With the provision incorporated in the projected law, by which control
of national secondary education is vested in the universities, the
latter will touch national education much more intimately than ever
before. The universities of Argentina are those of Buenos Aires,
Cordoba, and La Plata, which are national, and those of Santa Fe
and Tucuman, which are provincial but will soon be nationalized. In
1917 there was a growing feeling in university circles in favor of
decentralization, with greater degree of autonomy for each university.
The report of the rector of the university of Buenos Aires for 1917 was
of interest as showing the effect of this upon the colegios as well
as the universities. How far this has been checked by the projected
provision to intrust secondary education to universities can not be
learned.
The unrest among the student bodies in the institutions of higher
education has constituted perhaps the most remarkable feature of the
educational history of the past year. In Buenos Aires reform was
demanded in the statutes under which the university was governed, and
the adoption of methods in conformity with new tendencies in university
instruction. The students demanded especially the right to vote for
the election of the authorities. Satisfactory agreement was reached,
and the university, after several days of suspension of classes and
demonstrations on the part of the student body, resumed instruction,
which was uninterrupted for the rest of the year. At the University of
Cordoba the conflict between the students and the authorities assumed
more serious proportions. Regular work was suspended, the efforts
of the mediator appointed by the National Government to hear the
claims of the student body and to decide upon the just and practical
course for the university authorities to adopt were unsatisfactory
to the complainants, and the authority of the minister of public
instruction was invoked. Upon investigation the latter official
advocated in his report to the executive a complete reorganization of
the university in its statutes, regulations, acts of discipline, and
staff of professors. These changes were ratified by the executive and
were practically embodied in the project of the law submitted to the
Congress in those sections pertaining to university education. In the
other three universities, those of La Plata, Tucuman, and Santa Fe, the
disturbances which impeded the prosecution of the regular routine of
studies were comparatively insignificant, though the spirit of unrest
was marked and many of the reforms and changes secured in the two
leading universities were readily accepted.
The growth of the so-called student centers (_centros estudiantiles_)
has been a feature of higher education during the past two years. These
organizations have come to be representative of student life and of the
student point of view, and have therefore gained much importance in the
eyes of the authorities. They are organized according to departments
of studies, such as the centers of medical and dental students, of
engineering students, of political science students, of students of
architecture, and of law. Each numbers from 100 to 500 members. They
are grouped as a whole into the University Federation of Buenos Aires,
in which each is represented by delegates, and which is regarded as the
mouthpiece of all university students in the metropolis.
Plans are already under way by the executive council of the University
of Buenos Aires for the celebration of the first centenary of its
foundation, which will occur in October, 1921. Invitations have been
extended to the institutions of higher education in all countries of
the world to designate and send representatives. Though the actual
building of the ancient colegio nacional, in which the university began
its operation, has been materially changed, yet the present building
occupies the same site, and it has been decided to hold the centennial
celebration in it.
Of interest is the projected foundation of a popular university at
Buenos Aires, constituted along industrial lines and frankly designed
to counteract the technical and industrial influence of North American
universities in South American countries.
A survey of educational progress in Argentina may fittingly conclude
with mention of the annual American Congress of Education and
Commercial Extension, held in Montevideo in January, 1919, in which
representatives of all the Latin-American countries participated, and
those of Argentina, from her economic and educational leadership, were
most prominent. The proceedings of the congress will be discussed in
the chapter on Uruguay.