Until the breaking out of the World War, and the consequent upsetting
of traditions in all South American countries whose outlet is on the
Atlantic Ocean, educational thought in Uruguay concerned itself largely
with the capital city. In this respect, as in that of population (one
out of three people in Uruguay lives in Montevideo), the centralizing
tendency of South American countries is well illustrated. But a vital
change began to show itself from 1914 to 1916, and in the latter
year it acquired extraordinary impetus from the support of national
leaders and of the press. The nation has grown steadily to recognize
the proper balance to be observed between the claims of the schools of
the capital and those of the rural districts. It has come to see that
a healthy national life was possible only with organic changes in the
schools of the outlying departments, and that these of Montevideo could
without danger be left at their present status until the education of
the people from whom the great city was steadily recruited should be
attended to. It is in the light of this radical change in the national
attitude that the educational history of Uruguay for the last biennium
should be read.
This epoch in educational progress has been further marked by the
recognition of the need of financial support for rural education, and
the further need of differentiating the subjects of instruction proper
for rural children from those adapted to the city. In getting this
principle clearly before the public mind, the educational authorities
of Uruguay have played a part excelled in few countries for skill and
devotion to the national interests. Mention should be made of the able
contributions of Señor A. J. Pérez, National Inspector of Primary
Education, especially of his study entitled “De la cultura necessaria
en la democracia” (Anales, 1918), which applies to modern conditions De
Tocqueville’s main lines of thought.
A commission of nine experienced teachers, six men and three women,
with Señor Pérez as chairman, was appointed by executive decree to
formulate the program of study for the projected rural schools.
It began its sessions in February, 1917, and met frequently for
two months. Its report was presented in May, 1917. Approved by the
executive in June, by decree it went into effect on March 1, 1918. The
main contentions of the commission in support of its plan are well
worthy of notice:
1. Far-reaching changes within a generation in the commercial and
industrial life of the nation have affected the rural districts and
have called for different subjects and methods of instruction for the
children of these districts. The rural school of the future must be
recognized as fundamentally an elementary industrial school adjusted to
local conditions.
2. The successful rural school must have the following aims: To
inculcate conscientious and efficient labor; to minister to a
well-regulated and happy home life; to diffuse the knowledge of private
and public hygiene, and to further the increase of population and
public wealth and, in general, the possession of a well-founded and
enduring popular liberty.
3. The intimate relation of the rural schools with the problems of home
life requires the new rural school to be taught by women, and therefore
the training of young women as teachers in such schools should be at
once initiated and continued as the basis of their success. Concrete
illustration is found in the successful intensive training of 24 young
women in a course of six weeks at the normal institute at Montevideo in
the summer of 1917.
4. In the administrative organization the committee was guided by the
following general principles: (_a_) Not to install rural schools by
foundation or transfer except in localities where donations of ground
of not less than 4 hectares (10 acres) should be immediately available;
(_b_) to urge similar donations, public or private, to existing rural
schools which lacked grounds of the minimum area above indicated;
(_c_) to propose and encourage the transfer of rural schools that
had no grounds annexed nor could obtain such by donation to another
parish where such advantages could be obtained without prejudice to the
interests of the rural schools in the district.
5. No child below 7 years of age should be admitted to the rural
schools.
6. The programs of study for the rural schools occupied the greater
part of the commission’s time. The subjects of instruction as reported
covered three years, and were reading, language work, writing,
arithmetic, drawing, agriculture, domestic economy, elements of applied
geometry, geography and history (local, national, and universal),
singing, and gymnastics. In the view of the commission itself, the
feature which peculiarly differentiates these new programs is the
complete application of practical methods and aims to each of these
subjects, the elimination of abstract and memory teaching, and, above
all, the development of the subjects of drawing, agriculture, and
domestic economy. The fundamental aim throughout was to correlate
instruction with the conditions and occupations of life in the several
communities and to lead the pupil to see each subject as related to
practical utility.
Following the promulgation of the report of the commission, lively
interest was manifested by the nation at large in the initiation of
such rural schools. Practical difficulties, however, were foreseen in
securing funds for their launching upon the nation-wide scale hoped
for, and restlessness in certain quarters was manifested, though the
Chamber of Deputies promptly voted the funds necessary. The National
Rural Congress of Uruguay, in session in August, 1917, addressed to
the minister of public instruction an urgent plea for carrying out the
terms of the report in time for the opening of at least a part of such
schools with the new school year.