Reference has been made to the establishment of intermediate schools,
at first uniform, later differentiated, substituted for the former
fifth and sixth years of the primary school and intended to bridge
the chasm between the primary and the secondary schools. This marked
a further innovation, in that secondary education had always been
left in Argentina to the Provinces, the State nationally exercising
only a nominal oversight of this division. For financial reasons, as
well as because of the necessity of giving uniformity to a type so
widely scattered, the intermediate school was from the very first
regarded as national in scope. It may be likened in many respects to
the junior high school of American cities. It was designed to give
instruction of a general and cultural nature in languages, history,
geography, and mathematics, combined with experimental studies in the
elements of physical and natural science. Much earlier entrance, its
advocates claimed, would thus be possible upon subjects of vocational
and technical character, which should test the nascent abilities and
aptitudes of the pupil. Especial attention was to be given woodworking,
typewriting, stenography, linotyping, decorative design, photography,
and special arts and crafts favored by local conditions.
This experiment, though marking an advance in educational methods,
was unsuccessful, and after a year of existence such schools were
discontinued. They did, however, affect instruction in secondary
education, leaving their impress in the radical requirement of early
specialization after the fifth and sixth higher primary grades.
The educational policy of Argentina thus returned to its traditional
status; and secondary education still centers around the 37
colegios nacionales, institutions for boys of 10 to 14 years of
age, which admit those with leaving certificates from the fifth
and sixth grades of the higher primary schools, and by revisal
of 1911 offer courses arranged by fourfold division of subjects
into the physical-mathematical, the chemical-biological, the
historical-geographical, and the literary-philosophical groups.
A decree of the National Council dated February, 1916, made the
certificate of sixth grade of the public school obligatory for
admission to the colegio. This was regarded as going far toward
settling two fundamental difficulties--the first, the long desired
abolition of the entrance examination, as discredited by experience
and prejudicial to secondary training, and the second, the official
recognition of the compulsory attendance law for children of 6 to 14
years.
Among the new subjects assigned for the colegios is the study of
Italian, now restored after being abolished by previous decree. In
accordance with this requirement, a course in this language has been
instituted in the normal schools for the preparation of teachers.
The close connection of the interests of the colegio nacionale with the
university is brought out in the report of the rector of the National
University of Buenos Aires for 1916. It is of significance as striking
out new lines in what had always been a conservative division, and
carried weight in the fluid state of public opinion on education which
prevailed just at that time.
Taking up the instructional aspect of secondary education, and the
claims put forward by zealous partisans of the opposing views that the
colegios should prepare either for higher studies or for practical
life, but not for both, he urged legal provisions for both forms of
training to supply the demand felt in all modern states for men of
thought as well as efficiency in action. In the light of this demand
all wrangling as to programs of study could only be to the damage
of the State. Since the Argentine colegios half a century ago were
modeled after the French lycées, with their emphasis upon the cultural
studies, the world had moved far, economically and socially, and sane
modifications in secondary education now clamored for recognition.
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. In either case the fixed principle was
to be accepted that the universities were directly concerned in the
discipline and studies of the students they were to receive, and that
they should therefore have the right of intervening in matters of
organization and studies of the colegios.
A just decentralization of the colegios could be easily realized and
would bring such beneficial results as: (1) More direct and immediate
action of the authorities; (2) closer articulation of the colegios
with the universities in the matter of studies for preparation for the
latter; (3) formation of intellectual groups that would be encouraged
to take root permanently in the Provinces, thus avoiding the wholesale
migration of the directing classes to the capital; (4) ease of reform,
as contrasted with the present system, wherein every change in the
program of studies was a disturbance whose utility was not always
certain; (5) the best selection, so far as possible, of the personal
directive staff of the colegios, as the men in higher education would
be familiar with the problems of secondary instruction; (6) economy of
administrative expense; (7) the possibility of transforming certain
of the colegios into schools of arts, trades, and industries in which
general instruction, continuing the primary, might be combined with
the special and technical preparation so much needed for the material
well-being of the several regions of the Republic.
In the projected law of public instruction, introduced in August, 1918,
it is provided that all matters relating to secondary education shall
be under the authority of the national universities, with full power to
regulate content of courses, curricula, etc. This is manifestly a step
suggested by the traditional system of Spain, in which the standard
secondary schools (_institutos_) are arranged according to university
districts and are governed by university rector and council. Its wisdom
and advisability for a country of the Western Hemisphere have been
variously considered.