the basis for such a school primary
education had, of course, to be modified, and after months of
discussion a scheme for general modification of the entire educational
fabric was outlined (1916). According to this, the primary school
proper was to cover four years; the uniform middle school of the first
grade one year; and the differentiated middle school of the second
grade two years. Upon these were to be based the _colegios nacionales_,
the normal schools, the industrial schools, the various higher special
schools, and the national universities. Though marking a meritorious
attempt to articulate the several divisions, the project did not work
out satisfactorily in actual operation, and as a constituent part of
the national system it was repealed after about a year of operation.