Copyright, Newman Traveltalks and Brown & Dawson, N. Y.

The Capitol Building and Monument of the Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at Time of Celebration of Independence Day, 9 July

commercial relations with the world at large and the United States, especially, shows that there is a great consumption of all such articles as are considered necessary to civilization. Latin America is not a manufacturing continent; it mainly produces for export agricultural products such as sugar, coffee, rubber, tobacco, cacao or cocoa, cotton, etc., hides and other raw materials, mining products such as silver, gold, tin, copper, iron, bismuth, saltpeter, etc., and a few gems. Its main imports are machinery of all kinds, hardware, cotton and other fabrics, foodstuffs, carriages and automobiles, railway material, electrical appliances, and other similar products of industry necessary to the cultivation of the land, the improvement of roads and cities, and the comfort of the inhabitants.

There is not a city of any importance in Latin America where either artificial illuminating gas or electric light is unknown. Telegraph and telephone wires stretch all over Latin America, uniting cities and towns, over the wilds and across the mountains, bridging mighty rivers, connecting neighboring countries and linking their shores with the rest of the civilized world. Not an event of any importance takes place in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the United States which the submarine cable does not bring to the Latin-American press, to be made public either in the form of bulletins or in "extras," according to the importance of the event, while nearly every Latin-American country has its wireless telegraph system. Electric cars are fast replacing the older and slower methods of transportation within the cities and extending their usefulness to carrying passengers to suburban villas, small towns or country places of amusement, and Buenos Aires, the largest Latin-American capital, has a subway in operation.

A charge frequently made against Latin Americans is that they are a race of dreamers. There is some truth in this. Latin Americans have inherited from their forefathers the love of the beautiful and the grand; the facility for expression and the vivid imagination of the Latin race; the sonorous, majestic Spanish, the flexible, musical Portuguese, and French, the language of art; and a responsive chord to all that thrills, be it color, harmony, or mental imagery. They have also inherited from those ancestors their varying moods, their noble traits and their shortcomings, both of which have been preserved, and in certain cases improved, under the influence of environment, the majestic mountains, primeval forests, ever blooming tropical flowers, birds of sweetest songs and wonderful plumage; under magnificent skies and the inspiration. drawn from other poets and writers, foreign and native.

Much more might be said to show the constant endeavor of Latin America to co-operate with its best efforts to the civilization of the world. It has contributed readily according to its Latin standards, and from the day of its independence and the establishment of republican institutions, Latin America has recognized the rights of man, abolished slavery, fostered education, developed its commerce and increased traveling facilities and means of communication with the outer world. It has contributed to the best of its ability to the sum total of human betterment, and the day cannot be far off when full justice will be done to the efforts of the countries south of the United States, where live a people intelligent, progressive, proud of their history and their own efforts, and ready to extend a friendly hand and a sincere welcome to those who are willing to understand them, and aid them on their road to progress.

Education in Latin America

E

BY EDGAR EWING BRANDON

Vice-President and Dean of Miami University

General and Historical

DUCATION in Latin America is dominated by two forces.

One is historical and concerns higher and professional studies. The Spanish colonists established universities soon after their occupation of the country. Santo Domingo, 1538; Lima, 1551; Mexico, 1553; Bogotá, 1572, Córdoba in Argentina, 1613; Chuquisaca (now Sucre) in Bolivia, 1623. Six others were founded by the end of the colonial period. They had charters from the King of Spain and from the Pope, and enjoyed the monopoly of granting degrees. Preparation was obtained only in church schools and by private tutoring. The universities themselves were conducted by the religious orders. They were organized and conducted solely in the interest of the colonial aristocracy. To-day they are national and theoretically open to all classes with small tuition fees and very generally include engineering schools. However, their traditional characteristics persist. They overemphasize theory, culture, dialectics, and make their appeal to the upper and leisure class. They exercise little or no direct influence on elementary instruction. On the other hand, they dominate the secondary schools, which too often are but feeders to the universities, imitating their methods, reflecting their traditional spirit, and are likewise limited in patronage almost exclusively to the higher classes.

The other force in Latin American education, the movement for elementary education, is recent and comes from abroad. Before 1860 no state had any well-defined system of elementary instruction. During the presidency of Sarmiento (1868-1874) Argentina inaugurated a determined movement for universal elementary instruction. Sarmiento was influenced by the example of the United States. About the same time Chile undertook seriously the national organization of elementary schools. France has been rightly called the intellectual mother of Latin America, and when the French Republic from 1870 on strove to banish illiteracy from France, its influence was not without great effect in Spanish

America. All the states soon put upon their statute books laws for compulsory primary education. The reform has not progressed uniformly. Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in South America, and Costa Rica in Central America have made the greatest progress. Whereas in these states 50 years ago illiteracy was perhaps more than 90 per cent, it is now less than 50 and rapidly decreasing. In some of the other states it is still 90 per cent. Cuba has made commendable progress in elementary education since its independence. The least progress has been made in those countries where the Indian and Mestizo population is the largest, or where strong clerical influence hampers the national and secular school organization. In such countries school statistics are often misleading. Many schools exist only on paper, in others the terms are short, average attendance is low, and the law of compulsory attendance is not enforced.

Primary Education

The standard period of the elementary school is six years, but even in a country like Argentina the full length is observed only in cities and larger towns. The villages and countryside maintain curricula of but two, three, or sometimes four years. The school year approximates nine months. The subjects of instruction are reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, geography, and national history. As far as the mere ability to read is concerned, the short period of elementary schooling which obtains in so many localities is in part compensated for by the phonetic spelling of Spanish, and as concerns simple calculation by the use of the metric system. Genuine intellectual development, however, suffers severely from the short term of schooling for the average child. Elementary teachers are as a rule underpaid, and are seldom from the upper classes. The sharp class distinctions which so generally prevail in Latin America, especially in countries with a large mestizo population, are nowhere more noticeable than in the schools. Except in Argentina, and in a lesser degree in Uruguay and Costa Rica, children of the upper classes of society seldom attend the elementary public schools. They receive their primary education either through private tutoring, or in private select schools, or in primary grades attached to the state secondary schools. This practice tends to foster and accentuate class distinction and makes of the public elementary instruction purely folk schools-a condition of affairs much to be regretted in a democracy.