The San Francisco call., 1909-03-09
Scientific school in credit
assemblage of the Costa Rcan hundred.


dicate desire to be in style. When
the dictator tells you that school at
tendance is compulsory he is being po-
lite. He knows that 1T is so in your
country. If you were equally polite
you would say out of compliment to
the customs of his country that Mr.
Taft had secretly had Mr. Bryan tied
up by the thumbs and made him con-
fess he was still for free silver at
heart.
When you examine the compulsory
system more closely you see that it is
suspended indefinitely like the consti-
tuition But by this it must not be i'm
piled that education is altogether neg
lected. The sons of people with any
means at all are most ambitious for
learning. They study at private schools
and become more proficient in French
at least than the graduate of most of
our colleges. Capable as they are of
better things, the military and political
system demoralizes them.
Each capital has some form of an in
stitution which is called a university
where the teaching is of the old fash
Toned Spanish style. These universities
bestow degrees as literally as the army
makes generals. You meet doctors of
letters and philosophy at every turn.
One president was introduced to me as
his lexcellency. president, general, doc
tor, lawyer, -"
CABRERA,S ONE
CREDIT MARK
Cabrera of Guatemala, tyrannical,
corrupt and murderous as he is, should
receive credit for one thing. His Es-
trada Cabrera schools may be due to
his vanity. but. nevertheless, they are
a beginning. He has inaugurated in
stltutions where agriculture and the
practical sciences-Central Americas
most crying need-are taught. Many
of the country schoolhouses-which
have meant profitable contracts to po-
litical favorites-are, fear, little used
except to house the guests and friends
of the jefe politicos. Guatemala City
has a university which was generally
attended by Central American students
before they We're in danger as politi-
cal suspects under the reign of terror
following the attempted assassinations
and also a medical school where the
sessions of the Pan-American medical
congress were held.
Central American hospitality took no
account of the national deficit in spend
ing 100000 on the entertainment of
the delegates. AT that rate we should
spend s2o.o0o,000 or $4,000 600 enter
tanning group of foreign visitors.
Cabrera, with two bodyguards at his
elbow ready to repel any attempt at
assassination, gave a state banquet
which 1t is said that Europe could not
excel. These propr1eties which the
Central Americans love as much as
they love uniforms. are a function of
state with which real progress must
never interfere. The guests returned
to the United States full of roseate
views, unless they looked for statistics
of education. OF course. no real sta
tistics were forthcoming.
ILLITERATE NUMBER
so PER CENT
At least so per cent of Central Amer
leans can not read line of print. II
they could, what would they have to
read? No newspaper may print any
thing but praise of the dictator. No
literature is circulated except govern
ment proclamations. No knowledge of
the outside world is spread
Barbarism, enervated by certain civil
lized forms, without barbarism's vigor,
tells all In a word. Scenes of disgust
/ might repeat to the point of nausea;
utter lack OF sanitation, of care of body
as well of mind, exposes scrofulous
people to all the tropical diseases
which keeps the deathlist pretty well
balanced with the birth rate.
But there is an exception-there al
ways is an exception to everything
you write generically about Central
America-Costa Rica, with its popula-
tion descended from Spanish settlers
In Costa Rica the churches are not
in disrepair. Indeed. Costa Rica, which
fought for its independence, recognizes
Rome and has papal legate. Moral
ity is there and progress. with women
safe and men unafraid to speak their
minds, and a real school system, by
which no pleading for any creed is In
tended. only a suggestive comparison
of what the death of all religion means
to people.
Meanwhile the missionaries look past
the fields thick with ignorance and un-
belief. to China and India and Africa
where the missionary teaches every
thing from hygiene to the moral law
everything that Central America lacks.